Feeding the soil and a sprinkle of rain

To grow delicious vegetables the plants are pulling up the necessary nutrients out of the soil so we need to replenish the nutrients in the soil through using cover crops.

We could bring in nutrients through fertilizers and compost which we may do in the future but it is very beneficial for roots to be in the soil constantly so having cover crops growing in areas we aren’t using until next year is important.

The mix we have is made up of peas, beans, oats and vetch which will help replenish the soil with nitrogen plus add organic matter. An additional benefit is that the cover crop will choke out weeds that try to grow in that area over the winter.

On Monday we seeded part of the farm in a cover crop mix since it was forecasted to be raining Tuesday. It did rain a little bit less than two-tenths of an inch which will give the seeds enough water to germinate and hopefully we will have more rain in the future so we don’t have to irrigate.

Before we were able to seed cover crop we had to pull up drip tape from the beds of cucumbers, basil and winter squash so we could mow the crops down. We then used a disc to lightly break up the top few inches of the soil after it was mowed before spreading the cover crop seed with a handheld spreader.

The area where we have all of our tomatoes, eggplants and peppers is still a little bit away from being planted with cover crop. We will be harvesting eggplant and peppers for another one to two weeks while we work on getting the tomato trellises taken down.

Once we are finished with the peppers and eggplant we will mow it all down and let the organic matter start breaking down for a little bit before we seed the cover crop in that field.

The fields that we have crops in currently and that will stay in all winter won’t get a cover crop but they will be the first ones to get one next fall.

This week we will have our first cone cabbage of the fall at both the Wednesday and Saturday Davis Farmers Markets. The Wednesday market is one hour shorter starting this week until the spring going from 3-6 pm in Central Park.

A reminder that there is no Benicia Farmers Market this week as it is a seasonal market and it ended at the end of October.

We have lots of sweet potatoes, winter squash and leeks perfect for roasting and soups in this cool weather. The turnips are also amazing and get a sweetness if you roast them whole leaving on a little bit of stem.