Resiliency

Last week I told you about that spell of hot weather and the discovery of new methods that may become standard for planting in this new-normal of perpetual heat. Right now we're looking at another 10-day forecast of all 90s, broken in the middle by one rainy day in the upper 80s. The only difference is that we've had a practice run before it to learn how to handle this weather. In the midst of all this hot forecast, we've been appreciating the fact that we've focused our summer work schedule around mornings, that we've shifted from laying hot, dusty, heavy hay mulch in the crop aisles to using simple, non-strenuous landscape fabric, and that we now have coolers and cool rooms large enough to do work inside of during the heat of the day rather than doing the same work outside under a tarp on the deck. So during all this, when a group from a new-farmer training program came by for a mid-afternoon tour, I ended up sharing a lot about devising a farm for resiliency and thought to share some of that here.

I didn't always have such a focus. In a year-to-year farm, once simply does what works most of the time in the characteristic conditions of the region. Yes, the weather and other events affect the day-to-day farming, but no more than usual—and that's how it goes; it's farming! Then, one year, it happened to be so, so much wetter than usual—where, in a season, we could typically rely on a dry period after a big rain, in that season it rained an inch or two every darn weekend! Where I would typically let cover crops grow longer and have the soil exposed for a shorter period of time by preparing ground just a week or two in advance of planting the crop (knowing it would be at a proper moisture at some point in that  period), it became clear for the first time that this was a risk: There was no certainty that there would be a dry period again. And so I changed my principles for deciding when to do field work, shifting from valuing doing it as late as practical to doing it in any appropriate window, because no matter the forecast there may not be another clear window for a long time.

More recently, I acquired a tracked one-person machine that weighs so little and has such large tracks that it puts less pressure on the ground than a footprint—with the ability to plant on sodden ground, rain is no longer the determining factor it once was in keeping to the spring planting schedule. Of course this year it's barely rained at all, but the point is to be ready for whatever conditions may come—to devise systems robust and resilient enough to work in any possible condition, not just the conditions of the moment.

Farming of this diversified, small-scale type is often defined by the crop mix—one of the most common questions people ask me is, “so, what's your favorite vegetable to grow?” I started out growing difficult crops like carrots and beets, which are not particularly suited to this soil or climate, but are eminently marketable as a new farmer on the scene. I had great successes with these crops—and also complete failures. The possibility of success was always there, and so I kept planting them, with overall “average” results, as you might expect. At a certain point, I looked at the numbers and knew that, no matter the potential they may have, the reality is that they only reached that potential intermittently. Over time, the farm has been shaped by these evolutionary pressures, keeping the most reliable crops and dropping the more difficult and volatile crops. I've ended up with the focus on the long-season summer crops you see in the CSA—these just happen to be vegetables suited to this region and climate and which do well (not merely “average”) in almost every year, no matter the conditions. (An exception to that is potatoes, which were basically a crop failure last year due to unheard-of levels of potato beetles. Now, knowing such an event was in the realm of possibility, I changed the entire planting and growing system to one that would be okay in such a year.)

These climate- and crop-related shifts towards long-term resiliency are the most vital for the plants and vegetables themselves, which of course is what most people think of when they think of the farm. But there are also people here who do the work each season—one of whom is me, now in my late 30s and having done this sort of work outside on the ground for just about the last 20 years! Our own experience on the farm becomes more of the main focus each year, now that the business is stable and profitable enough that we no longer need to scrape together every vegetable to sell for every dollar. Fastest and cheapest used to be the necessity, and, while those are still baseline values to getting things done in the practical world, the growing systems now are efficient enough that we have some breathing room to focus also on what's simplest and most pleasant. Our own experience of the work—rather than the simple possibility or impossibility of getting it done—becomes the main source of incremental change both so that people can have a great time working on the farm, and so we're all less tired and worn out as the years go by.

Even much of the mechanical innovation on the farm is towards this end. People tend to relate machinery with efficiency, but mechanization is also about ease and pleasantness. Often the work isn't all THAT much faster start to finish, it's just easier than doing it on our hands and knees. And when handwork is required, sometimes a two-person method isn't overall faster in labor hours but we do it anyway when we have time because it's so much more pleasant a process. Like anybody, we're only getting older. Developing a farm NOW with a mind to what we'll still feel comfortable doing LATER—rather than operating a farm that is simply fine in the present—is perhaps one of the most resilient and future-focused decisions of all.