At Maize Valley we do all we can to help keep our soil, well our soil. That means we don’t want it in the water or the air. One thing we do is to plant cover crops such as winter rye. We plant that anywhere from late September to early November. The rye helps keep the soil “covered” and helps to reduce both wind and water erosion. Another cool thing it does is build organic matter in the soil and the roots help to keep the soil loose and “airey”. We have also found it helps with weed control.
We try and cover all the fields we can in the fall but especially the ones that are goin to have a fresh marketed vegtable crop growing in them. Some of the rye we also bale in late spring if we are not needing to get the field into production until later in the season. That rye usually ends up in my awesome “Straw Crawl” in the fall for our fall harvest festivals and activities.
We are not a “hug a tree” farm but rather a sustainable agricultural production location that does a diverse array of things. When I say sustain I mean we try and sustain our families first by just doing common sense stuff that preserves our most valuable resource the land. The Vaughan family has been making a living with the land in Marlboro township since the 1800’s and I hope to not drop the ball if ya know what I mean. So we take care of it and use modern technology and old school common sense to make a living with it not off of it.
Quick drive-by video of plow being lifted at the end of the field.