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 find myself thinking more and more about ways of cooperative living that help us meet our needs together in small community spaces. The farm has so many moving pieces that it takes big effort at maintenance and coordination to keep everything moving. Livestock work is draining when placed on too few sets of shoulders, and farming can be overwhelming drudgery if we don’t keep it fun and have enough hands to make light work. The joy of shared human effort is real though, and I’m delighted by the ways we’re learning to work together as a small community in my neighborhood.
I’m looking forward to winter gatherings for games and play, reflecting on the long season as we round the turn into the final sprint over the next few weeks. Short winter days make time for reading, playing music and recharging the long-term batteries that get drawn down towards burnout over the course of the season. Following the natural rhythm of the seasons yields the pleasures of each as it arrives, and I’m reveling in the abundance of fall.
With the downturn in temps, everything is hastening to the finish, and my mind turns to thoughts of winter: woodstoves, firewood, cover crops and cool weather vegetables. We’re clearing the beds of cannabis stumps as soon as we harvest, replanting the same day or within the first couple days after harvest, for space is always at a premium, and the winter crops need every advantage they can gain when going in this late in the season.
Later plantings of clones are easy to pull the stumps and do a full prep to soften the space so the Paperpot planter can cut the needed furrows without binding up. It’s much easier to just cut the stumps at the base, leaving the roots to decompose and add tilth and organic matter to the soil, while planting around them on an opposite pattern with large brassica. Of equal ease is to run the seeder down the rows, starting root crops and salad mixes that will be slow-growing but will reliably produce during the holiday season.
Planting the larger heading crops this late can be a gamble, but the weather is so variable here that the only sure strategy is to just keep planting each week, knowing full well that there will probably be some crop loss along the way. I’ve seen sun, rain or snow every week of winter, so we just keep rocking and trust that things will mostly work.
We’ll be doing extra mulching and ditching this year in preparation for the rains that are predicted to come from the El Niño weather pattern, hedging our bets against erosion and soil loss. Cover crops are going in over the next two weeks, with hopes that they can establish a solid stand to protect the soil before the real rain events come. Fall crops are covered in insect netting or mulched, which helps to diffuse the rain splashes and lessen the potential damage.
Mid-October has the same growing properties as mid-March, so things are slowing down as the sun drops towards the horizon. Starts that are already sized up will finish well and at full size capacity, but tender younglings like the 300 tiny cabbages that just went into 3-inch pots are a gamble. They will likely yield tasty, little heads for late winter eating and sales, but it all depends on the upcoming weather. We’ll cover them with Reemay against the cold and cross our fingers.
It’s relatively easy to produce volumes through the end of January and well into February, but by the time March arrives, we’ve usually exhausted the large, heading brassica and the winter storage crops of potatoes, winter squash and onions have begun to be depleted and lose quality. This is the time when we’re ultra greens heavy, relying on salad mixes, cooking greens and the tender root crops we love so much. I’m hoping to plant a large amount of close-planted small garlic heads to harvest for green garlic in the early spring to add spice and flavor.
We’ll be planting our full garlic crop soon, but cannabis harvest takes precedence, along with the upcoming turkey slaughter that we need to fit into the busy schedule. I’m moving away from hardneck garlic strains because they don’t keep long enough for us, keeping only the Metichi and an early strain that I call the Red Siberian (I’m not 100% sure that that’s what it actually is). We’re continuing to expand production of our beautiful softneck that was handed down to us from my Ma and that Amber uses to make gorgeous garlic braids.
This past week we harvested the first round of our fall brassica, cabbages grown in the cannabis beds after the early light dep crop came out. It’s amazing to see what healthy starts in 3-inch pots can do when planted in August. The heads were massive, juicy and fabulous. Cabbage is one of my favorite vegetables. We’ve been eating it and have two big crocks filled and fermenting into sauerkraut. Processing and preserving the abundance sets us up for a successful winter, and we’re excited with the results thus far. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!