News from the Farm – September 10, 2011


Well, this weekend’s weather was not as bad as advertised, thank goodness. We did a little emergency work on Sunday morning: harvested the popcorn and planted another bed of lettuce and some more bok choi. We were feeling ready for the 6 inches of rain that never really came, I think we got less than two inches out here. It was a raining harvest day on Tuesday, but with beautiful periods of sun. There was THE most amazing rainbow arching over our valley this morning. It really made my day!

We’re starting to clean up around the farm now. There are still a few more things to plant out, but our main focus now is to get the fields ready for the Winter cover crops. The seed should arrive by the end of the week and perhaps by the end of next week most of the farm will be ready for winter. We’re going to try a similar combination of cover crops as last year. We’ve learned a bit more about the combinations we want to use and will tweak the plan a bit, but we also have a Flail Mower (purchased mid-season) which will really help cut and incorporate the cover crop organic matter into the soil in the Spring.

As we start to wind down, we’re saying good-bye to Sarah Howard, who joined the crew for July and August. She was a great person to work with and we were glad to have her. She’s off to Milwakee, Wisconsin to work with a real innovative urban agriculture organization.