June Already!

Meteorological summer begins this week. It feels like just yesterday we were planting spring crops and worrying about frosts and freezes. Most of the traditional summer crops like zucchini, cucumber, watermelon, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are now in the ground and are probably appreciating these warm and long days

Field space is quickly being consumed by crop production. Probably about 75% of the farm has been planted or will be by the end of June. In order to get crops in the ground we begin preparing about a month in advance. We take our time with soil/ground preparations, enlisting the help of mother nature along the way. Before each crop gets planted we make 4 or 5 passes with the tractor. If there is plant residue, either in the form of a cover crop or a previous cash crop, we shred it up with the flail mower. We then chisel plow to open up and aerate the soil (vertical shanks spaced about 12" apart, no inverting of soil, structure left largely intact). We wait a week, use our disk bedder - which is equipped with two sets of two disks, a few s-tines to loosen soil, and a rolling basket to break up clumps and level the bed - to hill or mound the soil and rough in raised beds. Another week passes, weeds hopefully germinate after a rain event, soil microbes digest some organic matter and convert it into food for the following crops, and we then come through with our cultivating bed shaper which is equipped with s-tines, side knives, and a shaper pan, to put the almost-finishing touches on the raised bed. Ideally another week goes by and we have another rain even to stimulate weed seed germination and we hit the beds one final time before planting. With each pass of the tractor and tillage tool we deposit a small amount of organic fertilizer right onto the bed where it gets mixed into the soil. These are techniques 14 years in the making and are continually updated and evaluated.