Greetings from the farm!
The fall harvest season always brings a sense of satisfaction, a deep instinctive thanksgiving felt for bringing in the year's crop. A feeling of joy for the proper cycle of work being completed, and the ability to harvest what we had previously sown.
We continue to work to bring in the corn and soybeans we had planted last spring to provide nourishment for our livestock throughout the year. While we are out in the fields this time of year we are not only harvesting our grains, but sowing cover crops in preparation for future crops.
Stewardship is one of our family's core values. Doing our best to take care of our God given resources. For better than the last decade, we have found it appropriate to plant cover crops over our fields in the fall to do our best to care for our land and water. By doing this our soils have a growing plant on them essentially all year long.
Although it takes more management and planning, cover crops provide many inherent benefits. They reduce nutrient runoff and soil erosion into streams and ground water. The structure of our soil is improved with their deep, penetrating roots, allowing for better water holding capacity. Soil microbes are kept healthy and alive with roots to feed on year round. Nutrients are stored in the matter of these cover crops, and released into the soil for future crops, and also decaying to provide higher organic matter in our soils.
It has been a long slug of a harvest. While the rain has kept things green, it has provided for many delays in harvesting our crops and left field conditions less than ideal. Yet we push forward to bring in the grains from our fields and plant our cover crops to ensure our soils able to provide a bountiful harvest for years to come.
My best,
Beth Tharp