Often times we find ourselves truly enamored with the ways growing and in fact nature mirror life as we know and experience it. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that the lessons of life in general have a more specific application to the everyday situations of the individual. For us in the here and now both thinking ahead to the coming cooler season as well as reflecting on the successes and failures of this past season, a simple question comes to mind. How can we repeat these successes, while avoiding past failures, leaving a generous amount of room for this years new failures and mistakes?(Okay maybe not so simple) Whats a little different about growing compared to other work is that we basically have one time each year to do either your cool season or hot season main plantings. In essence someone with 20 years of experience farming has actually only planted a tomato crop for example 20 times. There are few opportunities to scratch everything and start again so its easy to say one thing we learn is to live with our mistakes.
There are a few things that haven’t been mistakes and though previously mentioned, deserve a revisiting. That is this years potato and pepper crops. Both of these have really benefited from receiving a bit of extra attention early on. Perhaps putting this down in writing a few times will aid us in next year’s recollections. Another obvious winner, is cover crop. The time is now for cover cropping before the cold and lack of light set in. You may recall our mention of some first time hot weather cover cropping with Sudan grass and buckwheat. We achieved successful germination in over 2/3rds of the areas, resulting in around 480 row feet of lush biomass. The plan will be to mow that down within a few weeks, incorporate into the soil and seed winter rye and vetch, the go to winter cover mix. People better and more interested than ourselves have likened good cover crop practices to investing in your soil creating a savings with compounding interest like benefits. Thinking of that investment metaphor in the terms of soil life and an extremely intricate ecosystem, is in our opinion just pretty darn cool. Now add to that the overall benefits to not only to your health and life but the health and life of the planet as a whole and we’re putting some weight behind the idea of this Good Food Movement.
On the subject of learning from the past one change we are making that is new concerns on farm pick up the week of the Durham Fair. The 103rd Durham Fair takes place Thursday September 21st through Sunday September 24th, yup that’s next week. As a result we will only be doing Wednesday on farm pick up, Friday and Saturday pick up will resume the following week. Fowler Ave and the surrounding area become quite busy with Fowler and Cherry becoming a one way street to allow for pedestrian traffic. This all makes conveniently picking up your order not much of an option. We hope this once a year change will not inconvenience anyone too much. This week is also the last week we will be attending the Durham Farmer’s Market for the 2023 season. The market is off the week of the fair then returns for a few weeks ending in October. There are 4 more weeks of the Sunday Chester Farmer’s Market then we will be down to Madison and New Haven. These are all great markets and if your gonna miss us in Durham come see us at one of those and remember on farm pick up is an option 12 months of the year.
Have a Great Week