Awesome Volunteers & Winterizing the Greenhouse

Village Farm Team,

Our volunteers are showing us a lot of support so far this holiday season! A couple of our younger volunteers have been up at the farm nearly every day to help with chores since they are out of school this week for Thanksgiving. Ethan has been helping us water the greenhouse, seed, and clear out the last row of okra plants. Lily is quite the animal whisperer so she loves to help with the care of our goats and chickens. All of our volunteers are a big help, especially during the holidays when the farm is closed.

As we head closer to winter and sustained cooler temperatures, we’ve winterized our greenhouse to be able to continue with seeding. A combination of plastic sheeting on the outside and portable heaters on the inside will allow us to create ideal conditions for germination. Since winterizing we’ve been able to seed crops like lacinato kale, leeks, collards, and chard. We hope you like leafy greens and brassicas as much as we do because we’ll have them up to our ears in the coming months!

As the weather has allowed we’ve been working on mowing down our sunn hemp cover crop. Now that the sunn hemp has done its job fixing nitrogen to the soil, we are able to mow it down and use it as “green manure” in order to return the organic matter back to the soil. We’ll most likely be doing the same thing with our cowpeas soon as they are frost sensitive and did not fare well after the freeze.