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.
(Picture: looking down our back hill to the partially dry slough, with cover crop in foreground)
The main concerns for us are whether the ground water will be sufficiently recharged to allow us to irrigate as normal next year, and whether there will be forage for the goats, cows and horses out on our grassland.
Meanwhile, the extent of the damage from last week’s cold snap is starting to become clear. Some things revealed themselves in short order, as in the late shelling bean planting that was only a week or two away from harvest. By the third day of frost it looked like a fire swept through the field. Other effects take longer to become obvious, like the internal damage to the tomatoes in our high-tunnels, or the winter squash that partially froze in our storage room. (Fortunately, our packing shed manager Aquileo put a bunch of the winter squash in the cooler, where it stayed warmer!) The National Weather Service claimed that many long standing records for cold temperature were either threatened or broken during the snap. But I really knew it was cold when the leaves of winter hardy crops like broccoli, kale, and fennel showed significant damage. Growing vegetables over winter can be a risky endeavor, and with respect to the late beans and tomatoes, we knew we were pushing it. It’s the damage to the other things—like chard, lettuce, and fennel– that normally do fine over winter that is harder to take. The tricky part of growing vegetables in winter is that because things grow so slowly, you want to time it so that most of the plants “frame up” during the longer days of early fall. By planting in relatively large blocks you can then take advantage of the fact that the vegetables hang out and remain harvestable over a long period of time. That is, unless a prolonged cold snap like this arrives. It is the leaves that matured during the longer, warmer days that are the most vulnerable.
All in all we are still in fine shape—many vegetables, including the carrots, celery, radishes, leeks and bok choi came through fine, and most of the others should recover over the coming weeks.
A farmer who isn’t resilient won’t be a farmer for long. You really have to put episodes like this into the rear-view mirror and move on. When the next crop comes in lush and healthy, it’s amazing how quickly set-backs like this are forgotten.
(Picture: New starts growing well in the greenhouse bring renewed holiday cheer!)
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