8/5 This Week on the Farm
We’ve been very busy this week preparing areas for new plantings of cool season crops. With our new trimmer mower we have been able to clear areas in Don’s garden where older leaf crops have bolted. In the next couple of days we will rototill the area and plant more Bok choi, romaine lettuce, looseleaf lettuce, radishes, radicchio, spinach, and arugula.
On Monday, Tyler sprayed the tomatoes with copper. This was made easier by the fact that the tomato field has been thoroughly weeded. The eggplants are also in that field, and Don continues to pick off Colorado Potato Beetles.
We cleared out older plantings of radishes and weeded between the rows of parsnips. That section of the field looks very nice. Farther down the rows the weeds are over taking the rest of the plants in the cabbage family. Clearing out underneath the floating row covers and between the rows is next on our to do list.
With a break in the rain, our cover crop on the roads is filling in nicely. We were slightly worried that all of our seed was washed away when we had the 4 1/2 in rain, but thankfully it didn’t. We have a few gullies created by erosion on the west end of the field. We will work on filling those in this fall by pulling the soil back up to the top of the field.
We will be ordering a crop cover for this winter, most likely a winter rye. Snowmelt causes a lot of erosion, so we want to have something there to hold onto the soil. Winter rye will also add organic matter to the soil when we till it in next spring. We will also most likely add some type of vetch. This will fix nitrogen in the soil and make it available to next year’s plants.
Tyler’s brother Greg is backpacking this week in the U.P. We have been dog sitting his dog Kofi. Kofi loves to find raccoon poop to roll in, and we have been trying very hard to discourage Wash from picking up this habit. It has been very nice to have him here since he and Wash tire each other out by four in the afternoon.
For those of you in Rio who can’t get enough of our produce, our roadside stand is open. We are generally around if you stop by and will be able to pick out what you would like fresh from the garden. “Stand”ard charges apply.
Please remember to return your blue tubs each week. We are running short on tubs.
Starting in September we will be needing help on Thursdays to harvest and pack boxes. Three of our helpers will be going back to school, two to teach, and one to his first year of high school. If you are interested in helping out, please e-mail Kate the date(s) you can help at kate@burroakgardens.com.
