More ground prep

I am working to try to reduce clogging and do a better job of terminating cover crops.  To reduce clogging I think that fewer tines will pick up less stuff.  I'd also like to move the tool bars further apart and move or eliminate the rear cross member.  The last two items will take work, time, and re-design, but buying 9" sweeps was pretty easy.  The unit is covering substantially the same width with two fewer tines now, so two less opportunities to drag trash around.  It seems to be working.  I think I will grind the sweeps sharp so they cut better.  Right now they can sometimes bounce off of tough roots without slicing through.

Here is how the cucurbit strip looked after a few times through with 9" sweeps.  This is the best seed bed yet.  This strip was new ground in the Summer of 2014, over wintered rye, winter manure added.  It is just mellow wonderful soil now.

The corn field after a few drags.

Final pass through the cucurbits before planting.  This picture was taken the morning of Friday, September 25.

The same morning we plowed down the corn field.  It looks better in the picture than it does in person.  There are skips but I'd say 80% of the field is turned under.

Fall ground prep

Things happened really quickly starting around September 17.  First we dragged up and down in the buckwheat stubble, incorporating but mostly making piles of trash and throwing them to the side.  This is new ground from this Spring and is still coming along.

A few days later it was time to clear out the cucurbits to make room for the wheat planting.  A few butternut squash could have stayed on the vine for another week or two, but the ground needed to be cleared.

At the other end it was finally time to clear all those corn stalks.  I took the scythe and cut everything down first, as low as possible.  Then Sebastian helped me move all the stalks into a pile.

Here is how the corn field and the cucurbit field looked before tillage.

Threshing!

I purchased this IH-76 pull behind combine in the beginning of September and immediately put it to work.  I threshed all the spring and winter wheat that was shocked and stored (red fife and turkey red), netting about 30 lbs.  It was a blast and although it was not set up perfectly the first time, I got a clean enough sample to run through the fanning mill.

The goats and chickens alike had a feast afterwards.

The following week I reset the threshing clearance, speeds, etc and threshed the buckwheat followed by peas.  After initially turning their noses up, the herd really took a liking to the buckwheat and pea trash and ate up every scrap.  I think I netted 20 lbs of buckwheat.

Fall prep

The buckwheat was harvested and shocked.  It went pretty fast with the cradle, only the straw is so weak that it can be tricky to tie the shocks.  Interestingly, after seeing all the buckwheat re-seed itself two weeks later it almost seems like hand harvesting caused more shattering than the cradle.

This is how it looked after pulling the drag through a few times.  Frustrating with all the trash clogging the tines, but the team and I are getting better at this.

Flint corn looks great.  I harvest the ears and then toss the stock to the herd.

Another spinach planting

Rain was forecast so I dumped a wheelbarrow of compost down and drilled in some spinach and carrots for the Winter.  Note: looks like this planting failed, too.

The picture doesn't really show it but it's clear to see the nitrogen nodules on the clover roots.

This crazy chicken followed me all the way down to the garden and then hung out there all day.

Getting into Fall

Lot of stuff to record and report on...

The double standard open pollinated sweet corn was a disappointment.  Flavor is marginal and it quickly gets over ripe without ever having made obvious signs of being ripe.  So it's hard to know when to harvest.  Also, the ears are small.  Right now I am just tossing a few stalks into the pasture each day for fodder.

The popcorn looks good and I can't wait for it to dry down enough to try popping!

The black lentils never really showed up and I think I will just pull them up. The plants have about two lentils on them and not much more.  The flint corn looks strong and it is surviving occasional onslaughts from raccoons and the like.  The dragon tongue beans dried down nicely and I harvested them for seed.  The red beans have longer to take before they dry down.

A few serranos have ripened now.

The clover that was planted into the barley and frost seeded into the Turkey Red winter wheat has grown strongly.  I'm not sure if I will attempt to Fall plow it or not.

It took multiple tries with the team to dig up the old ground that was snap peas, Red Fife Spring Wheat, and garlic.  I really need to make improvements to the drag so it won't trash up as easily.  The red clover that I seeded into the the spring wheat was probably just a hindrance.  I drilled in oats and peas, even though I should have gotten it in a month ago.

The zucchini is just about done and winter squash must be a couple weeks away.  I have eaten a couple of cantaloupe so far.  The parsnips are a pleasant surprise and they are coming up strong (for me), meaning about 75% germination.  But I never watered them.

I plan to harvest and thresh the buckwheat, even though I have no idea how.

The second to last work session before planting oats and peas into that strip.

All kinds of harvesting

July is the traditional time when gardeners run out of steam and I am no exception.  Peas, beets, and lettuce are going to waste as I fail to keep up with the harvesting.  The stand is moving a little more product now, but never what I want.  Yellow squash is out--no one wants any.  Cucumbers and Zucchini are good sellers, and so is the garlic.  I have put out some onions and they are selling OK.  Potatoes are a sore point.  I have nearly unlimited quantities of high quality new potatoes, but they won't move at any price.  Oh, well.

Somewhere around July 21 I began to peck away at the wheat.  The patch of Turkey was really too much--why did I plant so much???  But over the course of a week I got it shocked and in the barn.  My sickle broke the first day and I had to whittle the handle down to new wood and re-mount the blade and cradle.  The undersown clover makes harvest much more difficult.  But without the cradle I would probably have given up.  It was really too big a patch to cut with a knife or hand sickle.

The red fife spring wheat was even tougher to cradle, in fact, all the cradle did was mostly to make a big mess.  I ended up hand cutting most of the red fife.  After that I pulled all the remaining peas and put them in the shed to dry, hoping I can thresh out dry peas in a couple of weeks.  We'll see.

The buckwheat sown to the new ground took well, but in the strip where some manure leached over it is doing considerably better.  In the untreated new ground it is so-so.  On a warm day it is so filled with bees, wild and domestic, that you can hear a humming buzz from 50 feet away.

Cucurbits are doing well.  These are the cucumbers, of which I am missing a bunch which end up being too big.  I just pick them and leave to rot.  Same with the zucchini and squash--I miss a lot of them.  There will be plenty of delicata and butternuts, too!

Here is how the clover sown under the Turkey Red winter wheat and the barley ended up looking after harvest.  My hope is to graze the animals in here before plowing, but I will need to purchase some electric netting to make a good temporary fence for this.

One of the flint corn ears developed this bizarre ginormous smut.  All the other flint looks very good.  Weird, the double standard sweet corn on the other side of the clover got knocked down a bit by a recent thunderstorm, but the taller flint stalks look fine.

Overall I did not plan well for the beginning of August.  I wanted to do some aggressive winter planting, but really there was no good open ground for this.  I plowed the red fife ground a few days ago, but the clover really clogged up the plow and it will need to be dragged several times before it is clean.  I think I will just clean it up and seed to oats and peas for early veggies next year.  I drilled in some triple rows of spinach and lettuce where I have been pulling out beets, so at least I got something into the ground for winter.  I hope to have the portable greenhouse in the garden this winter.

The row of parsnips is alive!  Probably 60% or more germination.  The bok choi on the other half of the row looks like swiss cheese--cabbage beetles all over the leaves.  Time to give up on this plant.