Fall Farm Update…A Bountiful Year!

by Allison Kieley & Richard de Wilde

Onions drying in the greenhouse

The energy on the farm in the fall has a noticeably different feel than during other times of the year. While we remain busy harvesting vegetables, the shift in weather forces us to deviate from our typical go-go-go spirit and pause for moments of planning and problem-solving. This fall we continued to work around the lingering impacts of the season-long severe drought. Increased irrigation efforts paired with the silver lining of drought – little to no disease caused by wet foliage – allowed us to harvest bountiful yields of some of our favorite crops. We have seen about double the typical yield from our onions, and our sweet potatoes are some of the best we’ve seen in years!

Our successful yields presented us with a new challenge: storage! With so many healthy, sizeable crops to harvest, we quickly realized that storage was going to become an issue. Not only were we short on cooler space, but for the first time in well over 10 years we ran out of storage bins. We’re thankful for our friends at Spring Grove Pallets who were able to make and deliver 80 new wooden bins in a matter of days to help us get our crops into storage. If you were to drive past the farm today, you’d see the parking lots scattered with full-size semi-trailers. These refrigerated units have been our creative solution to a shortage of cooler space for various winter root crops. At present, we are running our three main coolers in the packing shed, three 53’ refrigerated semi-trailers, and we are using the refrigeration unit on our little market truck. It is a full house!

Fall cabbages in October,
ready to harvest!

The funny thing about the transition into fall is that despite knowing it will arrive every year, we somehow find ourselves feeling surprised at its arrival. Whether it is waking up to an early first frost or working around an unexpected downpour of 4” of rain in the middle of a drought, there is nothing we can do to control the weather. What we can, and do, control is how we react. It is awkward to have the crew call from our field on Upper Newton Road to report that it is freezing there, and they cannot harvest. What to do? Take a long coffee break until it warms up? We must remain diligent in our forecasting and plan our work accordingly.

Over time, and through trial and error, we have learned to take steps to be proactive rather than reactive. For example, instead of looking at an upcoming weather forecast with high temperatures in the low 20s as a sign to throw in the towel on our vulnerable green vegetables, we took it as an opportunity to pause, shift gears, and set ourselves up for success. We assessed the situation and decided to use an entire day of work to put covers over several acres of greens. This process can feel painstakingly slow, but because we took the time to protect these crops, we were able to extend our greens harvest for several weeks. As I am writing this, our crew is harvesting the very last of our cilantro crop…on November 14th. That is certainly a new record!

We're still harvesting kale in November!

We have learned a lot through trial and error and think that is the only way you can truly understand what works and what doesn’t. After 50 years of lessons learned, and taking advice from second and third-generation farmers who came before us, understanding the importance of time is a recurring theme in farming. This is especially true when it comes to planting fall crops. Fall crops, like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, like cool weather but if you wait too long to plant them, they might not make it. To avoid putting all our eggs in one basket, we typically have two different plantings for these crops, which are done about two weeks apart. The first one battles against the heat, and the second one battles against the cold. Choose your battle! We work hard to maintain accurate records and continue to adjust planting dates based on, you guessed it, the weather. This week’s CSA boxes contain the last of our fall cauliflower and broccoli Romanesco. The heads are small, but we couldn’t bear to leave them behind. 

Mulched Garlic Field

After seeing our 2022 garlic plants above ground last fall, we realized our mid-October planting date was too early. We aren’t supposed to see them until the spring! We pushed our planting date back 10 days this year and ended up being able to shape and fertilize the field. We were also able to bury irrigation drip lines in preparation for planting. We’re lucky we had the foresight to get this taken care of before planting because we unexpectedly got 2.5” of rain on October 13th and needed to wait for the ground to dry to plant the garlic. In hindsight, we must see the humor in needing to wait for the ground to dry after this year’s historic drought. There’s never a dull moment around here! 

While we are finishing a few late harvests, our work in the fields is starting to wind down. Our crew has completed the sunchoke and horseradish plantings for the 2024 crop year and we were able to plant about 50-60 acres of cover crops. We still need to cut our supply of firewood for next year but are fortunate to have a strong storage supply so that isn’t terribly pressing. Some of the harvest crew has already returned home to their friends and family in Mexico, and we have another group of 12 leaving at the end of this week. It is always bittersweet to say goodbye to our team, they really do feel like family. As we celebrate Thanksgiving next week, we realize we truly do have a lot to be grateful for this year.

Enjoy the upcoming holiday, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!