Meet this week’s vegetables:
Since this was our first year growing organic vegetables on our own, in many ways our choices were experiments. We had some experience to guide us one way or another, but much of our situation was entirely new to us (in terms of growing): the land we grew on, the climate, the particular varieties we selected … as the season is wrapping up (next week is the final pick-up for 2006!), we are reflecting on those choices and how they fared.
One of our big choices and passions is extending the growing season. This is a model we picked up from Mike Finger, the farmer we worked for in Bellingham. Over the many years he’s been growing vegetables, he has tried many methods for extending the season. This is an area about which farmers talk a lot—whole books are published just on how to grow later into the fall and even winter. But by working for Mike, we were able to learn things we have yet to see published. We saw and experienced first-hand just how resilient plants can be, even outside of classic season extension infrastructure like hoop houses. We also learned two valuable lessons about cold weather growing: selecting cold-hardy varieties and planting in excess and diversely.
We put those principles to practice here at Oakhill this year, unsure of what the outcome would be. Like Mike in Bellingham, we scanned the seed catalogs looking particularly for cold tolerant cabbages and greens. And like him, we planted much more than we anticipated needing (both in terms of types and pure quantity of items).
And, now, at the end of the rainiest November on record, we are assessing how well that plan worked. Some days it’s hard to know how to feel when we walk through the fields. The ground we’re growing on this year, unlike Mike’s, is not the best drained soil in the valley (although it is better than many fields in the area). As we walk down our paths, we see this immediately: there is standing water in many beds, and plants are literally drowning—they suffocate just as we would under water, unable to get oxygen. We also found an entire planting of carrots that has rotted underground, totally immersed in water (sorry if you got some rotty-tipped carrots lately). And today we realized that an entire bed of broccoli finally succumbed to the cold weather threat this week.
These moments are initially dispiriting. It is hard to not mourn the loss of an entire bed: 200 heads of broccoli or 100 bunches of carrots. On a gut-level, crop loss grieves us.
But, it is also exactly why we over-planted. Although the specifics were unknowable to us in July, we did know that growing into the fall brings inherent uncertainties: storms, freezing weather, rain, waterlogged ground. We knew that we would lose crops. At times, this is hard to remember, but we predicted and planned for that very occasion. And, in retrospect, we are still glad that we’ve ‘pushed’ the limits of what our vegetables can handle (wetness for carrots, cold for broccoli). We’ve learned a lot about the limits of our field and the vegetables—all of which we will use in planning 2007’s experiments.
The best lesson for us right now (and an important one to remember when facing a bed of rotting carrots) is that we wouldn’t have done it differently. To maximize our output during uncertain times, we will always have to risk failure of a few crops. We have to remember how many successful harvests we have had and will continue to have this fall that required risk.
And the very good news (in addition to us learning, which is always good though sometimes also painful): we have every reason to think that our ability to grow into the shoulder seasons will improve on our new land. We’ve been out to Grand Island frequently this fall, watching our land and plantings react to the changing weather. The same downpours that have created mini-creeks running through our current fields have gotten our new land, well, wet. Wet, but not waterlogged. That is to say: there has been no standing water on any part of our new field. This, in vegetable farming terms, is a miracle.
It also makes our new farming territory much like our farming mentor Mike’s. His land was a well-drained sandy loam, which is part of how he’s managed to grow almost year-round (not necessarily to sell but definitely to eat and feed himself!). We purchased our new land before the fall rains arrived, but now that they have we are more excited than ever about growing out there. We can literally see the difference drainage makes for the plants.
Anyhow, those are just some of the thoughts we’ve been having lately about growing. As I mentioned last week, we’re gearing up for next year in earnest now. The website has been updated with the 2007 CSA information (which we’ll be mailing out soon as well), and we’ve just received our first two official sign-ups! We’re also slowly moving our farming infrastructure out to Grand Island, and beginning to build more permanent buildings out there (packing station/little house for us to live in). It is an exciting time but also a restless one for us. As you can imagine, we have so much we can think about these days. But because of the season and because we’re not yet living and farming full-scale on the new land, we have less that we can actually do. It isn’t quite a vacation but we also don’t have the same satisfaction of our summer work routine. It’s definitely a transition period for the farm and us as people.
But we’re looking forward to this Saturday, when we’ll be able to celebrate the season with all of you. We hope that you can join us at the St. Barnabas parish hall for a relaxed potluck dinner from 4 to 7 pm. As we’ve said before, the community that supports our farm is one of biggest and most constant joys in growing food. Thank you.
And, as always, enjoy the vegetables!
Your farmers,
Katie & Casey Kulla
Oakhill Organics
