The weekend rain has been very welcome on the farm. The long dry spell was starting to worry us, but the cover crops in the farm fields and the grasses in the restoration area have all hung on and should now take off again with new growth. Another storm system coming in the next week or so will help to keep things growing.
It may seem odd to worry about how well the cover crop does, since we don’t harvest and sell this “crop.” But cover crops serve an important role on a diverse organic farm like ours. The winter cover crop (a mixture of peas, bell beans, vetch, and oats) is our main source of nitrogen “fertilizer” for the food crops we will plant later. The legumes (peas, beans, and vetch) have a symbiotic relationship with tiny bacteria on their roots, which form little nodules that store nitrogen absorbed by the plant from the atmosphere. Aside from nitrogen, the cover crop, which is mowed down and worked into the soil a few weeks before planting, nourishes the soil with organic matter and a full spectrum of nutrients. The more mass of plant matter we get from the cover crop the better.
The health of this year’s cover crops is particularly welcome since last year’s cover crops were stunted by lack of rain. The health of the soil is a matter of longterm management. One year of poor cover crops will have some effect on the health of the food crops we grow there, but we could see a much greater detrimental effect if we were to experience multiple years without a good cover crop.
Our greenhouse is filling up with starts. We are trying several new varieties this year including a Japanese tomato variety called Momotaro, several new multi-colored cherry tomatoes, and a few Japanese specialty peppers—Shishito and Manganji. Other starts in the greenhouse include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco, lettuce of all types, fennel, celery, basil and soon we will start plants for an early round of transplanted “summer” squash—Zucchini, Costata Romanesco, Yellow Crookneck, and Cousa varieties.
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