July 3, 2022
The Pond is Dry
by Farmer Derek

Serious consideration of adding underground water to the crops is underway. After two rounds of rain missed us on Friday and Saturday evenings the pond is now dry and the farmers are a bit worried. This is a regular annual circumstance, though the exact timing shifts by weeks or months forward or backward. We accept our fate of connecting drip tubes, running out 1.5" header lines, erecting sprinklers, etc, on a Sunday when our bodies would rather rest.

The crops we'll irrigate first are the ones grown in covered beds that already have drip tubes buried near crops' root zone. These include cherry tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, new strawberries, winter squash, and cucumbers. We'll work incrementally, starting with the most vulnerable plants first, because we can only irrigate so much bed feet at a given time. We'll try to hook up and add water to all summer crops that meet these criteria before the day is out. To provide crops with a serious drink requires a minimum of four hours so if we're lucky maybe we'll get three groups watered today.

Bare ground crops, like lettuce, beets, chard, celery, beans, flowers, potatoes, etc, will most likely have to wait for the next round of rainfall due to limited time and infrastructure constraints but mostly because they'll be fine. Our relatively heavy, clay based soils predominately face north and have high organic matter resulting in good water retention and less evaporation. It takes a while to harm bare ground crops and in 14 years I've not seen them suffer from lack of moisture. Their growth may slow a bit but they're content being idle for a minute.

Like I said, dealing with dry times is normal. We monitor the weather forecast frequently and strive to only irrigate as a last resort (rain is more beneficial to crops than groundwater). After three months of regular and sometimes excessive rainfall, adding water feels a bit unnecessary and a waste of valuable time. Unfortunately all that extra water percolated below root zones or flowed out to sea. Typically what happens is we'll spend a week or so installing and running irrigation then we'll re-enter a wet period and won't use it again. But you never know so we still have to go through the motions to keep our plants happy and productive. And that should help us sleep better at night.