We had a great day of labor on Labor Day. There were a number of worker members out to help. We dug the last of the potatoes! That field has now been mown down and disced, readying it for sowing fall cover crops in the next week to ten days. In fact almost everything that could be mown done has been. There are just a few spaces on the farm that will need to wait a little longer to get ready for the winter. We use a combination of cover crops to help protect the soil from heavy rains, freezing and thawing over the winter, to add nitrogen to the soil, and to maintain a healthy and vibrant soil ecosystem. We generally use wheat as the grass or “base” of the crop, along with a mixture of legumes: Austrian Winter Pea, Hairy Vetch, and Crimson Clover are our go to species. Mixed together they provide all those attributes I mentioned above as well as habitat for above ground pests and predators. These plants will grow slowly over the winter and come spring we’ll mow them down and disc in all the “green manure” feeding the soil macro and micro inhabitants. This is a great way of adding nitrogen to the soil without buying fertilizer as the legumes along with a symbiotic fungus attached to their roots “fix”, take out N (nitrogen) from the air pockets in the soil to create little nodes of Nitrogen that is then released into the soil once the host plant is mowed down, just prior to planting a cash crop. (hopefully that all makes sense, I got a little carried away).
Anyway, we still planting a few last things, sowing a bit more spinach, turnips, arugula, and radishes. We spending most of our time either weeding the fall crops or cleaning up drip lines, taking down trellis, that sort of thing. After this week’s box there are 5 more to go!.
Maggie (in picture on right) has left us to tackle other endeavors, mainly the GRE. She was a great help around the farm this summer and she’s missed already.
