O’Neill: Water is life on the farm

Casey O’Neill is a farmer and owner of Happy Day Farms in Laytonville, Calif. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mendocino Voice. If you’d like to write your own column for The Mendocino Voice, send your idea to info@mendovoice.com.

I’m always amazed by how much my life changes when the rains come. Instead of striving to keep things cool and wet, I’m suddenly working to keep them warm and dry. Animal husbandry shifts, moving from shade and water to dry bedding and shelters that keep out the rain. The overall pace of life slows down, seeds germinate more slowly, weeds grow slower and go to seed less readily. Now is the time for harvesting the last summer crops and the summer-planted fall crops.

We’ve been enjoying the first cauliflower and cabbages. Life in a Mediterranean climate is such a juxtaposition of two worlds, often involving the movement of water. During the dry times my task is to move water to irrigate crops and keep livestock happy with fresh drinking water and wallows to cool themselves. During the wet times my task is to manage the movement of water on the landscape, to spread it out so that the flow slows and as much of it as possible sinks into the land to recharge the groundwater. 

More groundwater recharge means more available for the dry season to come; the land is a sponge, soaking up the moisture through the wet times and releasing it during the dry season. This past winter we got a lot of early moisture, and I had expected it to be a good water year. But things dried out so fast in the spring without late rains, and the brutal July heat meant that we used more water than usual. Pops always says that an inch of rain in May is worth ten in

December, and I’ve come to agree. 

This year I also made a critical miscalculation in the spring, running sprinklers on crops that could have been shifted earlier to drip irrigation. The sprinklers use much more water than the drip, but they are highly effective for tender salad mixes and other crops that are planted more densely than the nine-inch irrigation spacings. That said, I was also running them on large, heading brassica that could have been shifted over to drip after a short acclimation period. 

In retrospect, I was deluding myself about the capacity of our pond to support the needs of the farm, especially with the increased fall plantings of cool weather crops. I had been trying to figure out the best way of minimizing time spent while keeping crops cool and happy, but I erred too far in the direction of increased water usage. Later in the summer we made a crucial shift with the implementation of shade cloth for all plantings, which I’m excited to apply to my late spring plantings to save time and water while still acclimating crops. 

I try to cut down on time spent on things like hand-watering to increase efficiency in the operation, and sprinklers are a great way to do so, up to a point. I had hoped to shift to sprinklers and use less drip irrigation because many crops seem to do better when the whole soil surface is moistened. But I came to see that a combination of the two systems makes for the best results. Occasional sprinklers help set up a tender crop for success or cool things down on a hot afternoon, but drip is the main workhorse for water delivery. 

It’s difficult to plan a water budget and usage rates with so many different crops and types of bed space. The hoop houses are my high-value, constant rotation zones that are always planted and are irrigated by overhead sprinklers. The cannabis terraces are watered by drip, as are the beds for flowers, squash, brassica (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.) and the perennials like asparagus. 

This year marked a significant expansion in the late summer plantings of cool-weather fall crops, which took up more water than past years, so I learned a lesson about conserving more water to meet the needs of these crops. This is the first year that we managed to stay at full production with all beds planted and producing. In years past many beds would go fallow without irrigation after a spring or early summer crop finished out, but with the expanded plantings we flipped those beds back into production. 

Soil that desiccates loses vitality and volume through the death of microorganisms that need moisture to survive. This is why soil levels in raised beds or pots drop so drastically when they dry out all the way. One of my goals has been to avoid shutting off irrigation and keep living plant roots in all our beds to support soil life, and this year we made significant strides in that direction.   

In my head, winter begins on November 1st with the slowdown of the season and the process of putting the garden to bed. Come the 1st of February, spring starts for me with a heavy planting schedule, and summer begins May 1 with the arrival of real warmth. August marks the first downturns of crop growth and the beginning of fall. Each year is a series of lessons, some hard but always helpful, and as the saying goes, hope springs eternal. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!