Field Update: Rain, Harvest, and Cover Cropping
September 3- 9, 2012, Week 37 of the Year
The last few weeks we are finally producing CSA shares I am really proud of. While we are so grateful to have rain the forecast has thrown a bit of a curve ball at our harvest schedule. Last Wednesday. we received unexpected rain which forced us to stop picking tomatoes and beans, two crops that are very susceptible to fungal disease which are easily spread while they are wet. If one plant has a fungus it can be quickly spread on wet plants as a harvester moves from one plant to the next. Kudos to the underprepared, wet, but smiling Wednesday crew for sticking with it and even staying late to be sure your shares were picked. Forecasted rain on Friday prompted us to again harvest beans and tomatoes on Thursday night. With no rain in sight on Friday, this crew was able to harvest most every crop there was and I imagine Friday/Saturday shares and the Saturday market booth were even more bountiful. We are also consistently short handed to handle the amount of harvest in the fields so unfortunately we have to skip crops every week.
Germination alert: 2nd succession of arugula, dill and cilantro, broccoli raab, 2nd try on beets, and more turnips. We did re-seed a few beds (carrots & spinach) and abandon one bed (beets) due to poor germination and the latter too much weed pressure. I believe planting seeds too deep is the culprit to our poor germination. A seed has a finite amount of energy to utilize before it will need to produce more via photosynthesis. If the seed cannot breach the soil before that energy is exhausted it won’t make it. I believe this is the problem because I tested some seeds I was suspicious of and they tested just fine, and when you look at the rows there is a pattern. Next time you are at the farm look at the cucumbers for instance. Within the same row there are many big beautiful plants, then nothing, and then small, just germinated plants. These were all planted on the same day although some never emerged and some are emerging much later. These three things are happening in sections of the row which to me means they were planted at inconsistent depths. Unfortunately, the poor germination of the carrots and spinach may mean little to no carrots for the CSA this year, and only a few weeks of spinach and beets- sorry folks.
Our cover crop seed will arrive this week. John Wilkerson is kind enough to put together bulk cover crop and potato seed orders every year. Farmers who order are able to get a discount on these crops because of the size of the overall order. Our cover crop was grown in Missouri! We have a surplus of hairy vetch left over from last years order. We also had some winter rye left, although when I tested it, it did not germinate well- likely due to weevil damage. This spring the winter rye was very hard to work in/kill and with the amount of vetch we have we could cover crop all we need to. One concern that I have is that the vetch took so long to take off this spring, I thought it may not fight the weeds as well. The yard field is empty and could be cover cropped sooner so I decided to order a “nurse” crop of oats to plant with the vetch. The oats will come up sooner, fighting back the weeds while the vetch catches up. Oats are a “winter kill” crop and will not make it though our cold winter. By providing the vetch with an earlier planting date and a nurse crop I hope that the vetch in the yard field will establish a larger root system this fall and come on stronger next spring. Vetch is a nitrogen fixer/soil builder. Many cover crops are shown to perform better in teams, two species. John will talk with the Farmies at the October 1st enrichment about cover cropping and no-till systems. For a great guide to cover cropping check out Managing Cover Crop for Success. As with other SARE funded books this book is available for free download, see the link toward the bottom right of the description. Beginning on page 66 there are several good charts describing the benefits of different kinds of cover crop, seeds/acre needed, tips, etc… This is a great resource that I turn to several times a year. One problem I am concerned about with cover cropping, this week we could not get the tractor to start. Without the tractor the task of planting cover crops will be a lot more difficult. Usually we use the tractor to 1. mow, 2. disc, 3. then seed by hand, 4. disc shallowly again to incorporate seed. The deadline we are up against to plant oats in October 1st and for vetch is October 15th. We will still have a lot of crops in the field at that time, but we will cover crop whatever empty beds we can.
With only two months left in the program and about 40 days left until average first frost things are winding down. We have limited bed space available (1,800′), enough for what I indicated under “upcoming” below and with room for some more arugula, winter radish (daikon & watermelon), shallots, garlic, overwintering carrots and spinach. Yes, planting is coming to a close. September brings relief and a happy/sad sensation. I can always look back and wish some things had gone differently but I honestly feel we did such a great job with the tools, labor, and weather we had available. I am very proud of the Freshman Farmy class and what we accomplished this season. Graduation is right around the corner! September and October are my favorite months on the farm- enjoy!
New crops to harvest this week: okra, radish, & pac choi. I thought you guys may want some recipe ideas for some of the more unusual and bountiful crops you are getting in your csa. I know we get stuck in a rut around my house sometimes, too. I don’t have time to search recipes now, but here are some ideas I have heard on the farm from others and some of my favorites:
• Sweet and Savory Sun Gold Preserve
• Stewed Tomatoes for freezing
• Schezwan Red Noodle Beans
• Pickled Red Noodle Beans
• Fried Okra
• Pickled Okra
• Okra Gumbo (made this myself this week, delicious! you can use red noodle beans, squash, etc…)
• Zucchini/squash Bread (made this two weeks ago and froze some, use patty pan squash the same as zucchini)
• Zucchini Tomato sauce
• Summer Squash Carrot Cake
• Minestrone with all those pretty veggies
• Stuffed Zucchini boats with garlic, carrots, and ginger
• Lasagna with eggplant, squash, tomatoes (can also be frozen, make two!)
• Ratatouille using eggplant and tomatoes
• Kale chips
Thank You- As the season is begining to wrap-up I want to send a special shout-out to Ann Owens for doing such an amazing job with our transplants this year. We never could have been so successful without her, and I personally slept a lot better this year having her take on the greenhouse responsibility. Ann has done an amazing job keeping things on schedule in terms of planting, fertilizing, clean-up, organizing, coordinating, etc. Thank you Ann!
Greenhouse- Continue doing a stellar job caring for our last remaining lettuce trays, Ann! Seeding in the lathe/greenhouse is completed for the season. We toyed with the idea of growing pea shoots, but due to lack of labor for harvest, and additional investments in medium and time investments in getting trays, this is off the table for the year. If any of you would like to try pea shoots at home, ask me how, and we have plenty of bulk seed to sell at the low price of $6/lb.