This is our farm column from farmer Casey O’Neill. O’Neill is the owner operator of HappyDay Farms north of Laytonville, and a long time advocate for the cannabis community in Mendocino Co; more of his writing can be found here. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer. If you would like to submit a letter to the editor feel free to write to [email protected].
It’s been a glorious week of mixed projects as the snow melted and I came to realize that March is well underway. Burgeoning growth in the hoophouses has me excited for the weeks to come; salad mixes, beets, turnips, radishes and Asian greens are picture perfect in the tunnels and I’ve never had such a solid lineup coming down the pipeline at this point in the year. I’m clearing beds and planting fast, with a full complement of trays that are just about ready to transplant out.
I was chatting with a friend the other day and she mentioned offhand that her peppers are coming up, and asked me if I had started tomatoes yet. It brought me up short to realize I hadn’t even considered starting hot crops. Crop timing has gotten more interesting for me as my production niche has shifted over the years. I always used to focus on getting hot crops going as early as possible so that I could bring them to market sooner, but now I’m more interested in utilizing the hoophouse space for spring salad mix production.
There’s been a feeling this last week of happy anticlimax at the dissipation of the big storm with the realization that it really was going to turn to rain and the snow would melt. After last year, and with the way the predictions for this one were so big, I feel like I’m in lucky bonus country with a new lease on life. The tunnels are all standing, crops all accounted for, and the outside rows that I gambled on have actually germinated and the tiny plants are looking great even though they spent several days under snow.
I find myself feeling super excited for the season, looking forward to the work of sowing, planting and tending the abundant spring harvests. In the tunnels I took the row covers off and the young crops were super happy. It’s a good thing we took the time to put the covers down because birds shelter in the tunnels during snow and the plants on the few edges or ends of rows that were uncovered have been nibbled down to nubs.
There is also quite a bit of damage to the heartier outside crops. Anything that sticks up above the snow becomes food for the quail and other bird populations, so my mustard greens, kale, collards and brussels sprouts got hammered pretty hard. I can’t even be too mad about it though because I want the bird species to thrive and I’m glad they were able to find food during the storm, although I think that next year I’ll put row cover down on the brussels because I was kind of counting on them for market harvest in the middle of this month.
As the light changes and we inch towards spring the animals are getting antsy being in the barn. We’re planning to move them back to pasture on Tuesday, but a full jail break from the pigs resulted in chaos on Friday afternoon. When I showed up for chores there were 60 chickens, one goose, one turkey and 5 pigs all out in the main barnyard where no one was supposed to be. It was kind of a hilarious site, everyone all running towards me to see what kind of snacks I had in the compost buckets.
The big sow had lifted the fence panels, knocking over the ones containing the 5 smaller pigs but not making enough space for her or Tank the boar to get out, so they were the only ones still where they were supposed to be. The others had mobbed out of their now-open pen and had bowled right through the chicken area knocking fencing and panels askew and releasing the birds and themselves out into the sunshine. It was such a nice day that it was hard to blame them, but they were happy to follow the feed bucket back into the barn and I was surprised at how quickly I was able to put things back in order.
The other thing we got into this week was starting to burn some of the brush from fire clearing this last summer as we begin to think again about advancing our preparedness as we head towards the dry season. Manzanita makes incredible firewood so I spent most of Thursday cutting chunks off of the ends of the branches and separating out the stove lengths from the brush that I added to the burnpile. There will be some nice char and ash for use in garden beds along with the firewood and it felt good to do the work even though there was still snow on the ground. I also tackled the poison oak bushes that have been encroaching on the lowest terrace in the garden, and for as much as I was in contact with it I’m pleased not to have gotten a worse case of it.
The farm and landscape are coming to life with the first murmurs of the changing season in the air and I’m deeply enjoying the experience of hope springs eternal. The excitement of the growth to come flows in my veins and adds a bounce to my step as I revel in the various projects and efforts of the farm. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!
