October Harvest: The Farm Report 10-5-2018

October Harvest

The Farm Report: 10-05-2018

 
October! One of my favorite months. I am resolved to show a picture from my shop window the first of each month for a year. I know, it looks a lot like September. But the view changes daily, and this will be fun for me - hopefully without being too boring for you. Even the morning and evening light changes the view. We always felt we knew the prairie artist Grant Wood better for having seen this change in the countryside take place.

Click here to see the pictures in Google Albums

Gone are the days of a team of horses and a wagon for picking the corn. These giant green machines are everywhere, and they make quick work of the harvest. At their cost, they must! of course.

The buckwheat cover crop is now only a few weeks old and my how it grows! 

It will soon be time to till it into the soil and replace it with yet another planting to add even more goodness for next year's gardens. Gardening, like farming, never 'stops' for the year. It just changes focus with the seasons and keeps going. I like that. There is a certain peace one gets from being actively engaged in the cycles of life.

Buckwheat has a special feature - besides growing so fast! - that makes it an excellent cover crop. The stems are hollow. When they are cut and tilled into the soil, the little tubes allow more oxygen to be incorporated into the composting vegetation. The good soil bacteria depend on this. 

Oxygen starved soil allows 'anaerobic' bacteria to grow - and that is bad. The stink from the bottom of the mud pit comes from those little bad boys. We don't like it, and neither do the plants.

What it looks like when you run over the garden hose with the lawn mower.... I'll say no more. 

Didja see'em? 

Look again. On the ground in the gap between the two bushes sits a small covey of quail! Look Close! (Click here to see the pictures better in Google Albums.) As luck would have it, just as I was looking out the window the other day, I actually saw a covey fly from the newly harvested cornfield and glide right up to my backdoor bushes. There were about a dozen of them. It had just started raining, and they were headed for cover. We were gifted a Maynard Reese print of quail in a grassy corn field recently. I remarked then that I actually see scenes just like the one in the painting. Well, I do! But usually not right at my back door. Look again and you'll see my grill sitting there just waiting for 'em to fly on a little farther. Mmmmmmm. Me and O.J. both enjoy our wildlife in multiple ways. :) Have a good week. All is well here at Oakdale Farm.