red sky at morning...

...sailors take warning.

This was the sky this morning at 7am.  It was  beautiful predictor of a less than wonderful day.  I was hoping to have the morning to get a couple rows in the garden raised and seeded with cover crops but ended up finishing in the sprinkles and walking back to the house in the downpour.  We have had wind all day but only got about a half inch of rain.  I was able to get back out and snap a couple pictures of the cornfield.

This picture is what I was working on this morning.  In this picture the tan colored rows are the dry grass clippings that are mulching the permanent walking/picking rows.  The two rows on the right have been seeded with the oats and have sprouted and are about two inches tall.  The next two rows were planted a couple days ago but they have not sprouted yet.  The two black rows farthest left in the picture are the rows that were finished today.  There was a trench dug.  The trench has a layer of straw, then a layer of compost.  Then the soil is filled back in creating a raised area for growing.  Then the raised area was seeded with oats for a cover crop.  A quick guesstimate is that there is probably room for another ten raised rows in the area that held the vine crops and my hope is to get that area cleared of this year's vines and weeds and get those raised rows created and seeded while there is still time for the cover crop to get established.

Where the tomatoes are growing the raised rows were created in the spring and they just need to have the plants removed, a quick layer of compost added and the cover crop seeded.  Where the potatoes and sweet potatoes are still in the ground those root crops need to be dug  which hopefully will leave a trench that can have straw and compost added, soil replaced and cover crops seeded.

This is a picture of Row 7.  This is the center row of potatoes.  They have been dug up and a raised row created and seeded.  On either side are the permanent walking/picking rows which are mulched with the dry grass clippings and then the rows of potatoes still needing to be dug.  The plants have died back leaving only the weeds.  Hopefully soon we will have a striped south half of the garden.

In news of the greenhouse, it was cloudy today so the greenhouse was much cooler than it has been the past few days.  With the fan running we were still having 110+ degrees inside.  Yesterday I unplugged the heat mats.  We had a some of the first planted seeds germinate but the rest have not poked thru yet.  I don't know if the heat from the greenhouse is affecting it but I took off the clear plastic covers so it wouldn't cook any seedlings that did pop up a couple days ago and yesterday I unplugged the heat mat since it has been so warm in there.

My plan for seeding was to seed five trays of cell packs and as they germinated move them off of the mats and onto the tables near the glazing.  Today i decided that if i was not using the heat mats I would not be limited to what would fit on the mats and seeded two more trays.  Tomorrow I will plan to seed another couple of trays.  Hopefully soon the rest will germinate.  the ones that are germinated are getting a little bigger, some are an inch tall.    Having stuff growing in the greenhouse makes the end of the summer garden season not quite so sad.

cover cropping

This year I am adding a new step to the things that we do to improve the soil vitality and I am planting cover crops.  Cover crops that are planted in the fall and left in place until spring and then turned under serve several purposes.  They help keep the soil in place and reduces the amount lost to wind or erosion.  They provide a type of green manure that feeds the soil as well as reducing weeds the following year.

I was looking for a local source to obtain a cover crop and happened into Runnings to see if they had anything available.  They had a rye seed but it was a perennial and in visiting with one  of the staff she said that she uses oats for her cover crop needs.  Runnings does sell oats.  It is found in the equine section and it looks like this:

Yep.  Horse feed.  My goal is to cover crop each raised row in the garden as it is harvested and to create raised rows where they did not get made in the spring.  I am not sure what to do with the corn ground.  I am not sure if I will get all the corn stalks out of there in time to get a cover crop planted and growing this fall.  It may be a spring project.  We still have lots of crops still in the ground.  today was a beautiful day to be working outside.  It was crisp and cool this morning and sunny and warm this afternoon.  Yesterday's 4/10th of an inch of rain left the ground moist but by the end of the day it was not really muddy.  I was able to get cover crops planted on five rows, two of which were new raised rows.  I picked up the long grass clippings from yesterday's mowing and spread it on a couple of the walking and picking rows and mowed in front of the house.  Still lots of mowing to do and lots of places to spread grass clippings.  I love fall.