Baby Radishes...

Aw, they are so cute! Baby Radishes.

The late fall rows are all growing well, actually really well. Farmer Hubby was thinning radish rows yesterday, we have a few hundred feet in for our last weeks of pickup.

We are still working on tuning in our Jang seeder, Which we LOVE! but we are still playing with seed spacing, and it is a fine line between having too many in a row, and having to thin really heavily and to few, and feeling like you wasted row space.

Row space is important, not because we are at a lack of dirt, but rather a lack of well prepared soil. Prepping the areas costs money and time. We have a problem sometimes with our soil crusting on top. It is caused by a lack of good organic matter in the dirt. The problem can be resolved over time with a lot of organic matter being worked into the soil in the form of cover crops, green manures, and compost. But to get the soil really nice is a process that will take years. When we did our soil tests when we moved to this farm three years ago we found our soil nutrients were just north of non-existent.

In order to help we work in (organic) fertilizer into the row when we plant, but the crusting was still happening, we need years of cover crops to deal with it. In the mean time we did our research and found that Yucca extract can be used as a soil drench and will help reduce crusting. So we watered in the fall rows with some and it made a huge difference! Our adorable baby radishes are evidence.