Mowing summer crops to plant cover crop

All summer long we spent most of our days in the summer crops harvesting them and in one day yesterday almost all of them were mowed down.

The harvest has come to the end for all of our summer crops, except for Genovese Basil, so yesterday we mowed them and seeded the fields with cover crop ahead of the forecasted rain.

Today there is expected to be around three-quarters of an inch of rain on the farm which will help the cover crop germinate and all the veggies in the ground will enjoy.

Even in the rain we are still harvesting for the Davis Farmers Market this afternoon.

In addition to helping the cover crop germinate, the rain will help the residue from the summer crops we mowed down to decompose and turn into organic matter in the soil where all the microbes are living.

The cover crop is a mix of a variety of species that help fix the nitrogen, suppress weeds and add organic matter to the soil. Keeping plants growing in the soil over the winter is very helpful for when it rains as the water infiltrates quicker into the soil.

To make the last week even busier, on Thursday we planted the garlic we grow for cured bulbs. It will be growing until next May or early June when we will harvest it.

Earlier we planted garlic cloves from our bad bulbs of garlic to harvest as green garlic in the new year but the garlic cloves for cured bulbs comes from Terra Firma Farm. They do a large bulk order from a big garlic grower that produces much more consistent high quality bulbs of garlic than what we save.

While we are mowing down all of our summer crops and most of our fall veggies have already been started harvesting there are still a number of exciting ones to come.

Last Friday we started harvesting the broccolini. First we harvest a slightly larger head of broccolini that is still very tender and that signals to the plant to start producing the side shoots.

Despite the difference in weather with it being cooler this year than last we began harvesting the broccolini at the same time.

The one difference for the broccolini and all of our early fall planted crops is that this year they did not have to deal with the triple digit temperatures at the start of October as they did in 2024. That caused the plants a lot of stress and there is a visible difference for many of the veggies this year.

Without the stress the plants were able to focus on growing their roots and leaves so we are harvesting larger leaves of chard and kale this year. Additionally, the plants are stronger so hopefully that will help them grow better throughout the winter producing the entire time.