We had a birthday on the farm this week: Jack turned 6! It’s hard to believe, but also feels like he has been with us always. Happy birthday Jack!
As the days grow shorter and cooler (it’s felt a bit like fall this week!) our focus turns to a few things:
1. Continuing to feed ourselves and our community through the winter: We’ve planted our first few rounds of kale, collard, swiss chard, and green onions under cover so we can enjoy these delicious crops through to Christmas. We’re working hard to keep weeds in check in the storage carrots, beets, as well as the brassica’s (broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, napa cabbage, and winter radish). I can’t believe how good these look, our weed control has been on point!
We are curing onions for storage, and are cleaning the garlic we cured earlier in the summer. We are keeping pests in check in the brussels sprouts and cabbage we planted back in June. We seeded over 8,000 heads our favorite one cut lettuces that we use for salad mix. We’ll transplant these starting in early September into mid October. I can’t tell you how good the sweet potatoes and leeks look. It’s going to be an abundant fall and winter.
Speaking of fall and winter, we are looking for additional drop off sites in Goderich to make share pick ups easier for our members. We typically deliver Thursday afternoons, and will need a heated, accessible space. We've got a few more lined up and will be adding them to the Harvie site shortly. If you have a perfect place, or just an idea, please let us know. If you've already signed up but a new space is added that is better for you, we'll be able to get you moved over easily.
2. Putting the farm to bed for winter: When it’s cold out, you want a cover, so does our soil. Every year we get a little better at providing that cover. On a farm the best cover is living green plants, so called “cover crops”. These protect against erosion, provide organic matter, and in some cases fix nitrogen. Where we aren’t able to get a cover crop planted, because there is a vegetable crop there too late, or because we need to get into that ground first thing in the spring, we are planning to use silage tarps (big thick black tarps) to protect the soil over winter. We’ll start planting buckwheat, or oats and field peas this coming week, and rye and vetch a few weeks later. Here is an article about cover crops and how to use them in a garden setting for those interested: https://extension.umn.edu/how-manage-soil-and-nutrients-home-gardens/cover-crops-and-green-manures
A few other quick notes: The beans are all done. Usually we plan to have them until the first week of September, but all of our crops came ready early this summer, including beans, and since they only produce well for a set number of weeks, they are done early too. Not to worry, we’ll have broccoli soon!
If you receive a small, roundish, yellow, gourd looking item it’s a kind of zucchini called a patty pan. Eat it like you would zucchini. I promise to never send you vegetables that aren’t delicious or can’t be eaten.
If you need help signing up for a winter share, let me know! I'm happy to help and don't want you to miss out.
That’s all for now, happy eating until next time.
Tamara
