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Busy Busy Meeeee
Sep. 18th, 2019 07:31 pmThis past weekend I went to PA, and got some things done. I got there right around dark Friday night, so I wasn't able to do anything in my field.
Saturday morning, I disked and planted a field of rye that will be a winter cover > straw harvest in May > no till pumpkins. Really cool thing dad and I have been working on implementing for a while now. This year was the first for attempting no till pumpkins and it worked well, with no real difference between the no till and the conventional tilled. This is a good thing, because a conventional till needs a plowing and a disking, both operations that take a long time and tractor energy, and then planting. While no till is just an herbicide spray and planting (generally. In general, the conventional till also needs an herbicide spray so it evens out there). Plus, conventional tilled fields need to be a certain moisture level in order to have them work properly to prepare the soil. Too wet is the usual issue in the spring, although if it gets too dry, disking can make some dust clouds and that's bye bye top soil. So maintaining cover helps even out moisture levels and then we don't have to do those things at all!
One of the potential cons of no till is that the ground takes longer to warm up in the spring, the plant cover shades and keeps the soil cooler longer. I don't think that will be an issue for us, we generally plant pumpkins in June, when we are frost free and things have warmed up anyway. If we were planting in mid-May, I'd be concerned but we aren't.
So the rye will grow over the winter and then we will cut it with the hay bine in may or so, when it's put on a lot of growth but before it has set seed. Small grains in our climate need a full summer, or most of a summer to mature a grain crop and we don't have quite enough ground for a good rotation to fit that in. Plus it will keep the straw from being full of rye seed since the straw will be used on our strawberries!
Then no till plant pumpkins in, which dad did by modifying the planter to have a wavy coulter in front of the planting mechanism to open a little slit for the seeds. The main concern would be closing the slit, which some planters have issues with but the planter has rubber closing disks and they work well. And then we have pumpkins!
So I did that field stuff. There was some shenanigans withe the drill, it was only planting half rate, which I discovered it had a half rate sprocket on it since the previous owner used it for soybeans so that mystery was solved. And then I got rained on, but only like, drizzle for ten minutes, just enough to make me damp.
Then after that, I did some mowing cleanup near the fall selling area around the strawberry fields. Basically those fields are in their third year and so full of very large weeds. To make it look less bad, I just mowed off the tops of the weeds lol.
Then sunday, I harvested all the things. It was my last harvest before a potential frost so I pulled all the stuff that would be hit by the cold, peppers, tomatoes, etc. I mean, there's a possibility I might get lucky but generally first frost is the first week of October. I had done some the night before after walking the dogs, and finished up in the morning. Didn't get everything I wanted but a lot of stuff. Five types of peppers, a bunch of tomatoes, cowpeas, beans, adzuki beans, watermelons, melons, rice, and other stuff that I can't think of right now.
After, I cleaned my truck out, loaded up pumpkin bins and packed all my stuff up. The pumpkin bins were being returned to a grower up in NY, who dad bought pumpkins from last year and got a lower price if he returned the bins. We procrastinated a little. The bins are big, like four feet by six feet by three inches folded up and I had a stack of 20 or so. I had to play some tetris and I had only brought bulky things I was fine leaving behind, but I got all my harvest and stuff fit up against my cab and the bins behind it and thoroughly strapped down
I got the bins dropped off and the grower tried to pay me for them. Which wasn't really fair, because I was returning bins that he'd already given us a discount for. So I said, no payment. And then he insisted on giving me something for it. I agreed, so he gave me three and a half giant sacks of sweet corn and a couple of melons.
Then I drove to the apartment, unloaded my truck and processed two of the bags that night, being at least 70 ears of sweet corn. Got them cooked, kernels cut off and into the freezer. I didn't get the others done and now I need to get rid of them because they are way too starchy now, but I'm pleased because I have three and a half gallons of sweet corn in my freezer now.
I hit my limit for processing vegetables, and I actually won't be doing anything with my tomatoes either because I'm just tired. Work has also been contributing to this, with grape/strawberry trial harvests on monday, butternut trial harvest tuesday, kobocha squash trial harvest today, and apple trial harvest tomorrow.
Me and Jade are going on a trip this weekend too (taking friday off work), so all in all, I have very bad timing but I'm pretty proud of everything I got done.
