The warm and dry fall weather has allowed us to keep working outside, putting the farm to bed for the winter and prepare for next year. As soon as we get a section cleared out of weeds and debris, and the soil tilled, we plant cover crops. The cover crops drill down into the soil, loosening it up, keeping any weeds suppressed, and will die off over the winter leaving nutrients behind to build the soil. It’s all about the soil for us. The better the soil, the more beneficial critters like worms and insects arrive to help us grow our produce. It helps things taste better as well. The mustard seed blend we use also has turned out to be really popular among the local bee population. On a sunny day, you can hear the bees before you can see them. The ex-pickle patch, now covered by yellow mustard, fairly hums as the bees too are busy before cold weather sets in. The mustard also leaves behind a chemical that is repugnant to harmful insects and helps ward them off for the next season. It also is just pretty. We’ve had neighbors stop by and ask what the beautiful new flowers are.
My personal favorite fall job is taking care of the orchard. It involves a lot dreaming — something I’m really good at. Fran always teases me about spending more time leaning on a hoe than using it … I don’t know if I’ll be around long enough to see it all happen, but I don’t care. I smile to myself in anticipation as I imagine the apples, pears, peaches and plums getting picked off the trees and taken to market. New trees have been installed, and orchard grass planted, making mowing easier. Each tree has its own recycled rubber ring around it. These rings keep the weeds down around the trees so when they are small they don’t have to compete for resources — and I don’t have to weed whack as often. In the fall, I take the rings up, clean them and give each tree a slow release fertilizer beneath the rings, so they have something to eat, and carefully replace them. Around the trunk of each tree I have guards that I made from flexible drain pipe. These guards keep the bark from splitting in the sun on those early spring days when everything tries to burst out in new growth, and also keeps the rabbits and field mice from eating the bark in the winter. I’m most excited about the new pear trees. Fran told me about sugar pears that she loved when she was a girl, so I did some internet detective work and found seven of them. I think they produced six pears this fall that we promptly ate. I’m hoping they make enough to bring to market next year.
The job we both dread is the annual trimming of the raspberry canes, especially the black raspberries. These raspberries have some wicked thorns, and get horribly tangled up. I keep them in check with 10-foot steel posts and steel wire to hold the canes up. The goal is to cut anything smaller than a pencil in diameter, anything dead, anything that has dropped on the ground and tried to re-root, and to keep the crown of the plant to 4-5 main canes. We dress in clothing least likely to get stuck on thorns, wear leather gloves, grit our teeth and have at it. The more we tug and cut, the more likely one of the canes will come around and slap me upside the head reminding me how foolish I was not to grab that pair of safety glasses hanging up in the barn. I always come out looking like I’ve been herding barn cats though a car wash. Adding insult to injury, the raspberry canes leave tiny thorns in any exposed flesh, making my hands very tender for weeks. I long to go back to the orchard. The grass is always greener on the other side of the farm …
As we look to the future and try to work smarter, not harder, some of the things we look at is what crops really beat us up physically. I’m pretty sure we’re not going to raise potatoes for market anymore. My knees and back won’t take it, and we are looking to do the same with some other crops. Fields by the road out front have been planted as a wildflower meadow already. We can’t wait for the neighbors to see that one.
All the best from Alan and Fran at Greenrock Farm.