November Notes
Greetings, friends!
It’s really looking like Autumn on the farm. The trees have turned a brilliant shade of gold and the flowers are making their last push before the growing season ends. The rains the past couple of weeks have given us a gorgeous end of season flush of blooms. We're expecting a very cold weekend, and it’s looking like this will actually be our final week with flowers available from our fields. We certainly didn’t expect to have much of anything at this point in the year!
Now that things are winding down, we’re feeling invigorated and scheming up big ideas for next year. One of the things we’re really looking forward to this coming season is planting more pawpaws! We just can’t seem to get enough of these fruits. It’ll be a big undertaking, and it will be several years before we are able to harvest them, bit we’re excited to expand this part of our farm. In the meantime, we’ll be able to use the space around the new trees to plant other crops with a faster turnaround.
Among our favorite things about this year was having the opportunity to experiment with no-till techniques. As we sow cover crops and prepare for next year, we’re continuing to learn about no-till practices that will help us build soil. While we’re still doing some initial tilling in areas where we are breaking new ground, we don’t use the tiller in established beds, and we don’t use the broadfork as much as we once did. To be honest, one of the primary reasons we’ve moved towards no-till is to save labor! Using our walk-behind tractor can feel like a huge undertaking; it’s a hefty tool and it takes a whole lot of work to haul it around. As we’ve saved labor through no-till, we’ve also taken strides to improve our soil. Next season we’ll continue to see what no-till practices we can apply.
We’re hosting evergreen wreath workshops again this winter! This year we are offering one at Larder and another at Well Crafted Pizza. Tickets are $90 and include wreath-making materials and food. You may purchase tickets on our website.
This week at the JFX market we will have arugula, ginger, head lettuce, radishes, hakurei turnips, shishito peppers, spring mix, bouquets, framed pressed flowers, and wreaths.
Upcoming Events
Wreath Workshop at Well Crafted Pizza, November 21, 2019: tickets
Wreath Workshop at Larder, December 8, 2019: tickets