Perhaps the Best Time

This time of year my well-being is directly related to the weather, state of the farm, health of the crops, and current list of jobs needing completion to keep this ship floating merrily along. Right now the weather is just about perfect (80/60, low humidity, clear skies), the farm is looking good and late summer and fall crops are mostly thriving (thanks to our good crew, members, weather, soil creatures), and the list of jobs gets slightly smaller each week as our planet's revolution around the sun slowly moves us back to winter.

We've been making great effort in cleaning up crop spaces as soon as their productive period is complete with mowing and any infrastructure removal followed by a generous compost application and the sowing of a cover crop. There aren't too many more areas that will receive a fall cover crop so pretty soon that will be another task taking a winter hiatus. I believe we're down to the field tomato and the u-pick crop patches (which cumulatively is a pretty big area). Hopefully starting this week will be the installation/excavation of water ways in that same field to better deal with heavy rain events. Earth will be moved and graded then seeded and mulched.

Our focus will soon turn to inside growing as we prepare our 4 tunnels for late Main Season and Late Fall harvests. Those areas will need manual spading, hoeing, and raking to make beds then we'll plant, irrigate, and watch the crops grow through the early winter.

We'll also begin retrieving additional roots, tubers, storage crops, and big haul items including sweet potatoes, watermelon radishes, daikons, celeriac, beets, kohlrabi, turnips, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and napa/Chinese cabbage. Many of these tasks will be accomplished with the help of workshifts.

Perfect late summer weather for playing outside. Also seen playing outside: 6 turtles, 5 king fishers, 3 water snakes, some unknown species of fish, 2 blue herons, and many delightful insects.