A visit with Farmer Roger

There’s an old saying: “Inside every cloud there is a silver lining.” I am in the habit of searching out the silver lining, something to keep me focused on the positive, since there are so many ways things can go wrong on the farm.

This week it looked as if the clouds had dumped all their water on the farm, so it seemed to me the remaining clouds must be comprised mainly of silver lining. After much looking around the farm, I did find the silver lining looking back at me. You’ll have to read through a lot of calamity to get to it though.

In the 40 days since February 22 only eight days produced no rain as measured by our farm weather station. The soil is saturated with water, so additional rain collects on the soil surface in large sheet puddles as it works its way across the farm toward the Sammamish River.

Typically the rainy periods are separated by dry days, when the soil dries out enough for us to prepare the soil for planting. This year the soil just hasn’t had a chance to drain.

We have managed to get crops planted out on time so far. We prepared an area for the leeks, which are coming along nicely. We have lettuce, spinach, and other crops planted in two hoophouses, where they are now taking hold. We were able to put in two beds outside for collards, mustards, & other hearty greens. We planted kohlrabi in extra space by the leeks. Our first planting of peas is in the ground. We got a lot of compost spread while we could still drive on the fields.

Now we have hit a hard place. The greenhouse is filling up with lots of tiny plants that should be planted out soon, but the soil is too wet to work with. This week’s series of storms may put us too far behind planting schedule to catch up. We could be forced to dump thousands of tiny plants into the compost pile.

On Monday, it rained a little. I knew a storm was forecast for Tuesday, but I was willing to be optimistic that we would get past the storm and back on schedule. That same day I was hit with the worst head cold I’ve had in years, but that would also pass.

The rain hit Tuesday morning. The winds picked up quite a bit. We lost power for a couple of hours. My nasty cold was still turning my brain to mush. The wind tore the plastic cover off of one of our hoophouses. We have been using that house to shelter equipment and other supplies, so the crew spent some time covering things with tarps and repairing minor damage on our other hoophouses in the hope of keeping the wind from causing more major damage. The rain on Tuesday totaled 0.2 inches. I knew another storm front was forecast for Wednesday, but I was still thinking that if the coming storm wasn’t any worse we had a good chance to get back on track with just the storm damage to repair.

On Wednesday morning (April 1) the rain started at about 8:30 and continued heavy all day. The farm received 0.6 inches for the day. That may not seem like a lot at first glance, but the whole farm was already in puddles. Now the puddles could just get bigger and bigger. We mostly found work under cover. Juan & Luis built greenhouse tables for our retail vegetable plant sales. Rob did maintenance and went out to purchase plastic to repair the torn hoophouse cover. Evert & Stewart planted tomato and other seed in flats in the greenhouse. Although out of the rain, they needed their rubber boots, since a couple inches of cold water was standing in much of the greenhouse. Claire & I agreed it was time to start making desperation plans in the event that we fell impossibly far behind on the planting schedule. Looking at the forecast for more rain coming the next day, it was hard to dredge up any optimism.

Today, Thursday, I woke up to find my sinuses cleared. Maybe today would be a turning point. However, looking outside, I realized the rain was coming down hard. In fact, today we received even more rain than yesterday – 0.65 inches by 4:00, when I’m writing this. Evert and Stewart worked in the starts greenhouse again today, but now they stood in a stream of ankle deep water running through the greenhouse. Juan & Luis worked in the rain putting the new plastic cover on the damaged hoophouse. Rob, with help from Juan & Luis, spent most of the day on the tractor working to channel rain runoff and improve drainage.

All day I watched puddles getting larger, water rushing across fields, and plants slowly submerging. Late afternoon I talked a while with Famai, one our renters, who was also unhappy and frustrated with the drowning fields. As I walked past the beds where Evert had planted peas, I thought I should take a look. The peas were just about due to sprout. There is nothing like new sprouts poking their way out of the soil to cheer things up.

Instead of new green sprouts, I found peas with nice two-inch roots lying on the surface, where the rain had washed them out of the ground. I knew these would not survive, and worse, would attract the crows to the sprouting peas. Once the rain stopped and the crows came out looking for lunch, we could lose most of the planting.

I stopped off at the starts greenhouse to talk with Evert about how best to rescue the peas. I mentioned to Evert and Stewart that I had gone to look at the peas hoping to find a silver lining to counter all the problems of the week.

As I was saying that, I looked at the two of them smiling back at me and it struck me that all day long, in difficult and frustrating working conditions, each and every person on the field crew, Rob, Juan, Luis, Evert, and Stewart, had a smile for me when I stopped by to see how things were going. Everyone was making the best of a trying day.

I had found my silver lining, smiling right back at me.

Tags:   collards · compost · crows · flood · hoophouse · kohlrabi · leeks · lettuce · mustard · peas · rain · spinach · WeatherNo Comments