We're entering November! Once we get to Thanksgiving, our "regular" farmers market season will wrap up. But it isn't over until it's over! And....it's never over. Not for us. We've been building all those high tunnels and root storage units and greenhouses so that we can keep on keepin' on. We will be at frequent markets all through the winter, so do not despair a fresh produce famine. We have your back! Next week we will publish our full winter market schedule in this email on on our website.
This week's Farmers Markets: Thursday: Princeton Farmers Market from 10 to 3 Friday:Rutgers Gardens 11 to 5 Saturday: Metuchen Market 9 to 2 in the new town plaza! Garden Street Farmers Market 9 to 2 in Hoboken and Pennington Farmers Market 9 to 1 Sunday: Summit from 8-1 and Denville from 8:30 -1
Cover crop Vetch roots with good bacterial nodules
Last week I promised (threatened?) that I would serenade you with the lofty praises of cover crops. It's time! Cover crops are some of my very favorite things to grow, but you never get to see them at market!
Cover crops are plants farmers grow to improve their soil. What improvements? Nutrient retention, increasing soil organic matter, reducing erosion, busting through compacted layers with their roots, smothering out weeds, providing habitat for beneficial microbes, increasing plant available nitrogen....those are all services that cover crops can provide, depending on which species you're growing, and what time of year you're growing them. That is pretty incredible, right?! That you can do those things for your soil with PLANTS, instead of always just adding fertilizer and compost, or using plows?
There are so many different species of cover crops, and they each can be used as a tool/partner/coworker for a best purpose.
For example, sorghum-sudan grass can be grown quickly in the summer to smother out a flush of competing weeds, and then be plowed in to increase soil organic matter. Double whammy- less weeds, more soil fluff.
Right now we're planting a lot of winter rye along with vetch. The rye out-competes weeds, has strong extensive roots that will keep the soil form eroding in the winter, and is a good nutrient forager, sponging up all the nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium etc that our veggies crops didn't use and keeping them in the soil system for next year. A triple! Combining vetch into the mix actually grows fertilizer for next year- vetch is in the group of plants called a legume, which forms a symbiotic relationship with a soil bacterium called Rhizobium and turn nitrogen gas (which is 80% of our ground level atmosphere) into a plant available form. Growing vetch can be the same as applying two hundred pounds of nitrogen fertiizer per acre. In first picture, you can actually see the nodules that Rhizobium is making on the vetch roots. How cool is that?!
We also grow an oats and peas mixture that does the same mixture of jobs for us as the rye and vetch, except they are a little less winter hardy, and will be near or completely killed off by March. That is intentional...we plant those where we want to be able to plant vegetables early in the spring, so that there isn't a living cover crop that would first have to be killed off, delaying an early seeding.
One key about cover crops is that to harvest all those benefits, you don't harvest the crop. After it grows, it gets tilled back into the soil. On the farm, most of the growing we do it extractive. We grow a pepper plant, it makes peppers, we take the peppers away and sell them to you. That extracts nutrients off the farm. Cover crops help us turn the tables and give back to our soil. We try as hard as possible to make sure we get a cover crop planted as soon as the vegetable crop is finished on a piece of ground so that we're taking the best possible care of our soil. Last week all the tender summer crops were mowed down and plowed into the soil and cover crop promptly seeded. The crops that will still be growing for a while, like carrots and beets, were also seeded with cover crop right between the rows of the vegetables- see this beautiful carrot and rye pic? This is our way to try and make sure the cover crop roots get well established in time. Rye should get planted by November, but the carrots won't get harvested until mid-December, so a bit of creativity is needed!
I hope you made it through this mini-lecture on cover crops. It's a REALLY important part of responsible, sustainable farming. Home gardeners- you can do it too!!! We have some extra seed, get in touch if you want some!
This is carrots (ferny tops) interseeded with rye (spiky blades). The carrots will be harvested quite late in the year, so Kyle planted it amidst the carrots the last time we weeded them
Eat well, from you friendly neighborhood cover crop dealers
-Jess, writing for Chelsea, Darci, Kelsey, Kyle, Lara, Monica, Morgan, and Scott
At Pennington and Hoboken only: Mother Earth Organic Mushrooms
At Pennington, Hoboken and Summit: Solebury Orchards Apples
*may be limited, cold weather slows some things down
Arugula*
Beets
Broccoli Greens- like a tender collard green
Cabbage- red and green from Tuscarora Organic Growers Coopartive (TOG)
Carrots- orange and rainbow colors
Celery Root
Garlic
Kale
Ketchup- regular and hot!
Kohlrabi
Rolled Oats
Onions
Peppers: green bells, red sweet peppers,
Shishitos Peppers
Hot peppers: Serranos, Jalapenos, Pobanoes, and Habaneros
Potatoes- regular and fingerlings
Radishes
Salsa
Scallions
Spinach*
Sweet Potatoes
Tatsoi*
Tomato sauce
Fresh herbs: cilantro, dill, chives, oregano, and sage
Winter squash: butternut, acorn varieties and cheese pumpkins
Watermelon Radishes*
Roasting Turnips*
