The weather and date has signaled the change of the season and now the summer veggies are showing that their season is reaching the end.
The amount we are harvesting is significantly slowing down and the plants are struggling along.
As we get later into October and the weather changes we are not sure which summer veggies will continue surviving the weather and are able to produce ripe crops.
There is forecasted to be a sprinkle of rain tonight and tomorrow that at most will get the top of the soil wet and the plant leaves wet.
Coming with this drizzle is the cloudy weather which has also brought more moisture into the air.
Moisture is not liked by the summer crops as it causes the plants to have a higher chance of disease and be stressed out. Plants that are stressed can ripen rapidly if they feel like they may not have another chance to go to seed.
That stress of the changing weather is what causes those crops to ripen a last time of the season.
At the end of this month we will likely pull out all the irrigation and mow down all the summer crops. It depends on how the weather is but the end of October is usually when the first significant rain comes.
Some of our summer crops are already showing signs of them being practically done. We are picking very few cucumbers and the summer squash plants are about out of energy.
All the summer crops will get mowed in and then cover crop grown there which will get mowed down in the spring before we plant the next crop.
By the end of the month we also will have most of our fall and winter veggies planted in the field and everything else will be planted in cover crop for the winter.
As we keep harvesting more of fall crops we are also seeing the first of the garlic emerge from the soil. It is so exciting to see them germinate after we planted the cloves a couple weeks ago and hope they all come up soon so they can grow quicker before the cold.
We have also been doing a lot of office work planning for next season and working on larger projects. Some of them take awhile to get going so we have to start on them now to hopefully have them up and running in the spring.
For others we are making progress on now with deliveries and hopefully one thing we will have all ready to go in the next couple of weeks.
All the projects are focused on helping the farm grow more delicious and high quality fruits and veggies year round.
