This is our potato crop just before I turned off the sprinklers late one evening last week. The crop looks great and it should.
This field 'rested' last year. A rest for us is growing a crop of alfalfa which the chickens eat all summer. The alfalfa roots are colonized with a nitrogen forming bacteria which adds fertility to the soil for free from the air. The alfalfa also smothers out weeds and is particularly good at controlling perennial ones. The chickens love to eat alfalfa and as they eat they fertilize the soil with their droppings.
So now the field has had the equivalent of a spa treatment, lots of great sleep and good food. It is ready to get back to work produce tasty vegetables.
We hope to be able to give our fields this 'spa treatment' every 3 years. This is a work in progress.