Two Feet in the Dirt

At this time of year, we’re quickly moving out of the “productive” part of the planting season and into the restorative part, a.k.a. cover crops! We try to involve cover crops regularly throughout our entire season. Cover crops serve a variety of important uses on the farm. During the summer, we plant buckwheat whenever we have a month or more before the next crop gets planted in a bed. Buckwheat is an extremely fast grower and therefore provides the important benefit in the summer of outcompeting weeds. Over the winter, we rely primarily on two types of cover crop mixtures- oat/pea and rye/vetch. Oats and peas are both cold-sensitive crops that...

This has been a strange and challenging year for all of us in so many ways and the weather has certainly been one of them. At this time last year, we were in a drought, followed by an excessively cold November, a very warm and dry winter, and then a late cold snap in the spring. Summer was persistently hot and continued fairly dry and now we are getting near-freezing temperatures a month before usual! Our first frost date has typically fallen right around mid-October and last year we had our first frost on the morning of October 19. This year, we had a light frost on the morning of...

It’s a big week in our family off of the farm. Today, our son started Kindergarten! We decided to homeschool and had a wonderful first morning followed by a productive afternoon on the farm. This year has really required us to think on our feet. Previously, our son had been in full-time childcare while we worked. In March, like so many people, we suddenly found ourselves in the position of being both full-time parents and full-time farmers. I would never have thought that we could pull it off, but I have actually found many unexpected blessings in the midst of everything. While undeniably challenging at times, it has been truly...

After a week of reprieve from the heat, we’re back into the hot weather, but keeping our fingers crossed that this may be the last bout of the summer. Granted, I enjoy summer and don’t even mind the high humidity we get around here, but once the temperatures get up to about 95, even I’m ready to head indoors! It’s hard to believe that it’s almost September. Given all of the oddities of this year, from our son being at home, to doing home deliveries rather than farmers markets, to just dealing with the general restrictions and stresses of living through a global pandemic, it’s been surprising that each month...

It seems to be feast or famine with rain around here. We’ve been in and out of a near drought state since last autumn and now we’re getting about 2 inches in less than 24 hours. Honestly, at this point we’ll take what we can get, even if it’s all at once. The weeks of temperatures in the 90s seems to have broken at last and it looks like we’ll be able to enjoy some slightly cooler weather for at least the near future.  I usually think of summer crops in two categories- early and late. All of these require warm weather and would be damaged or killed by freezing...