A day-to-day journal – growing local food with two acres and some tools...!
After enduring a pretty wintry two months, the fall rye can only be described as lush and green, the highlight of today’s brief walk around the field. It hasn’t grown much since late November, but it’s alive and kicking. Here, a light dusting of snow has melted as the sun pops in and out. The cover crop experiment continues…
3 CommentsTilling in the monster oats green manure/cover crop is a task where the Kubota compact tractor sure comes in handy. The oats is tall, dense and seemingly unstoppable by cold. It took a double mowing to get it down to a manageable state, and even then, it’s a slow till.…
Leave a CommentA steady harvest through a warm, hazy afternoon wound up quite early, with just about everything sorted, rinsed and bunched or bagged by around 8:30 pm. Smooth! The end-of-season crew has settled down to Jo, Lynn, Conall and me. Here, Jo and Lynn are harvesting a sparsely germinated but bountiful…
Leave a CommentWhere the oats arrived with a dramatic, iridescent splash of green, the fall rye made a much more sedate entrance, so much so that I didn’t notice it until today. It probably emerged a couple of days ago. It’s looking great! I dunno why I’m so extremely pleased by these…
2 CommentsWith the oats experiment going good all around the field, it’s time for experimental green manure-cover crop #2, fall rye (starts and grows well in cool weather). Reading about cover crops online, I found one apparently popular method for seeding ’em is…”airplane”. I use the more down-to-earth Earthway broadcast seeder,…
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