September 30, 2024
Quantifiable Drizzle
by Farmer Derek

Moisture has finally condensed enough to descend as droplets of water at the farm. I believe most of the measurable rain fell with a boost from Helene on Friday. Now we're starved for some sunshine.

The farm's crop habitat is steadily shrinking. Now that we're about to enter October we'll begin a slow march away from the summer staples of tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, and eggplant. There's still a lot of fruit out there so we'll enjoy them in our harvests for a few more weeks at least. Most of the peppers and tomatoes will be harvested green but left at room temperature can slowly ripen.

We'll also continue our transition to traditional big fall brassicas. Last week we introduced napa/chinese cabbage and soon regular cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower will grace the pick up room. A mix of traditional fall roots like radishes, daikons, turnips, kohlrabi, beets, potatoes, and eventually sweet potatoes should be in shares through the end of the season. Cooking greens, like kale, chard, and bok choy, as well as salad greens, like radicchio, head lettuce, romaine, lettuce mix, and arugula, will be here until the end as well.

With our dwindling footprint comes field clean up and establishment of cover crops to protect and enrich the soil over the offseason. This rainfall was very much needed to encourage germination and continued growth of the oat, clover, and buckwheat mix. We probably have one more opportunity to sow this mix then will transition to winter rye and hairy vetch in the latter half of October.

In case you're keeping track, this was our driest September in 16 seasons with .75" received, 4" below our average.