Field Trip

I am away from the farm today on a 2 day field trip to the Raleigh, NC area to visit some great places and get some inspiration. It was a great day today. Visited a couple great places in North Carolina. The first stop we (Jenks Farmer, Bo Cooper, Kellen Goodell and myself) made was at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems located in Goldsboro, NC. We were guided around the research station by Steve Moore the farm manager and a expert in high tunnel production. It was a fantastic experience and very informative. Next stop was at the J.C. Rauleston Arboretum in Raleigh, NC amazing place, if you are in the area it would be a shame not to visit. Our last stop of the day was just south of Bahama, NC. This area is home to Hoffman Nursery, the premiere landscape grasses source in the south east and still growing. These great sites made me forget about how dreary and cool it was today for late summer.

Back at the farm I have been doing alot of planting in the greenhouse, hopefully when I get back I will update everyone on what I am planting for the fall season.

Jean Elliot Manning - Farm in my front yard

Get Your Own Free Hypster.com Playlist.

plastic mulch

This fall I am trying something new to hopefully fix a problem I ran into during the summer. The weed pressure in this field is very intense as you can probably tell from the upper right part of the photo. To remedy this I am using a 1mm plastic film from Peaceful Valley and then mulching over with hay. It has been 4 weeks since I took this picture and the beds are staying relatively weed free, except for the occasional nut sedge which has been spotted growing through impervious things such as asphalt before, so that was expected. My major weed problem from the summer, crab grass, has been totally solved and plastic mulch seems to be the best fix so far.

Cover crop

DSC02085
Originally uploaded by clements.evan

This summer I used a buckwheat (makes phosphorus in the soil more accessible)/ cow pea (nitrogen fixer) mix for a cover crop. In addition to the added nutrients and organic material it provides, cover cropping also aides in weed suppression. Buckwheat is also a great temporary honey crop since it blooms for 30 days and only 4-6 weeks after planting.