We have been experimenting with mixing crops in beds. This will provide different harvest times, shade by one crop, or the ability of one crop to climb another. We have one other advantage of mixing crops and that is money. When we order plants from the nursery we pay by the thousand. If we want five varieties of Cauliflower/Romanesco we pay $130 per thousand but if we mix up the seed and order five thousand of the mix then we pay $60 per thousand saving us a total of $350. That does mean that not every plant is ready at the same time in the row. We will see how this affects the harvesting speed this year.

The bed in the picture above has a row of mixed Cauliflower, another of Fennel and the furthest row is mixed Cabbage. This is an experiment for a new moving harvest rig that is being made in Nebraska for us this week. Describing how this will work will be much easier when I can show you it in place on the farm. We should get it by the middle of April.