Greetings from The Neighborhood Farm!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We hope you all have some fantastic
local food on your tables next Thursday.
With any luck, we'll have some food for your Thanksgiving tables
next year. This year we are experimenting with growing a few crops
under row cover. Row cover is a special fabric that is placed over
crops. The fabric covering provides insulation to keep plants from
freezing, while allowing most of the light and rain to pass
through. Row cover is available in different thicknesses. A
thicker piece of fabric provides more insulation, but lets less
light through. A thinner piece of fabric provides less insulation,
but lets most of the light through. In general, row cover can
provide a few extra degrees of frost protection to the plants
underneath. It is a great way to extend your growing season.
We have different kinds of greens and herbs growing under our row
cover this year. We placed wire supports every 5 to 10 feet along a
few rows and we covered the supports with long sheets of row cover
fabric. The very cold temperatures of the last few days have stressed
some of our more tender plants, but overall, we are optimistic that
we'll be able to keep a lot of crops going for a late harvest next
year. I'll post some pictures of the row cover experiment on the
website next week.
This week we are also sending soil samples to the UMASS soil testing
lab in Amherst. Soil tests can be done anytime. Most gardeners I
know get them done in the spring before planting. We are testing
now because we know we'll be too busy in the spring. A soil test is
a worthwhile investment for any garden, but is especially useful for
a vegetable garden when you want to maximize your vegetable yields.
UMASS provides soil tests for about $9 -$13. You can visit the
testing lab's website at
http://www.umass.edu/plsoils/
Enjoy your holiday!