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.
The air is redolent with the scent of daphne, deeply floral and sweet. Next will come the cherry blossoms, lilacs, roses, then the wisteria. I’m planting jasmine this spring to climb the front of the porch and add to the string of infusions for the senses. Much later in the year the farm will be blanketed by cannabis terpenes, the delicious scents of sweet skunkfunk with floral layers adding to the chorus of the years of my life, echoing back with the sweetness of good memory.
Flowers bring me so much joy, especially the perennials that return year after year like old friends to brighten my life. Daffodils are in full swing now, tulips soon, and hyacinths are on the verge; the first one has begun to flower in the propagation house along with the citrus flowers from the lemon tree, filling the tunnel with the scent of joyous spring. Though we’re in for snow later this week, spring has arrived in full force in the last few days.
The pagans have it right, Imbolc brings the first day of spring, and the Equinox marks the center of the season. As such, we’re well underway, and it is evident everywhere I look in the abundant return of growth and the warmth of the sun on my face. As the flowers and plants awaken from winter so do I; the blood sings in my veins as my soul soars with the possibilities of a new year.
I come to reflect on the amount of my life that I spend in service to flowers, tending and supporting that I may reap their myriad benefits. Flowers are symbols of love for good reason, and their expression of sensual pleasures is a driving force in my life. Knowing that the flowers we grow will go out into the world to light and succor brings me as much joy as the pleasure of experiencing them myself in my own yard.
Flowers change consciousness, none more than the beauty of the cannabis flower in full expression. I am grateful for my role in service to the flowers, learning each year to be better at tending and caring for them as a deep part of my life’s work. It is a serious responsibility to serve as an agent of a plant that alters consciousness, so we strive to uphold this duty to the best of our abilities.
Growth has finally returned in the hoop houses, and this is the first week since the abundance of January waned that I don’t have stress about whether we’ll have enough produce to harvest for market and CSA. The late winter period is always the most difficult both for maintaining our market channels and for my mental health, which is affected by the stress of a lack of production.
Each year I get better at producing in the cold months, learning new methods for stretching the seasons and managing the timing of crop planting. Hoop house space makes all the difference, and I have hopes for one more tunnel to give me enough bed space for more of the slower growing lettuces and quick Asian greens. I develop a deeper understanding of the ways that plants react to the changing of the light, which crops will blow out and go to seed with the shift to a new year and which ones will manage to produce yet longer.
With the recent sunny days comes great joy to look into the tunnels and see the rapid growth that has begun, bringing a feeling of right livelihood and happiness in the work that infuses my steps and excites me to continue the efforts. This is also the tricky time, when I get so hyped that I plant too much and commit to too many projects, so each year I work to temper my enthusiasm with knowledge that when deep summer arrives the chickens will come home to roost, and I will have to follow through on everything I begin in this season of spring mania.
The irony of joy in sunshine with snow in the forecast is not lost on me, but such are the vicissitudes of spring. Friends came yesterday to help with bed prep, so I’m caught up on the steps towards spring planting and will spend today sowing seeds in the hoop house for the next round of salad mixes, turnips, beets, scallions and brassica. It is also time (past time even) to begin sowing hot crops, so I’ll grudgingly begin on tomatoes and peppers.
As my love of greens and quick root crops deepens, I become almost resentful of the long summer hot crops and the time that they occupy my precious bed space. Peppers are especially on the chopping block when I run the numbers on multiple plantings of salad vs the single planting of peppers that occupies a bed from May until November. Each year brings new refinements and evaluations, and the puzzle is a huge part of the joy of farming. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!
Casey O’Neill owns and runs HappyDay Farms, a small vegetable and cannabis farm north of Laytonville. He is a long time cannabis policy advocate, and was born and raised in the Bell Springs area. The preceding has been an editorial column. The Mendocino Voice has not necessarily fact-checked or copyedited this work, and it should be interpreted as the words of the author, not necessarily reflecting the opinions of The Mendocino Voice.