I was going to try and upload pictures but flickr pooped itself and won't upload anything.
Saturday morning, I disked and planted a field of rye that will be a winter cover > straw harvest in May > no till pumpkins. Really cool thing dad and I have been working on implementing for a while now. This year was the first for attempting no till pumpkins and it worked well, with no real difference between the no till and the conventional tilled. This is a good thing, because a conventional till needs a plowing and a disking, both operations that take a long time and tractor energy, and then planting. While no till is just an herbicide spray and planting (generally. In general, the conventional till also needs an herbicide spray so it evens out there). Plus, conventional tilled fields need to be a certain moisture level in order to have them work properly to prepare the soil. Too wet is the usual issue in the spring, although if it gets too dry, disking can make some dust clouds and that's bye bye top soil. So maintaining cover helps even out moisture levels and then we don't have to do those things at all!
One of the potential cons of no till is that the ground takes longer to warm up in the spring, the plant cover shades and keeps the soil cooler longer. I don't think that will be an issue for us, we generally plant pumpkins in June, when we are frost free and things have warmed up anyway. If we were planting in mid-May, I'd be concerned but we aren't.
So the rye will grow over the winter and then we will cut it with the hay bine in may or so, when it's put on a lot of growth but before it has set seed. Small grains in our climate need a full summer, or most of a summer to mature a grain crop and we don't have quite enough ground for a good rotation to fit that in. Plus it will keep the straw from being full of rye seed since the straw will be used on our strawberries!
Then no till plant pumpkins in, which dad did by modifying the planter to have a wavy coulter in front of the planting mechanism to open a little slit for the seeds. The main concern would be closing the slit, which some planters have issues with but the planter has rubber closing disks and they work well. And then we have pumpkins!
So I did that field stuff. There was some shenanigans withe the drill, it was only planting half rate, which I discovered it had a half rate sprocket on it since the previous owner used it for soybeans so that mystery was solved. And then I got rained on, but only like, drizzle for ten minutes, just enough to make me damp.
Then after that, I did some mowing cleanup near the fall selling area around the strawberry fields. Basically those fields are in their third year and so full of very large weeds. To make it look less bad, I just mowed off the tops of the weeds lol.
Then sunday, I harvested all the things. It was my last harvest before a potential frost so I pulled all the stuff that would be hit by the cold, peppers, tomatoes, etc. I mean, there's a possibility I might get lucky but generally first frost is the first week of October. I had done some the night before after walking the dogs, and finished up in the morning. Didn't get everything I wanted but a lot of stuff. Five types of peppers, a bunch of tomatoes, cowpeas, beans, adzuki beans, watermelons, melons, rice, and other stuff that I can't think of right now.
After, I cleaned my truck out, loaded up pumpkin bins and packed all my stuff up. The pumpkin bins were being returned to a grower up in NY, who dad bought pumpkins from last year and got a lower price if he returned the bins. We procrastinated a little. The bins are big, like four feet by six feet by three inches folded up and I had a stack of 20 or so. I had to play some tetris and I had only brought bulky things I was fine leaving behind, but I got all my harvest and stuff fit up against my cab and the bins behind it and thoroughly strapped down
I got the bins dropped off and the grower tried to pay me for them. Which wasn't really fair, because I was returning bins that he'd already given us a discount for. So I said, no payment. And then he insisted on giving me something for it. I agreed, so he gave me three and a half giant sacks of sweet corn and a couple of melons.
Then I drove to the apartment, unloaded my truck and processed two of the bags that night, being at least 70 ears of sweet corn. Got them cooked, kernels cut off and into the freezer. I didn't get the others done and now I need to get rid of them because they are way too starchy now, but I'm pleased because I have three and a half gallons of sweet corn in my freezer now.
I hit my limit for processing vegetables, and I actually won't be doing anything with my tomatoes either because I'm just tired. Work has also been contributing to this, with grape/strawberry trial harvests on monday, butternut trial harvest tuesday, kobocha squash trial harvest today, and apple trial harvest tomorrow.
Me and Jade are going on a trip this weekend too (taking friday off work), so all in all, I have very bad timing but I'm pretty proud of everything I got done.
I was going to try and upload pictures but flickr pooped itself and won't upload anything.
