Our first full year of farming was successful on several fronts. We got things done, and we learned a lot! We were able to grow sufficient quantity of good quality product, enough for selling retail at the Sunday Farmers Market and wholesale to the Chimacum Corner Farmstand. Plus we donated about 350 pounds to the food bank. We had successes, challenges and some failures. We worked hard, had some fun and it felt good.
Crop by crop
Most crops grew really well, much better than at our home gardens where sunlight hours are limited by the encircling trees. General crops growing well included garlic, onions, scallions, tah tsoi, kale, spinach, chard, lettuces, potatoes, carrots, beets, green beans, and cucumbers. We had general challenges with brassica crops at first but figured out IPM strategies for flea beetle and CW butterfly. So mixed success with cabbage, Napa cabbage, bok choi, baby Bok Choi. Our efforts to grow tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers met mostly with failure despite row tunnels, but one variety of cool climate bell pepper did OK. We generally saw good vegetative growth and fruiting but poor ripening. But, our yellow and sweet onions grew to amazing size, as did our 3 varieties of garlic. The garlic were amazing sellers at the market also,
Our efforts to grow storage crops including flint corn, garbanzos, winter squash and dry beans also met with mixed success. Part of the challenge was cool, wet soil temps that stayed below 60 well into June. Dry beans had poor germination although they grew well at the home garden. At the fall end of the season we did not get as much warm, dry weather as hoped for to dry down chickpeas and corn. We harvested both of these crops early from the field and brought them back to finish drying down in our hoop houses and garage. The weed pressure from multiple varieties, especially wild mustard was fairly intense and impeded crop growth. When the red wing blackbirds swarmed down to get their take of the Ruby Gold flint corn, we were not too happy about it at first but in the end we didn’t regret sharing our crop with them as our yield was fairly good. We’re having a good time trying out polenta recipes, the best cornbread ever, and as I write this we’re soaking corn in a Cal solution after simmering it for 1-1/2 hour to nixtamalize the corn for fresh homemade tortillas. Mmmm!
Also, we had good success with a flavorful variety of acorn style squash called Golden Pippin. But the Kabocha we grew did not seem to have much flavor and was slow to ripen, although we have a hundred pounds of it on our shelves still. The butternut grew large but mostly failed to ripen. Not enough heat units I guess.
The biggest thing we learned this year is our limits! As just two people + two horses, we humans basically worked 10-12 hour days x 7/week, the horses less. In fact the horses had a full day working if they were out a couple hours in the morning and a couple in the afternoon. Followed by some pasture time if they were good. And Sundays off because, you know, they’re Amish. Meanwhile, as we focused on the farm our home gardens and a couple dozen fruit trees were fairly neglected. We’re going to try to streamline things for this next year and recover our home operation. Also as we are in our third year of working with the horses and because we’re not getting any younger we are beginning to think of how we transition into a different model while keeping the workhorse project a community asset. Bold ideas welcome.
Finally, no End of the Year Report for 2024 would be complete without a check-in with our current context. The reality of the situation in our Country and what the World faces. Did you know, our country’s governance has been described by CIA analysts as an anocracy, something in-between democracy and authoritarian government. This is associated with a whole slew of risks like increasing societal instability including political violence. In my opinion you could also call it a “kakistocracy”, defined as governance by the least qualified and most unprincipled citizens. Many smart people, including President Jimmy Carter (may he Rest In Peace), have referred to the USA as an oligarchy for years now. Economic inequality is now at its greatest since the gilded age of the late nineteenth century. Lastly, more ominously is the inauguration of the former guy. I really don’t want to get started on this topic except to say I do not think this ends well.
But actually I’m especially worried about one aspect of our surreal political dilemma, the fact that it will be worse than helpful in the need for responding urgently to the accelerating threats of climate change. Humanity is seemingly unable to rein in its burning of fossil fuels. But while demand grows experts say there is evidence we are now past peak production of oil. Greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere continue to rise and each new year is a record high for temperature, including 2024. Seas are acidified and rising. Climate scientists are not quite sure how/why things seem to be accelerating. I suspect we’re flirting with tipping points and this implies a risk of sudden and/or massive changes to the climate regime. Eventually this will manifest as an economic crisis. More evidence of a mass extinction of species. Meanwhile per capita energy use increases in response to demand for consumerism, server farms for social media, “cloud based” internet, and AI. Human intelligence, though, is apparently in decline, at least that portion of intelligence defined by an ability to look at the big picture and plan for the survival of things like civilization. Or future generations of the human species. I’m just scratching the surface here for gloomy news with the above discussion. Its hard to even think about this stuff but it seems this is happening on our watch.
Anyhoo. Other than that we’re having a great time here at the start of 2025. But yeah, it is time to buckle up Buttercup! Plant some seeds in the ground, and build that local food system resilience! Get to know and enjoy your neighbors regardless of the division, fear and hate mongering we hear from some of our so-called leaders. We’re going to need each other to survive the coming changes.
John and Jim and the Chimacum Workhorse Project will be there in 2025, pulling for local food. Hope to see you around town! Or stop by the farm sometime!
