Farm Report 10/12/23 – Fooled again!
I should just stop trying to figure out the weather report. I called off all the volunteers on Saturday because of my weather app! Rain starting at 7am it was telling me. Well, yes it started at 7 and ended at 7:15! Ugh. Saturday is always a day we accomplish a lot at the farm, so I was disappointed I had made the wrong call. Luckily we had a great turnout the rest of the week.
Holly and Jennifer came on Tuesday to help me. We were “trying” to weed upper plot 7 where the zucchini is finished. A bit of crimson clover has started to spread, but there are too many weeds to give it the space it needs to flourish. It hadn’t rained for a couple of weeks, so those beds were almost unworkable. I could not get my shovel in to dig the ends of the beds. I’m glad I was up there with Jennifer and Holly to experience it myself. This will be a plot that we will sacrifice next year for some intensive soil therapy. I am thinking of sorghum sudan grass and sunflowers for next year’s planting–all deep rooted crops to try to break up that hardpan clay base. I keep threatening to make a bowl out of that blue clay soil!
We had five eager volunteers on Wednesday from the Local Bizness Network. They were such great help with our usual end of season tasks–broadforking, shaping beds, and spreading wood chips. The farm was showing off for our new volunteers with glorious fall light making the amaranth especially beautiful. Brigitta and Carol started helping us get the garlic ready to plant at the end of the month. We calculated we need 1200 cloves to plant an entire plot. Instead of counting each clove, we just weighed 100. It turns out we need 12 pounds of cloves! We will have plenty left to donate or share for a donation.
It’s so unusual for us not to have had even a light frost by now. Dylan helped me cut down sunflowers for seed saving and broom corn for a possible wreath workshop this Fall. Details will evolve as the farm’s to-do list winds down, and we have some time for a creative workshop.
The Fixers flew through the list I had for them, including putting new rope on tunnel 6. We have one more tunnel that needs repairing, but it is still full of eggplant and peppers. We need to wait for them to be finished before taking that plastic skin off.
We are still gleaning three times a week, but harvests have slowed way down. Carolyn helped us glean on Friday, and we sent out some of these beautiful Autumn Frost winter squash.
Since we have not had a frost, we are trying to be creative and sow winter rye in between the chard. Winter rye will still germinate and grow after a frost, so Dylan and I cleaned out a bed and started to do just that. Three more to go!
Sunday the 15th is our volunteer appreciation event at Flight Deck Brewing in Brunswick from 3:30-5:30 pm. The drawing for our Grand Bucket Raffle will be at the event. You can still buy a raffle ticket to support G2G up to midnight Saturday the 14th. This year’s prizes include lots of cool places to get away in Maine and Vermont as well as a beautiful hand-made quilt. Hope you can make the party. I promise not to ask you to do anything!
Always grateful,
Theda