The fall carrots are like a dream, they grew really well. They are so tender and beautiful. Those are the carrots that you got in your final share. We let them grow for as long as we could, they store better if they are larger; With a lower surface area to volume ratio they don't loose water as readily. Tuesday night it was 22 degrees! The roots can take a couple little freezes, but not too many, so we are rushing right now to harvest all of the beets and carrots. The root cellar is finally cold and humid enough.
Once we are finished with this root harvest, we need to work up a large piece of ground to plant garlic in and get the garlic planted. Then we will clean all of the trellising, row covers, hoops and hoses out of the field and disc everything in so that we can plant cover crop. We usually plant a mixture of rye and field pea as our cover crop. It will sprout soon after seeding and grow a little bit throughout the fall. It really takes off in late winter and we let it grow until we need to plow it in to prepare the ground for planting again next spring. The cover crop occupies the field, holds down the soil, keeps things active and converts sunlight to plant matter during this down time. This organic material eventually gets incorporated into the soil of our field. We let the horses snack on it and we play in it. One spring, in an especially tall patch, I mowed a maze for the kids' entertainment.
On Tuesday I am planning to be set up by 9:30. I should have some greens, carrots, beets, squash, parsnips, garlic and turnips for sale at the farmstand and will have everyones' bulk orders. I have run out of a few things, but this is still available:
Thank you for buying local! And thank you so much for supporting our little farm!
2020 CSA Archives