600' of plasic down!

I think my whining last night worked because Craftsbury got a nice rainstorm last night! It made the day today go a lot faster. Jess and I covered the second row with plastic as soon as we got there and with no watering. Then we raked out what was left of the other two rows, watered just the surface and put plastic on those! 600' of plastic in about 3.75 rows, all ready for tomatoes and peppers!

I want to be able to remember how I did this next year so I don't have to reinvent the wheel so ..

1. Place poly posts 3' apart at either end of the garden (3' beds, 3' paths)
   
   
2. Run string (old poly wire this time) between them and pull straight and tight.
   
   
3. Put 5 more poly posts down each side so that each row is split into 6 sections (this number was arbitrary but worked well for having stopping/break points in the heat the other day)
   
   
4. Hang poly wire about 2' off the ground - high enough that you can work under it on the close side and over the closer side to reach the far side.
   
   
5. Reach across bed and pull in dirt with a steel rake all down one side of bed. Repeat on other side.
   
   
6. Smooth out bed - the beds we did so far end up raised about 5-6" off the walkways. Make them slightly wider than the poly-wire.
   
   
7. Use pointy hoe to cut ditches down each side along outside of poly wire.
   
   
8. Pull plastic over bed a few feet at a time, burying edges in trenches.
   
   
9. Stand back and admire completed rows.

The 'pointy hoe' mentioned above is something I found at Kenyon's this morning. It's probably got a cool name but I'm going to stick with 'pointy hoe'. It works absolute wonders for digging the ditches for the sides of the plastic. I'm going to use it for what's left of potatoes too.