Enjoying the Rain
It was so nice to get such a good rain after a very dry fall on the farm!
Over the past week we have gotten two inches of rain on the farm which was desperately needed by the soil and vegetables. In the other big rainstorm this fall it mostly missed us as we got two-thirds of an inch compared to 2-3 inches for places near us.
Getting that amount of rain has made it so we can’t do anything in the field except for harvest for markets and orders.
It is very interesting to see that all the rain has soaked into the soil in all of our fields and the only places that still have puddles are the areas between the fields that are more compacted. In the nut tree fields around us there are lots of big puddles in their fields as their soil is more compacted and it takes longer for the water to infiltrate.
Even though everything is growing slower with the cold weather in the last week we have seen a lot of the last direct seeded crops pop out of the soil and our cover crops start growing with sufficient water. Additionally, more of our garlic is shooting up daily.
We haven’t mentioned much about the sugar snap peas we are growing which we are doing a little different than most. We planted our first ones back in September and they have grown well with the flowers just starting a few days ago. Usually they are planted in January for spring harvest.
It is an experiment to see if we can have sugar snap peas over the winter so we are not sure how long it will take for the flowers to turn into pea pods we can harvest. Normally it takes 2-3 weeks but that is in ideal weather while it is much colder currently.
It is also so exciting to see that there is more rain in the horizon. Even though that means we won’t be able to do too much in the field for a while long the rain is more needed than us working in the field.
We are getting close to the last of our winter squash for the season. All the Honeynut squash we have left we will be bringing to market this week.
The sweet potatoes have been very popular and we will have a lot at the markets as we still have a decent amount left.
