August 2, 2020
August Shares
by Farmer Derek

What a week. I'm tired but pulling energy from deep within, from somewhere, from the future because there is eventual rest there. Borrowing. Monday is normally the most difficult day of the week. Not just because the weekend is over, which is basically just a time for different work, and the official work week begins, but because harvests are huge and heavy right now and it's the day cucumber and zucchini harvest coincides with an actual pick up day so harvest morning becomes harvest afternoon. Binning shares the way we are this year also means that two of our staff need to break for lunch and be ready to pack by 12:30pm. Added to Monday last week was an epic tomato yield. Seven hundred pounds of heirlooms came out of the high tunnel and 800 pounds of red slicers were harvested in the field. The prior harvest day, Thursday, yielded about a third of that weight, and this peak caught us by surpise. Hey, but rejoice, fresh tomatoes are a summertime treat, a thrill! In my mind I associate early August with peak tomatoes, but perhaps I need to adjust that brainwave to the end of July since that's when it's occurred this year and last. Oh, and it was super hot, like borderline unsafely hot. But we persevered and will.

This is a great time of year. Early August marks the halfway point between the summer solstice and the fall equinox and daylight hours will quickly reduce and hopefully the worst heat is behind us. Large contiguous areas of spring and early summer crops are now available for cover crops, which is what I spent all day Saturday preparing for. Timing matters and when a perfect opportunity presents itself I try to take advantage. Perhaps I even get excited by the prospect of putting those fields to sleep for the winter which largely removes them from management and active thinking for the next half year. That's if the sown seeds take and we get a good stand of desired plants. I flail mow, chisel plow, broadcast the seeds (in this case it was oats, wheat, and buckwheat), then disc harrow them in. The chisel penetrates the soil a good 8" deep every 12" across the 7-foot implement, loosening and fracturing but without too much negative disturbance, and the disc penetrates 2-3" every 6" across, chops up residue, and mixes the seeds into the soil. It's the best and quickest method for us to convert spent 'cash' crop fields into cover cropped fields. Dry conditions followed by ample rain are ideal. On Saturday I was also able to sunrise sow another mile of carrots, destined for a mid-fall harvest. I also upgraded/improved a waterway at the top of the u-pick field below the ranch house where excess water has been bothering crops and me.

Upcoming this week is a hurricane, harvesting, a farm tour, weeding, transplanting, seeding, cultivating, and mowing.