So far the season is going exactly as I expected – completely unpredictably.
Let’s talk about water, an essential ingredient in farming. Here at Fresh Earth Farms we use two types of water – rain water and ground water. Both have their plusses and minuses. Rain water can irrigate the whole field all at the same time. It frequently contains nutrients like soluble nitrogen. It is free. It doesn’t deplete the ground water and it makes the air smell fresher after it is done. On the downside it is completely unpredictable. It sometimes comes too fast and too much. It can be very heavy and cause damage to the crops. Other times it is so little that only the weeds benefit. It frequently is associated with damaging wind and on rare occasions comes in a solid form. It splashes soil on the plants making things dirty, hard to clean and spreads diseases.
Ground water is very predictable – except for the time I was in the shower with my head lathered in shampoo, but that isn’t really about farming. With ground water we can target the crops we want watered giving more to the thirsty crops and less to the drought tolerant crops. If we use drip irrigation we can eliminate splashing of soil onto the plants and minimize disease transference. It allows us to work with the crops as they are being watered, whether it is harvesting, spraying for pests (organic only!!) or foliar feeding. We can also add nutrients to the irrigation water by syphoning them into the water pipe as we are irrigating the crops. But ground water costs money to pump. We need equipment to deliver it to the crops. We use labor to setup the irrigation system. So overall it is more expensive than rain water. Plus there is only so much water we can pump at one time. And we really don’t want to deplete the aquifer.
This season we have been using rain water exclusively – until this past weekend. The weather last week was very warm and quite dry. All that great rain we had earlier this spring evaporated out of the soil. The crops could have certainly survived without irrigation but they grow much better when they have the water they need. We didn’t water all the crops, just the cool season crops. Then today we decided they all needed to be watered so we used rain water to accomplish this task. We’ll let it soak in for a while then maybe hit them again with another dose of rain water this evening – at least that is our plan.
One big downside to rain water that is rarely noticed or mentioned is the destruction it can cause when it comes down heavily. Sure when it becomes catastrophic we hear about it. When there is flooding, or damage to building and trees it becomes news, but here on the farm it can be
fairly localized and dramatically affect certain crops. A good example is our carrots. Carrots are extremely delicate little plants when they first get growing. This spring when our second planting of carrots was at the first true-leaf stage – they are about a half inch tall at this time – we had an extremely heavy downpour with about an inch falling in around 15 minutes. The drops were big – almost as big as this year’s crop of mosquitoes. These drops flattened the carrots then washed dirt over them essentially burying them in a shallow grave. Some were strong enough to push their way back out but many perished.
Another example of where heavy rain negatively affected a crop was our third planting of peas. Pea seeds are big. They are the size of peas. They have a lot of energy stored inside them. Usually this is enough energy to get them to break through the soil and spread their leave to start the process of absorbing more energy from the sun. This year we had a heavy downpour after we planted our third planting of pea seeds but before the plants emerged. Then we had warm, dry days that baked the surface of the ground. This created an impenetrable layer from which few of the pea seeds could emerge. In fact we could probably count them on two hands if we felt that would be a productive use of our time. But it isn’t so we didn’t and we have yet one fewer planting of peas to give out this year. Very disappointing.
A final example is our second planting of beans. The same heavy rain that flattened our carrots also relocated some of our bean seeds. The rain came down so fast that rivers formed where none occurred before. This caused washouts in our recently planted beans. The rows are no longer straight and we have beans growing in places where we hadn’t planted them. We didn’t lose a lot; they were planted on fairly flat ground. But we lost some.
We only rarely have problems with ground water. Usually it is a failure in the equipment delivering the water – say “Hello” to a $1100 install of a new pump head! Usually the failure isn’t so expensive. If something comes loose all the water comes out in that one spot causing much the same damage as the heavy downpour but in a very localized area. Today’s rain was welcome and beneficial. Let’s hope the later rain tonight is equally beneficial.
What is on tap for this week’s veggies? Well, we still have lettuce. Hopefully you aren’t sick of it yet. We also have a few bok choi left. The peas are slowing down due to the demise of the third planting (see above). We’ll also have plenty of squash/zucchini, some kohlrabi, some kale, onions, garlic scapes, and maybe beets if they can grow up fast and probably chard. Oh, and we will start picking the basil as well! The few ripe tomatoes (see picture above) are being tested in our quality control department. It is a destructive test so unfortunately we will have a wait another week or two before there are sufficient quantities to distribute.
This week we have FruitShare, FlowerShare, EggShare and CheeseShare.
We are still looking for more interest in ShroomShare. ShroomShare is like all our other resale shares except with mushrooms – oyster mushrooms in particular. These are certified organic oyster mushrooms from a small farm here in Minnesota. We have two sizes: small and large. The small ShroomShare is six weeks of a 4 oz package and is priced at $27. The large ShroomShare is 8 oz priced at $48. Let me know if you are interested. We have a minimum order size so don’t send in any money until we have enough interest.
As always, here is another plug for the First Annual Fresh Earth Farms Fall Film Fest. Mark your calendars for Saturday September 7th. And send in any films you have or find. Only requirements: must be family friendly, must be six minutes or shorter in length.
I think this is all for now. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, etc.