September welcomes our Brewfest on the Farm, the first day of Fall, and finally cooler weather!
Clean-up for Brewfest is almost complete. The hay barn has been cleaned out to accommodate seating and the hay is off the front parking field. The hop yards have been mowed in preparation for hay rides, and signs and equipment inventoried. We are almost there!
September is also a time on the farm to wrap up harvests and start preparations for next growing season. The potatoes are all dug and the harvest was plentiful although one patch had a lot of scab on it. Consultation with our extension service helped to identify the culprit – the soil is not acidic enough. For almost everything else we grow we are constantly adding lime as our soils tend to naturally be on the acidic side for what grasses and hops prefer. So soil samples were sent off for testing and once the recommendations come back we will work to correct the pH by adding Sulfur to the soil.
Hop harvest is completed for the year. We were able to pick our hops as well as those from Blaze’s Folly Farm and got a very good yield. More rain this year has helped as neither of us irrigate our hops. Look for the upcoming wet hopped Green Farmer #19 pale ale that was brewed with fresh Chinook hops (picked that morning) and dry hopped with freshly picked Cascade hops.
There are also several more fields of hay to cut before the end of the season. Once the hay is all off the fields those that need to be treated for weeds will be sprayed. This is only one of several approaches we utilize in controlling weeds. Most importantly is timely mowing as this returns the vegetative matter to the soil and can prevent the formation of seed heads on the weeds thus limiting their spread. We also try to be very particular about the hay we feed our livestock so they are eating that with the lowest weed content. This also helps to reduce the number of seeds that are put back on the fields through manure. And then there are the birds….While we enjoy our birds considerably they do contribute to a lot of weed spread.
One of our biggest updates this month is that Wiley the Ghost Dog seems to be here to stay. She met her new mobile vet (a shoutout to Keysville Mobile Vet Clinic) and was found to not have a chip. She got her vaccinations, and tests for heartworm, parasites, and Lyme/Ehrlicia/ Anaplasmosis disease. – all of which were positive. This was not surprising given how long she had apparently been on the run. So she is now on antibiotics and flea/tick/heartworm preventatives. She helps do chores every morning and evening, supervises Tom in his shop, plays with Heidi, and gets her Milkbone every morning.