Everyone can use a little companionship on a long day at the end of a busy farming season. So Sammy joined John for a day in the combine earlier this week. This video is a compilation of our corn combine process seen from her eyes. My only question is this….Why was Sammy allowed to drive the combine and I wasn’t allowed to drive the tractor?! You can visit “Back In The Combine Again” to see another video of our grain corn combine in action.
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After numerous breakdowns and trips all across Southern Ontario to find parts for our rather antique combine, John is finally back in the combine again. Our grain corn harvest is moving along nicely now, but there are a lot of acres to harvest before the weather turns. You can visit “The Compelling Combine” to see another video of our grain corn combine in action.
 So. Let’s talk about crop rotation. This photo depicts a typical fall day at our farm where RJ is working cover crop seed into the soil. This job is an important part of our crop rotation plan, which is the act of switching the crops we plant in our fields every year.
And why do we do this you may ask? In formal terms, crop rotation is a vital part of our integrated pest management program and soil replenishment planning. In simpler terms, this means crop rotation helps us manage plant disease, weed invasions, insect infestations while at the same time boosting our soil nutrients. And how does this happen you may ask? Different diseases and insects attack different crops. They are discouraged from forming enormous colonies when we switch up the crops annually. Soil nutrients are boosted when we plant cover crops that are worked into the land. You can visit “The Scoop On Poop” to see a video of Curtis spreading manure, which is another typical fall chore here at the farm. Welcome to day 3 of “Ontario Agriculture Week” where we celebrate Ontario farms and the bounty of food grown in Ontario. This video of the harvest was filmed last week when we were digging russet potatoes. We own 240 acres on the home farm, and somehow we all ended up in the exact same little patch of land jockeying for positions. RJ is running the potato harvester, John is working the windrower, Curtis is bringing an empty truck for the harvester to fill with potatoes, and I use my little Defender to boot around the farm capturing footage for our website and social media.
I’m not sure who is going the wrong way here, but I think it might be Johnny in the windrower. And as for that annoying squeak in the audio, I also think it’s Johnny in the windrower. (Do you see the pattern here…?!) Rest assured there were no collisions, and the potato harvest continues to move forward at full throttle. You can visit the “Video” subcategory in The Common-Tater to see many more videos taken at our farm. Here at the farm, we all focus on the potato harvest during September and October. After tending to the crop during the spring and the summer, the last step is to get the potatoes into the storage buildings before the weather turns. These are our Yukon Gem potatoes rolling along the belts of the harvester into the bulk truck. Yukon Gems are a favourite potato of our customers. They are an extremely versatile potato, and make excellent fries, home fries, mashed and baked potatoes. We will be growing more of those as we continue to look for a substitute for Yukon Gold potatoes which are becoming obsolete. You can visit “The Hypnotic Harvester” to see another video of our potato harvester in action.
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The Common-TaterThompson Potato FarmFarming is fascinating! 
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