Last fall I dropped by the farm in Mississippi for a few days for a visit. Not having much time to plan out a proper fall planting, I decided to use a “shotgun” approach. First, I purchased some bulk seed including turnips, rape, kale, red clover, winter peas and others. Second, I plowed the garden plot and all of the fields around the property. Then, I broadcast spread the seed, ran a power rake over the whole thing to incorporate the seed and left the farm hoping for the best – as farmers do. Everything but the clover is edible (deer would argue) and the idea is to use it all as an edible cover crop – where the clover and all the left over greens will be plowed under as green fertilizer later this spring.
While the crop wasn’t the best, it still produced more groceries than one family could eat. In the picture below, some new friends from Quebec, Canada, a young couple with a 4 year old daughter, collect some rape that we mixed into a wonderful salad for dinner last week. We also collected some small turnips and chopped them up for the salad. It was a big success.
The Quebecois are part of a program called WWOOF or World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms which is a matchmaking organization that puts people who want to learn about farming together with those who operate organic farms. They found me through WWOOF and plan to spend about a month on the farm involved in different activities before they follow the songbirds north for the summer.
Angelica Picking Organic Greens