This Week on the Farm 11/7
Well, we took a week off from posting on our blog, but we haven’t taken a week off from work. We have been very busy getting the fields ready for winter. All of the cover crops have been seeded and the only big project left is to take the plastic off of the high tunnel. We decided we will move the high tunnel in the spring if we decide to grow the same crops underneath it. We are contemplating buying another high tunnel and if we do buy another one, we can use the older one to grow tomatoes and we won’t have to move the old one. Like everything else, that decision has to wait until we get a chance to finalize our budget for 2013. I think that will get done in the next couple of weeks, we just need a chance to sit down and crunch the numbers.
We are waiting to hear back from some of our neighbors about adding some land for next year. The location is excellent, we just need to hear how much the rent will be to see whether or not we can afford to rent the land. If the cost is too high we have a couple of other options we can pursue. The one down side about adding land is that it takes three years for the land to become certified organic. This means that some of our land will be certified next July, and some will still be in transition. It adds a kink in the paperwork, but for the crops grown on the land it doesn’t really make any difference.
Last week we had help from some of our summer employees as we planted the garlic. We planted five varieties this year, three softnecks and two hardnecks. We really appreciated the help, since it took about a quarter of the time it took us last year to plant the garlic. That means a lot when a lot of the time you are on your hands and knees. The ramp up in number of cloves planted was not huge compared to last year, however we were able to select larger heads to plant this year. I think that will have a big impact on the size and quality of garlic we harvest next year and hopefully on the number of times you see garlic in your boxes.
Now is the time of the season that we look back on the varieties that we grew and figure out what we liked and what we didn’t. If you have some suggestions of special varieties of vegetables or herbs that are super tasty, please let us know. The more input the better.