Dear CSA Members,
This year is my first year farming. At least that’s how it feels. I have experience working on farms and working on farm enterprises, but this is my first season growing vegetables and row crops in the field while being solely responsible for them. As a relatively inexperienced farmer, this winter season has been an interesting one. As most of you might know, it is an El Niño year.
An El Niño storm system hits California every 3 to 8 years and when it happens it means that we are slated for a wet winter that can persist through spring. From what I’ve been reading from meteorologists and other farmers, it looks like it will continue until March and maybe April and May.
This is very good for California as a whole. Our state badly needs the water to replenish man-made reservoirs, natural watersheds and our lakes, rivers and streams. I can already see it breathing new life into the lush green hills around Mt. Diablo and the Altamont that overlook the farm. For California farmers, as I’m discovering, the erratic rain schedule brings a new set of challenges. It has been frustrating and challenging planning for a spring crop as well as maintaining our crop of winter vegetables.
Our thick clay soil retains a lot of moisture, so even when we get a string of days without rain, the soil remains too wet to work. It’s hard to get into the field to cultivate weeds because our boots get mucked up and mud sticks to the stirrup hoes. When we do cultivate, as soon as weeds are uprooted from the soil, the rain and damp soil create the perfect conditions for them to reestablish their root system. It’s generally not good for the soil to cultivate or walk on wet ground anyway because it leads to compaction. When the soil is moved or pushed, air is squeezed or forced out of the space between soil particles and when it dries, the soil loses its water and air holding properties because of the way these particles have been rearranged. This makes it difficult to get transplants into the ground or to check on already planted crops for pest issues as well.
Hopefully we can get a little reprieve so I can at least make some progress with building our new vegetable greenhouse!
Wishing you the best,
Assistant Farmer Will