Apple Share: Winesap (duller dark red and green, tart crisp apple) and Jonagold (brighter red and yellow, sweet Jonathon and Golden Delicious cross)
Farm News
While weekly harvests, deliveries and market continues for me and the crew, the shift of Ben’s work from crop management to field maintenance is taking place. This means he can spend less time taking care of crops and begin to get our fields ready for the winter. This current period of dry weather has allowed us to do this important fall work daily and it’s been great to be able to keep on top of it. Properly managing the fields now sets us up for success next year!
Seeding winter rye cover crop in the cone spreader in the field that housed our sweet corn and green bean plantings. Ben can sow a 2 acre field in about 20 minutesThe buckwheat cover crop field. Buckwheat is very fast growing plant and is a good choice for a quick summer cover crop. We seeded this buckwheat after the onion crop was harvested.Ben mows down the buckwheat. It has served its purpose of supressing weeds and will breakdown quickly and regenerate the soil.The farm is 30 acres but we only grow vegetables on 10 acres resulting in lots of cover crop management. This time of year, the vegetables are only on 3 acres so more and more fields are getting the cover crop treatment. Shown here are three different cover cropped fields: freshly germinated winter rye and tillage radish, mowed clover, and flowering buckwheat.Field of a mix of winter rye and tillage radish. Winter rye will live all winter helping with soil erosion and weed suppression. The tillage radish grows really long large roots that help with aerating the soil.
