The South Field

My dream begins with 3 fields. The term plot is more accurate but we will use the term fields. Whatever we call them, they are frozen and covered with a foot of snow. There isnt a whole lot of planting and growing this time of year; we can only plan. There is a danger in planning too much. Some plans depend on experience and experience can only be gained by planting and growing. So my winter goal is to document my summer goals and timelines then fill in the details later.

So lets discuss these fields: the South, North and Big fields. I have grown mixed vegetables in the South field for two years. I grew sorghum x sudangrass in the North field to loosen the soil and add organic matter. The Big field is still fallow. The South and North fields each measure 50' x 50' and the Big field will measure 50' x 100'

The South field has a proven crop history. This year I want to trial various tomatos, peppers and soybeans. The tomatos will be a mixture of dark, red, orange and yellow slicers, processing tomatoes, red cherries and tomatillos. The peppers will be a mixture of green, yellow, orange and red bells, orange and red European style gourmet peppers, and pungent peppers. The soybeans will be edamame grade.

Even the astute reader will not notice any big-wows buried in the last paragraph. These are all safe choices for a very definite reason: the primary goal for the South field is to trial drip irrigation. The other goals include white clover living mulch cover crop and tweaking my disease and pest management.

This leaves plenty of open space for fun stuff for the kitchen table.

Next time we will discuss the North field.