The lovely days of this autumn continue. This past week felt like the best weather of the season. The needed rain of the prior week helped what is probably the last round of cover crops to germinate (shown above are oats and crimson clover). Though we're finished cover cropping we still have edible crops to direct seed in the next location for our movable high tunnel (2,880-sq-ft). Into there will go winter greens like arugula, baby kale, mizuna, tatsoi, and mustard greens. After seeding we'll let Tuesday's rain assist in germination then will slide the structure over top of the beds to protect them for the next 4 months. Since there are 5 raised beds in there we'll probably plant 3 now and 2 in two weeks to spread out maturity in December and January. Over the next 3 weeks we'll also transplant seedlings into the hoop house (1,170-sq-ft), hoop tunnel (3,024-sq-ft), and green house (1,152-sq-ft) for Late Fall CSA and Winter CSA harvests.

This past week we had our annual Organic Inspection and of course passed with flying colors! The Friday prior we also hosted a representative from Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) to collect soil samples for a Cornell soil study. It feels good to see almost 10 years of our continued soil improvements impress folks in this business! We conduct soil tests every 3 years or so and of course they tell us about calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, sulfur, zinc, boron, etc., but simple observation of crops, cover crops, and soil structure is just as important, if not more so. You can feel and see the soil health here, now. That translates to healthy food for you and me.