July 30, 2023
Goodbye July
by Farmer Derek

What was supposed to be a week of drying out and catching up on tasks that wet weather had delayed the previous week became another week of dodging thunderstorms, bouncing around jobs, and being constantly soaked with sweat and/or rain. Eventually, by the end of the week, we were able to get most of the important work finished.

We're well on our way to planting and maintaining fall crops and really needed a few dry windows to hoe and transplant. Because of all the moisture in July (over 10 inches in fact) and the large planting of fall brassicas that went in a few weeks ago, we were quite desperate to knock back the weeds with our handheld tool arsenal accompanied by an improvised tractor implement before the weeds reached a critical growth stage when they need to be pulled out instead. Many hours are needed for this type of clean up and many hours of dry weather are needed afterwards to ensure the weeds don't re-root. I believe we got lucky when we scheduled this for Monday, when it didn't rain, and not Tuesday, when it poured again.

Raised-beds were reworked and touched up on Monday for a full day of transplanting lettuce, herbs, kale, rutabaga, chard, beets, celery, and fennel, which I was hoping would be Wednesday, in between harvest days. But with the ever-increasing probability and amount of moisture forecast for Tuesday afternoon I decided to try to knock some of the planting out on Tuesday, after harvesting and preparing for distribution all morning. The rain came, with lightning and thunder, and we were forced to suspend outdoor activities and pivot to indoor tunnel tomato work. Again, we were 'lucky' and 'only' received 8/10 of an inch of rain and resumed transplanting Wednesday afternoon, when the ground was barely okay with us being out there with the tractor and transplanter. We finished the week's transplanting goal on Thursday afternoon and are now caught up with that. We have some mowing to do this coming week that we didn't fit in last week but overall are in good shape.

The weather looks perfect for outdoor work this week. I'm excited to begin preparing ground for cover crops and considering them asleep, off-limits, out-of-sight, out-of-mind, resting until next growing season. Our farm-mind slowly recedes from encompassing all 15 acres as we establish buckwheat and oats to nurture the soil through the late summer and fall months.