Our new soil improvement method. Plant cover crop of rye and field peas, then graze cows on it for manure application.
We woke up on Memorial Day and took a hard, honest look at the farm. What were we going to pick for the week?
The nice, warm weather had urged the kale and turnip (sources of all the broccolini/rapini bunches) into full bloom. We had plenty of pea shoots. The new spinach, arugula, and garlic crops were not quite ready. We had sorrel, mint, and dandelions. But how many people really want dandelions—again.
Since we started the Spring Season a week earlier than planned, we chose to skip a week. Another week of growing time would hopefully encourage the shorter crops to grow big enough for bunching.
We will be giving the Winter subscribers a voucher in exchange for the two weeks we missed due to freezing in January. If you had a Winter Share last year, you will get an email and a voucher.
What will we do with our “week off”? We will be doing a final cleanup around the farm, and planting a whole lot of new crops. It will be an exciting week.
The new golden calf, Dulce de Leche. This is Beauty's 10th calf, she's turning 14 this year.
And, of course, we will be adoring our newest addition: Dulce the calf. She is Beauty’s 10th baby, and she is a perfect little girl.
We are implementing our newest soil improvement plan. Probably old as farming itself, but we just finally figured out how to put the timing together. We planted a cover crop last fall, of fall rye and field peas. Cows love this crop, so we set up an electric fence around the whole patch, and divided it into chunks. The cows thoroughly enjoy this feast of cow candy, and they grace it with lots of rich manure. We will rotate them around the chunks until it is quite well-fertilized, and then we will prepare it for planting. This is where the fall/winter greens will go. They should be nice and healthy.
The bees love hawthorn trees. Look at all those amazing flowers. Plenty of forage to last until the blackberries start blooming.
Whistling Train Farm 