After the rain stopped...

Whilst Henry carted manure across the field in the tipping cart, Winnie made the trenches for the potatoes.

What a change to a month ago! How wonderful to see the soil dry out! To feel it warm up slowly!
So, last week, finally, with the help of our meitheal group and our two horses, we got the potatoes planted in one short day. What a relief to get this job done.

Inbetween each row, Winnie was switched over to the sled to help get manure form the big heap collected over the winter months.

Afte the potato job was out of the way, it was straight on to the next patch of field to be ploughed. This proved to be tricky with our Norwegian plough, as the area was slopy and the soil still quite damp. As the plough we used does not have wheels and the angle of the mouldboard cannot be adjusted, the turned over soil was layered at an angle too steep really, as you can see from the photo - the grass still sticks out at the edge...and would grow again in a hurry!

The soil should have been flopped over upside down rather than at an angle like we did, to cover up the grass so that it dies away and doesn't grow again. However, this was not possible with the type of plough we used.

So I decided to start harrowing straight away, to pull the grassy bits apart, in the hope that the grass being uprooted with dry out and die...

To the left of the horses, you see the piece that I have harrowed with the spring tooth harrow already, with the turned soil being broken up. Further to the far left, the ploughed field before being harrowed.