Come Hell or High Water?

Planning for the drought season

It wasn't until I was trying to find a title for this post that I gave any thought to the expression "come hell or high water". I went on a brief exploration of the origins and quickly realized that like many phrase origins, no one actually knows. What strikes me the hardest is that only one source cited a vague reference to a flood and the rest didn't even mention a connection to weather or natural disasters. As a farmer, this expression feels on point in our current climate...double entendre intended.

At first glance, our decision to farm at four different locations this year might seem a bit unhinged. There are many instances in the natural world that teach how plants, when in doubt, double down on their chances for survival. I'm only borderline "woo woo" so I can't say for sure that some part of us sensed that we would need to do the same this year but I'm open to entertaining the thought! I do know, for sure that our collaborative partnerships will allow us to maintain our 70+ offerings of fruits and vegetables this year. despite uncertainty of access to irrigation water.

When we started talking last year with Hank about a potential collaboration, it was centered around supporting each other and sharing the labor we all love. When Diane approached us for help finding someone to take on her herb business and orchard, it was about finding a way to share more of that abundance with people who need it most. The beginnings of both collaborations were centered around community and now, as we are staring down the barrel of one of the driest Winters on record, we couldn't be more grateful. We're seeing the writing on the wall with water access. The State of Oregon regulates who can use water to raise food for profit through a Water Right process. We started it years ago and are nearly done but new water rights are the first to get cut when water levels drop beyond a certain threshold. 

At the moment, our propagation house is bursting at the seams with plants and potential but we have little to no places to put them because our ground water levels are still too high in most fields. We did have a short drying off spell and took that opportunity to begin the process of preparing the fields so most of the cover crops have been mowed and we've even tilled some beds here and there. Though our current state is too wet, we must let the dry Winter inform our plans for our crops that will come into maturity between mid June and October. 

We will be proceeding with crops at Sunbow under the assumption that we won't have access to our wells after mid-June. This means we'll be prioritizing cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage at Sunbow for the first part of the year. Crops that will come into maturity after mid-June will be dry-farmed at Sunbow or will have drip irrigation from our water catchment system. The 5000 gallons of stored rain water will go faster than we'd like it to so we'll keep that in mind when making decision about what we'll keep here. Our dry farm plans will include crops that we've had good luck with in the past like dry chickpeas, delicata and acorn squash, summer squash and melons. For things that we can't dry farm, we thankfully have "senior" water rights at our 9th street location, along with decent fencing that provides some protection against deer predation. 

This past winter we spent a few afternoons pruning orchard trees at Diane's Garden, hoping for the best conditions to get a great fruit crop to share with all of you. So far, we're hoping we'll have cherries, apples, pears, fig and plums to boost our Sunbow orchard offerings. The blossom set was looking great but the near freezing temps may have an adverse effect on the final result...we'll keep you posted. 

A few weeks ago we spent a day planting around 8000 onions at Hanks and we have another 4000 or so on deck for a second planting. Hank will also host our potato crop this year which will not only feed all of us, it will also help him get an edge on his battle with Symphylans in one of his fields. Research and experience show that planting potatoes is a great way to reduce this pest population. Talk about mutual aid!

And talk I will, but that will have to wait until my post next week.