Mise En Place

I knew this season was going to be a difficult. What with all that we weren’t able to do for this season, last season. And though I knew it would be bad, I didn’t know that we would face what we have. And before I go on complaining, I will stop.

This season is not last season, even if the atomic bomb of weed seeds and pissed off soil carries a heavy fallout far into August. Even though yesteryear effects us still, now is now, and it is time to start thinking about what we are going to do this season to make sure that next year is a better year. One where we don’t lose crops to weed pressures and lack of crew (side note: this years crew that could not make it due to Covid have each expressed interest in coming next year. So, hopefully our whole country can make some plans for next year too! (does it appear that I am still getting my complaining in anyway?)).

It is time to put things in place.

We have 6 weeks or so of planting left to do for this season. Some of the carrots didn’t come up well, and we will replant this week, as well as the beets. But in all other aspect when it comes to the actual work on the farm, we can start shifting to what will make next year better. We can start with putting this years weeds in the ground as worm food, before they set progeny for 2021. This needs to happen all over the place, but we have just enough time. Then, decide where certain crops are going to go, get beds preshaped for the early crops, and get appropriate cover crops in: oats and peas where the early crops will be, rye and vetch where the summer and fall crops will find themselves. Everywhere else will get some bare fallow (allowing flushes of weeds to germinate so that we can knock them back down and take them out of rotation) and get a rye and vetch cover to carry into next summer..

We also need to go into crops that we haven’t lost, like the onions, and get the weeds that are there, out of there, so that they don’t set seeds. We did a good job on these, but you always end up with a small population of weeds threatening your next year.

And there are a few crops that we have to just cut our losses on: eggplant, potatoes, parsnips. We just couldn’t and can’t keep up with what these crops need. They were always just out of reach on the priority list. Why cut our losses on these?? Because they are already performing badly, and the time spent to save them will leave us continually behind the 8 ball. They are probably a sunk cost, but even if in isolation they are not, the time that it will take to save them will ensure that we have the same problems next year. If we save the parsnips, we will not put things in place adequately for next year. And the vicious cycle will…well, you know what those do.

August will be here in a few short day. Everywhere else, 2020 will continue. But on the farm, it’s 2021. Happy New Year.

It’s time to put things in place.