Here’s what’s been happening at Mom’s (Piggy Grandma’s) farm lately.
From late February into March, they’ve started sowing and planting corn. Dad and Mom are up early, shipping out broccoli, then it’s straight to the cornfields. I only make it out there once a week, but you can just feel spring creeping in.
Dad and Mom’s corn.
During the winter, Dad and Mom mainly ship out long onions and broccoli.
And then, as soon as the broccoli harvest is finished in each field, they start preparing for the corn.
They till the field with a tractor and lay out the mulch.
Dad and Mom’s corn is mainly shipped from late May. They grow it while adjusting the timing so that the peak doesn’t overlap with the late rice planting in our area.
When they were just growing it for themselves as a side job to pig farming, they grew it much later, and I think they sowed the seeds directly in the field.
Now, they put each seed in a pot and grow it in a greenhouse until it’s big enough to transplant, then plant it in the mulched field. After transplanting, it grows protected by vinyl tunnels (and even non-woven fabric in the earlier stages).
The corn seed sowing is already in its final stages by mid-March.
Seedlings are grown in a greenhouse.
It was a Sunday with a light rain falling since the day before.
The broccoli shipping season is pretty much over, so Dad and Mom’s farm work has slowed down a bit.
They told me I didn’t really need to help out, but I was bored just sitting around, so I decided to help with the corn seeding (laughs).
We moved to the greenhouse in the field, and I put one seed each into the pots filled with soil for seedlings.
Mom works with Dad on the farm, but she’s a bit slow at putting the seeds into the seedling pots, and I’m planting them at a faster pace than the two of them combined.
After sowing the seeds in the pots, we cover them with soil, water them, and leave them in the heated greenhouse for about 10 days.
Then, after a few weeks of germination, we transplant the seedlings, which have grown to about 10-odd centimeters, into the field.
Come, spring!
When it’s about time to take off the vinyl tunnels from the transplanted corn, spring bursts onto the scene in Dad and Mom’s fields and the surrounding area.
Everyone, plants and people alike, gets busy, but it’s my favorite season of the year.
I visit my parents’ house every Sunday, and each time, the scenery has changed dramatically.
As the plants and trees come to life, my own activities pick up too. This year, I’m determined to succeed with my Japanese honeybee keeping, and I’m planning some camping trips to the mountain streams.
There’s a whole list of things I want to do, and spring is just around the corner.
The end.
