Infinite Moisture

September has been pretty wet. This round of rain has us over 8 inches for the month and we still have a week to go. We're managing to mostly stay on schedule and finish necessary work. Last week we retrieved the rest of the potatoes, transplanted the final round of outdoor crops, and stowed the last of the winter squash. We sowed an oat and crimson clover cover crop on any ground that was bare, which included fields home to the aforementioned crops plus tomato, tomatillo, and half the eggplant beds.

Tasks this week will be limited to ones we can do while sopping through the mud. The moveable high tunnel is currently being cleaned out of tomatoes and will then be pushed over the fall spinach crop. The soil in the lower caterpillar tunnel has been amended and spaded and this week we'll plant the final round of crops of the 2023 growing season. As storage space becomes available and bins empty we'll continue to harvest fall roots like radishes, turnips, and beets. Whenever the ground dries out enough we'll turn our attention to the sweet potatoes, perhaps next week or the one after.

We're monitoring moisture sensitive crops like broccoli, cauliflower, and spinach for showing any deleterious effects from all this rain, which can exacerbate disease pressure. There's nothing we really can do anyway, but it'll at least temper our harvest expectations if there are negative consequences. But don't worry, there'll probably never be a shortage of produce in the pick up room because we always grow extra and count on crop diversity to pull us through. There just may be more of crops that don't mind too much water than ones that do.

Mow, chisel, sow, disc. As soon as crops are harvested in late summer and early fall we do our best to immediately prepare the space for a nurturing cover crop, which absorbs nutrients from the soil, protects it over the winter, and adds organic matter.