In a typical year we start hoping for a break in the winter rains sometime in early January so that the ground will dry out enough to allow us to get in and plant. Although the overall long term water picture for the state looks increasingly ominous, the dry weather has allowed us to keep on top of tasks around here like never before.

The drought continues. The National Weather Service website tacked a startling fact on to the end of their forecast discussion last week. With only two weeks to go and no rain in sight, the city of San Francisco is 3 inches below the record low rainfall year, with records going all the way back to 1849! For the 2013-14 “rainy” season, most areas in our region are currently only at 15-25 percent of normal.

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving (and Hannukah!) holiday.

We finally got some rain last week—though much more is needed.  Including the dry second half of the last rainy season, this is the longest dry stretch that we’ve experienced since we’ve been here. Here in Watsonville, with the exception of Harkins Slough which our home farm is situated beside, nearly all of the five fingers of the freshwater slough system have dried up.

October is always a super busy month on our farm and while there is still plenty to be done, it feels like we can finally pause long enough to catch our breath. All of the field prep for next year’s strawberry field is finished and we are just waiting for it to dry out enough to have the beds listed up (we pre-irrigate the field so that the extra-tall beds will hold their shape when they are formed). Every year our strawberry field gets extra attention, but this year we went all out.

The winter squash have pretty much sized up as much as they are going to. We’ve cut the water off and over the coming weeks we will let the plants dry up completely and the squashes themselves to cure. I’ve heard people say that sugars and nutrients flow from the drying vines into the squashes during this period, and whether this is true or not, the squash do seem to have better flavor and keep better when fully cured in this way.  

When we bought our new property in North Monterey County a few years ago, we already had the perfect tractor for working the sandy slopes with—our 1953 D4 Caterpillar Crawler. Crawlers, which have tank-like treads instead of rubber tires, are commonly used in our area for the purpose of primary tillage (disking, chiseling and ripping). They have much more tractive power for their size than wheel tractors do, and because they have such a large “footprint”, they cause less soil compaction.  Where wheel tractors commonly get bogged down and experience what is called “power-hop” on sandy ground, our wide track D4 virtually skates over it.

One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that this profession really rewards those who are able to think and plan well in advance. Strawberries are a good example of this. To help control soilborne diseases, we grow our strawberries on a five year rotation, meaning that they won’t be planted in the same place again for five seasons. 

After a brief hot spell several weeks back, the weather here has settled into the fairly predictable routine of morning fog, afternoon sunshine and fog again in the evening.  For the crops that we grow, it has been just about perfect. Lettuces, bunched greens, broccoli and its relatives, and strawberries all find the moderate temperatures here along the coast to their liking—and I have to say that I do too. I always find it a big relief to come back home after doing a hot weekend market over the hill

We’re in the last stages of our spring field work. May 1^st is the deadline I usually give myself for getting hard squash and pumpkins planted. Because powdery mildew almost always becomes a problem with these crops late in the season, we’ve found that the earlier we can get them planted the better. As with most large seeded crops, we can’t plant them too early, however, because the seeds will rot in cold soils—it’s all about timing. In addition to planting hard squashes we will be planting another block of potatoes from the seed that we saved over from last year.

The fields are still pretty soggy from the recent rains, and it looks like there is more to come at the end of this week. The rain makes harvest days a challenge, the heavy clay and silt soils at our home site and the Redman field get incredibly sticky when wet, so it can be a real slog to get through the fields. And because we can’t drive trucks out on the dirt farm roads, the crew has to walk the harvested crops out of the field instead.

Thanksgiving comes early this year, and with it the end our regular season CSA deliveries. That helps us to end on a strong note with lots of nice vegetables (though it made it harder back in spring to start so early!) Timing the end of our season to the week before Thanksgiving gives this holiday a special meaning to us as the dividing point of our year, …

Yesterday’s rainstorm failed to live up to its’ billing down here in our area—at most we got a tenth of an inch or two. In some ways I should be happy it didn’t rain more—we can continue to pick the strawberries as long as they stay more or less dry, and the beans don’t like the wet, cool weather either—but it’s always sort of a let-down when something you have worked so hard to prepare for doesn’t materialize.  

For a time around the turn of the last century the Pajaro Valley was considered the largest apple growing district in the United States. By some accounts the valley floor from Corralitos to Aromas was nearly carpeted with trees.

We officially still have a month left of summer, so why does it feel like fall already? The kids are heading off to school, and it’s a chilly 52 degrees with thick drippy fog.

The first of our tomatoes are beginning to turn red and will start to appear in your boxes over the next few weeks. The plants look great and are loaded with fruit, so we almost certainly will be offering them for sale by the case, for those who like to can.

Although the strawberries started late this year, the plants are healthy and the white flowers that are abundant in the field mean a steady supply of fruit for the foreseeable future. Last week we released another round of persimilis mites for what will probably be the last time. Persimilis feed on only one host, the two spotted spider mite—among the worst pests that organic strawberry growers face.

This week we are mowing down and incorporating the last few blocks of over-wintered cover crop that we still have standing. I’m always a little ambivalent about this because it officially marks the transition from the lush, green, and more quiet time of winter and early spring to the dry, dusty, and bustling time of late spring and summer. Most of these late blocks will be planted to winter squash and pumpkins.

We do realize that we have been giving you a lot of carrots to start off the CSA this year, but you will be getting a break after this week. Unfortunately this week marks the end of the over-wintered Chantenays that are our family favorites. We dug and topped them all last week because they were showing signs of sending up seeders, which they always do coming into spring (the carrots develop a tough, woody core and are practically inedible once the plants go to seed). If you can’t use all of your carrots this week, don’t worry—chantenays are a great storage carrot and they will still be good for weeks to come. The next block of carrots we will be harvesting from will be of the mokum variety, a tender, sweet, early carrot in the Nantes class.

Plastic bags have been in the news this week, as Santa Cruz banned stores from giving people plastic bags to carry home their purchases. We have had a few comments from CSA subscribers about the plastic liner bags that we use in the CSA boxes, wondering why we use them. This is a topic that we have thought a lot about and have actually reduced our packaging a lot in the past year. We wish it were as easy as eliminating the plastic bags altogether, but have found that the issue is more complicated than that. We appreciate that our members are concerned about the environment and want to explain the purpose and benefits of the plastic bags that we use.

In fact, one of the encouraging trends that we have witnessed over the last fifteen years of farming is the development of a viable organic seed industry (no pun intended). We have always sought out organic seed, and certified organic growers are obligated to use organically grown seed when it is available, but it has not always been as available as it is now.