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.
And so June begins with the first warm spell of the season, just enough to remind me to wear my long-sleeved cotton shirt with the wet towel under my hat with ice cubes on top of it, and enough to remind me to put ice cubes, lemon juice and electrolytes in my water bottles. Friday was damn warm, and I ended up with a thumping head by the end of the day. They say once you get heat stroke it comes on much easier afterwards, and the older I get the harder it is to acclimate when the heat arrives. Starting early makes a big difference, so I set the alarm for 5, but I’ve been waking up around 4:30 as the first light appears.
Our summer strategies have evolved over the years, as has so much of our farming operation. All plantings get shade cloth for the first week, 30% for things that are hardened off and sturdy, and the thicker 50% covering for tender salad mixes. It works; we planted tender PaperPot Asian greens in the heat just before lunch on Friday, covered with insect netting and shade cloth and watered them well. Yesterday when I looked the greens were standing up and showing no signs of stress.
Shade cloth has been the biggest change for my summer crop plans in the last several years, allowing the tiny celled PaperPot plantings to survive the heat without such heavy attention from hand-watering or excess use of sprinklers to keep them moist. One of the downsides to the PaperPots is that any variation in the bed surface causes high points where the plants aren’t planted as deeply, and even though we try to go back by hand and tuck them in, there are always places where the paper is exposed and will dry out faster and wick moisture up and out from the soil.
The first year I think I lost 90% of my summer PaperPot plantings and was on the verge of giving up using it in the warm months. It was so frustrating to put in so much work to end up with nothing to show. Same goes for all the years of bird damage and the impacts from harlequin beetles. I’ve been thinking about systems, how long it takes to get them in place, and how hard we work before we’re able to learn enough to implement something effective.
Now, all plantings get drip irrigation, then we cover with Proteknet insect netting that keeps bugs and birds away. Shade cloth goes on top of the netting. We use hoops or wickets to hold the netting and shade cloth up off of tender plantings, but most of the time we just lay it flat on top and the crops will push upwards as they grow. We do these things as part of planting. No more “I’ll come back and do this later” after too many hard lessons of not getting back to it in time or at all.
PaperPot trays of beans went out this week; this is the first time I’ve been on point with a bean crop in years, so I’m super excited to get them back in the lineup. We grow the Noreasters, a large, flat romano bean from Johnny’s that we’ve been saving seed from for more than a decade. Today I’ll take the shade cloth off, and I’ll pull the insect netting in another week or two when they’re ready to start climbing up their trellis.
In another sign of expansion and systems, we crossed a major milestone this week with installation of an AC unit and Coolbot into the insulated 5’x8’ box trailer we purchased from a buddy who built it out for his catering business. The Coolbot hacks the AC and pushes temps down to refrigerator levels so that we now have a properly sized cold storage after 15 years of shuffling ice blocks in coolers and three chest fridges for all of our chilling needs. Big shout-out to True North handyman Neil Vittum for helping us with the install!
Cold storage came in the nick of time for another massive produce order and overflow storage from the farmers market. Those orders went out, and then we used the unit to air-chill 79 meat chickens after slaughter on Thursday morning. In another example of systems that save us time and energy, we no longer have to drive the birds to town in heavy coolers full of ice to air chill, saving us time, fuel and effort.
I find that the more I focus on systems, the more efficiencies become apparent. Training is easier if there is a standard “way we do this task,” with less confusion and greater clarity for everyone involved. I make work plans using the Keep Notes app on my phone, noting upcoming tasks in a running checklist and maintaining lists for supplies needed, timer schedules, water meter log, lists for what items we need for complicated processes like chicken packaging day, and things such as which garlic varieties are planted in which beds.
Using these tools makes the work replicable without as much brain power for memory, externalizing the methodologies in a shareable form so that everyone involved has access to the information. As we get better and bigger, producing more at higher quality, these types of tools and systems make a big difference in our consistency, efficiency and overall productivity. 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.