D&V Organics CSA
Week 13
Here on the farm we've been hard at work this week putting our Spring fields to rest. After we finish harvesting our crops from the fields, we use equipment to work in any leftover plant residue and wait for it to decompose into the soil, this might take four to six weeks for the microorganisms to digest the plant residue completely. In an effort to increase the biological activity of our soil and farm, as well as help establish some resiliency in the physical components of our soil, we take the fields that we are finished with and plant cover crops. This week we were able to get 5 acres seeded to a mix of covers that serve various purposes. Most of our freshly seeded fields have a mix of millet (a small grassy grain with a dense fibrous root system), sorghum (a grass that grows thick, wide green leaves and provides biomass to enhance the soil), and sunn hemp (a legume that captures atmospheric nitrogen and stores it in its roots, making it usable for subsequent crops). A few other fields include buckwheat (a fast growing competitive plant that scavenges phosphorus, and makes it available to subsequent crops), sunflower (same as ornamental, but this variety provides a lot of green biomass to feed the soil and the flowers attract beneficial insects and pollinators) and cow peas (aka black-eyed peas, a legume that attracts beneficial insects and captures nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient). Employing practices like this is challenging in the middle of the season, when our plates are already full and our days are long. Finding the time and taking the time to do these "best" or "better" practices is crucial to establishing a regenerative process on our farm and in our organic farming system. Our organic certification doesn't require us to take these measures, but we know that spending the time and energy to do this will benefit the farm in the long term. In the coming weeks we'll share some photos of our cover crop progress, maybe not as exciting for the average person, but definitely for us here at the farm.
Enjoy,
Derek and Crew
