Month, Season, Task Transition

August exits and September enters this week. According to some, summer also transitions to fall. Cooler (and shorter) days couldn't come soon enough. This time of year is marked by the continued harvest of long season, one-time planted crops. It begins with garlic, followed by onions, potatoes, winter squash, leeks. Some traditional summer crops continue to wane, like zucchini, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, and eggplant. Sweet peppers are still peaking but will eventually slow down.

Removal of all these crops means space is now opening up for cover crops. After a large contiguous plot of field space is empty, we'll mow, spread compost and amendments, chisel plow to loosen the soil, broadcast oats and buckwheat, mix it all together with the disc harrow, and voila, field space is put to bed for the winter. That is, as long as we receive some decent rainfall for the cover crop seeds to germinate. If time and weather don't allow for spreading compost and amendments now we'll postpone that step until later in the season after the cover crop is already established. We have another few weeks of sowing oats and buckwheat, then it'll be just oats or oats and crimson clover, then winter rye for any ground that opens up in October. By November it's too late to disturb the soil and we'll just leave crop residue on the surface as a winter blanket.