Fall Production Update

This week we are planting out the last of our vegetable transplants and the first blocks of overwintering cover crops. We give ourselves a deadline of October 15th to get the steeper, erosive hillsides in cover crops so that they will be well established by the time the heavier rains arrive, usually by the later half of November and into December. This year we are mainly back to our old standby, a variety of rye that was developed at the University of Florida that has preformed well for us. Last year we experimented briefly with triticale, a cross between wheat and rye, but after an impressive start it was stricken with rust disease which it was never able to grow out of. We switched almost entirely to cereal (rye, oats, barley and the like) cover crops some time ago mainly for weed control. Researchers at UC Cooperative Extension and the USDA confirmed what I had long ago suspected–many weeds were able to compete with legume (bell beans, peas, vetch and the like) cover crops well enough to set viable seeds in the understory thus increasing weed problems for years to come in the cash crops that are planted after them. This is especially true for some of our worst weed species here–burning nettle and malva. During cold stretches in Fall, nettle will actually outgrow most legumes–a distressing sight for sure. Even though the legumes eventually catch up to, and overtake the nettles, they have already set thousands of seeds and the damage has been done. That is not the case with cereal cover crops–especially rye which emerges from the ground with impressive vigor. When planted at high seeding rates it effectively overshadows most weeds. One of my favorite things about rye is that it takes very little moisture for it to germinate. Usually when we disc down a vegetable crop after it has been harvested, we can follow it with a rye cover crop and it will germinate without any additional water, even if it has been several weeks since we last irrigated that field. The trick is to plant it deep enough for it to tap into the residual moisture in the field. And since the soil surface is nearly completely dry, almost no other weeds germinate which means it has little if any competition. 

Elsewhere on the farm, the Brussels Sprouts are starting to swell up and look nearly free of aphids which are the main reason I haven’t grown them in a long time. The problem is that they take forever to mature and just sit there throughout the entire season waiting to be infested. But this year, that infestation never came. In fact it has been one of the lightest aphid years I can remember, something I partially attribute to staying on top of our alysum insectory plantings which help to maintain high populations of syrphid flies and other beneficial insects.

Although I never detested Brussels Spouts with the same fervor that many do, I have to admit that they were never my favorite vegetable. That was before we tried roasting them–now I am crazy about them. Tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted in a hot oven until they are brown and caramelized on the outside while sweet and moist on the inside–Yum, I can’t wait. If you haven’t tried them that way, you must! And starting in a few weeks when they start to appear in your boxes you will get your chance.