We had a great time at the Capitol City Farmer's Market on Saturday. We sold all of our produce except for a few bunches of herbs. We learned a lot of new things about selling our produce, such as having bags on hand for customers and labeling our goods more clearly. We are looking forward to next weekend. We should have mostly the same products on hand, but I'm sad to say that we're out of Mandan Bride corn flour until this year's crop ripens and dries.
Meridith planted a whole bunch of seeds under the grow lights for a fall crop of spinach, swiss chard, arugula, lettuce, and broccoli. We didn't have much success with our fall crops last year, but we had a pretty early frost. Speaking of frost, we were scared might have gotten one the other day when our outside thermometer read 39 degrees F at sunrise. I ran out of the deck looking for frost and was relieved to not find any.
We picked a bunch more onions today and we will have more of those at the market next week. We will also have leeks, yellow squash, zucchini, Sungold cherry tomatoes, some herbs, and perhaps some loaves of freshly baked bread.
Today we began planting cover crops in our corn that will form a thick mat of organic matter and break up the soil, then die at the first fall frost. Our mix includes radishes, turnips, yellow mustard, cowpeas, and oats. As we harvest crops this summer, we will plant this mix in any newly open patch of soil.
We made some improvements to the chicken pen as well, by reclaiming some ground where the chickens had killed the grass and nothing was growing but creeping jenny. We pulled the creeping jenny, tilled, and planted a mix of flax, yellow mustard, radishes, and turnips. This mix should provide nutritious feed for the hens. Next year we can use these beds to plant more forage crops throughout the spring and summer like sweet clover, oats, millet, and the others mentioned above.
No comments:
Post a Comment