Fall Veggies Emerging from Soil

When we directly seed veggies into the soil there is a period of time of waiting for the seeds to germinate and start growing.

Some veggies like arugula germinate rapidly and within a few days we are able to see the tiny plants while others like carrots take much longer.

During those days of waiting we have to keep the soil moisture level very consistent so that the seeds don’t dry up or the clay soil we have crusts over preventing the germinating seed from going above the soil level.

It is very exciting to see the carrots have germinated and are starting to grow. They are the most challenging crop to successfully direct seed and now our attention turns to weeding them in a little bit.

Carrots grow slowly at the beginning so once they get to a decent we have to weed them since the weeds grow quicker.

At the same time we are doing lots of direct seeding, we are transplanting many greens and brassicas every week.

This week we planted a few beds of broccoli and broccolini yesterday and tomorrow we will plants lots of lettuce along with some more brassicas.

The first transplants we planted a few weeks ago we are seeing a good amount of new leaves and as every new leaf grows the photosynthesis and growth increases a little bit.

Every week we are preparing more areas to be planted to keep up with everything we are direct seeding and transplanting weekly.

With the early slowdown of summer veggies and still waiting on the first fall veggies to be ready to harvest we have decided to take a few weeks off from the San Rafael Thursday Farmers Market beginning this week until we have more to harvest.

We still will be at the Davis Farmers Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

As summer is wrapping up we are already starting to plan for next year including checking out the local farm auctions to see if there is anything at them that would be beneficial for the farm.

Unfortunately the reason most of these auctions occur is that a farm is shutting down due to financial challenger or there is so one able to continue the operation.

Last week we were able to get a few items at a local auction including a small trailer that we can pull behind our cart and a pallet jack.

Tomorrow there is another auction taking place that we have our eye on a few items if they are within the price range we are willing to pay for them. Because these auctions are all online sometimes the bidding can go wild and you have to show restraint to stay within the budget.

Last year we started participating in the auctions as we needed some used equipment for the new, larger property and we were able to find some of it available locally.

We don’t bid on items in auctions far away as we would have to pay for the transport of the items instead of us just picking it up. We likely would not be able to take a day to go inspect them before we bid on them.

Pictures don’t show how well the mechanical parts of a piece of equipment work and everything at auctions is bought as is.