Preparing for the forecasted rainstorm

We’ve been waiting for the first big rain of the fall to show up on the forecast to know it is time to plant the cover crops right before it.

This past weekend the forecast showed that we will be getting a good amount of rain in the next week. Every site has different forecasts for how much rain there will be from 3 to 5 inches although it is very location specific so we will see how much rain we get after the storm passes.

Our plans for this week have evolved with the rain coming soon and there even being some later today.

With Thanksgiving next week and rain forecasted most days in the next week we needed to pick olives one day this week to make sure we have enough oil to bottle as we won’t pick again until after Thanksgiving.

Additionally we have still been getting the area with summer veggies prepared to be planted with cover crops. Everything has had their drip tape removed for a few weeks.

The tomatoes we have been taking down the string we use to trellis them and then we are puling out the stakes from the ground.

Once we finished those tasks Tuesday morning we mowed all of the areas and then spread our cover crop mix on the soil. To help the seeds germinate better we followed that with a disc over the soil to help tuck the seeds into the soil.

Pretty much every part of the farm that doesn’t have any veggies growing in it right now we have planted it with cover crop.

Some of those areas we planted with cover crop we will mow it down earlier in the spring as they are the areas where we will put the first transplants and direct seeded veggies.

With all the summer veggies mowed we are fully into fall/winter veggies with most of them already being started to harvest. Last week we began harvesting the first carrots of fall and the week before we started picking broccoli, cabbage and broccolini.

If you are in Davis next Wednesday there will be an extended market from 12-5 p.m. which we will be at with all the fresh veggies and of course the olive oil as well.

As it gets colder and darker the growth on all these crops will slow down even more although the cold weather does bring out the sweetness in many of the veggies.

At the same time we are starting to crop plan for the spring and summer next year with the arrival of the first seed catalogs. We’ve been thinking about our plan for all those crops since we planted them in the spring.

The biggest factor in determining our crop plan is the weather which we have no control over and don’t know what it will be so we have to plan with the knowledge that crops might grow quicker or slower than planned for. Additionally we don’t know when in February we will be able to start planting as we may have very little rain or lots of it.