20,000+ plugs later...

Last week we finished our prairie project by putting in roughly 20,000 cup plants!

Agrecol brought out a tractor, the planter, and a truck-full of plugs.

These plugs started as seeds at an Agrecol green house.

It is a good thing we had a whole crew lined up to help - all of those hands were needed! Six people sat on the planter and fed plugs. Another 6-10 were needed to walk behind the planter to ensure it was calibrated correctly, make sure the plugs were going in okay, and quickly break up any clogs in the planter.

Getting the planter loaded with cup plant.

Part of the work crew in front of the fully loaded planter.

Each plug traveled down a chute and into a newly-dug, water-filled trench.
This planter was quite the machine! 

Orchestrated chaos!

Most of the grandkids were too little to get in on the action -
but not too little to get a ride on the planter!

A solid day's work.

The cup plant is perennial and will continue to grow for the next 7-10 years. We're not expecting too much out of the plants this year in terms of a harvest, but in the coming years the flower's seeds will be harvested and sold back to Agrecol.

Arik is working on an update on the Black-eyed susans - coming soon!