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Entry Date
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Nick Name
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Location
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Saturday, October 18, 2025
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Fattires
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Winchester, Ohio
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Entry 81 of 81 |
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It was a busy week around the farm, I finished soybean harvest and seeded a couple hundred acres of cover crop, with this done I felt like I could take a day off to work on the vegetable garden, yard and pumpkin patch. Plans are starting to come together for the 2026 pumpkin patch.
I struggled this spring with excessive moisture and ended up tilling the garden and pumpkin patch too wet, this resulted in a compaction layer about 4-5 inches down that I am trying to get rid of now. I ran the subsoiler about 16inches deep across the patch in 2 passes perpendicular to each other, I am hoping this, the cereal rye cover crop and the freeze thaw cycles will break up that hardpan. I probably need to invest in a smaller tractor and tiller, my smallest tractor weighs almost 10,000 lb, this probably isn't helping matters, especially if it's the least bit wet.
We always seem to struggle with getting the ground dry enough in the spring to do tillage without causing compaction, I am thinking I will try covering the patch with plastic starting in about Feb to protect from rain, uncover on dry days and see if I can get the the soil dried out enough to work without causing harm.
I have a bit over 6000 sq ft here that I am going to divide into 3 patches, I will grow 2 plants, each about 1000sq ft. This will let me start a 3 year rotation to help with disease and also try to raise soil OM by using high biomass cover crops. I am still working on the plan but roughly I am thinking the patch 2 years out will get cereal rye after the pumpkins come off and allow it to get to anthesis before roller crimping it to lay down a straw matt, then a warm season cover mix, then the year prior to pumpkins cereal rye, clover and radish to be terminated before the rye gets huge followed by mustard, then more rye, clover, radish in the fall prior to the pumpkins. I am open to suggestions, I want to grow a lot of biomass but give it enough time to break down and not tie up a ton of nitrogen effecting the pumpkins.
I want to do minimal tillage in the off years.
This fall I added qypsum and the soil was actually dry enough to work very nicely. I seeded a good rate of cereal rye that is getting rained on as I type.
Further plans for the patch this winter include installation of some permanent posts and high tensile wire to support shade cloth and possibly application of composted beef manure if I can do it without compacting the ground.
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