(Almost) Fall Reflections

 Like Drew & Dan reviewing their learned lessons, and Vanessa & Matt with their great new books, we are looking back on the bulk of this season, absorbing the hard-won knowledge, buckling down for the last several weeks of our growing year, and looking forward to the next.

The main things we’ve been contending with, since most of what we’re selling at this year’s market are leafy greens (lettuces and brassicas) are unpredictable yield due to erratic weather, and insect pests (mostly caterpillars from cabbage butterflies and moths, but at one point flocks of birds were tearing into the succulent leaves). We caught on a little late in the game that lightweight row cover would dramatically reduce pests on the kale. We’ve applied it to the least far-gone patches, and are handpicking the caterpillars as we find them working their way through their life cycle.

The book that I’m really excited about is “Crop Planning for Organic Vegetable Growers” by Frédéric Thériault and Daniel Brisebois. It is literally a step-by-step guide to planning crops (seeding, planting out, etc.), complete with spreadsheets and forms that you can download (free) from their website. Earlier this year Eddie posted a great entry about his harvest/planting plan. I still found the whole process kind of daunting – I tried and failed to get a comprehensive plan down on paper (or in a spreadsheet) this year, but it is a major goal for next year.

Matt - in addition to all the watering, weeding and harvesting we’ve both been up to - has been working on shoring up another wall of our 100-plus-year-old barn, and converting another bay for the young chickens. Every time he starts to work on a “small” project in there, it turns out to be a big one, requiring jacking up walls, pouring concrete, and constructing stem walls. The good thing is, by the time he’s done, it’ll be much more sturdy.