O’Neill: Succession planting and community sharing is the key to food security

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 delighted by the ways that the community steps up to support each other. In the last two weeks, I received donations that made it possible to purchase five hundred pounds of potatoes from Wild Rose Farm to donate to the free table at farmers market and through the Laytonville Food Bank this coming Friday, just in time for Thanksgiving. Big shoutout to the folks who felt they had a little extra and could contribute support. It is a deep joy for me to donate my time to serve as a conduit to purchase and distribute. 

One of the great treasures in food systems work is the linkage between farmers, the way we spread our production to focus on crops that do well, and we like to grow. I buy winter squash from Oak Valley, potatoes from Wild Rose, apples and juice from Redtail Ranch, onions from Irene’s Garden and Inland Ranch. These are core staple crops that our family eats in large quantities, and they make up bulk and heft in the CSA shares (the vegetable subscription service we’ve been running for the last 15 years) that go out each week. 

I purchase from smallholders and backyard orchardists, and in general I’m always down to gather surplus and try to find a home for it, making sure that nothing goes to waste and encouraging local production wherever possible. I try to build donations for the food bank into my crop planning to help support access to fresh, local produce for everyone. These practices are a core part of my belief in localized, equitable food systems and a key driving force that provides meaning to my life. 

On our farm I focus on greens, salad mixes, herbs and quick rotation root crops in the winter, adding in cannabis, summer squash, tomatoes, hot peppers and cucumbers in the summer. Because we have such limited production space, purchasing from other local farms is a core part of my strategy for filling market channels and maximizing the potential of our local food system.

Yesterday I planted the rows in Pops’ backyard, using the transplanter for seedlings of beets, purple bunching onions and bok choy, and the seeder for Asian greens and radishes. We had cleared the cannabis after harvest, but the beds lay empty awaiting the next succession of crops. I alternate each year between the cannabis terraces at Pops’ and my place—one gets a cover crop and one gets winter veggies. 

A few weeks ago we planted the lowest two terraces with cabbages and broccoli, and I was astounded to see that I had lost about a quarter of the plants in the cabbage row. Closer inspection revealed dozens of harlequin beetles that had worked their way down the row and were now clustered on three plants that were beginning to look worse for wear. I squished every one I could find and deployed insect netting over the remaining plants, kicking myself for not doing it at planting time. I’ll check again today and kill as many as I can find and hopefully the netting will prevent further damage. 

In preparation for planting I began to load the truck, putting in buckets of a chicken pellet and cal-phos blend, insect netting, seeds, seeder, the Paperpot planter, zipper tool for opening and closing rows, the battery drill-powered tiller, and the rake for smoothing. A while ago I was given a stack of heavy duty round metal hoops that were used with four verticals and a heavy rubber band to make tomato cages. I’ve been cutting the hoops and spreading them out to make row covers, which I did with fifty of them to hold up the insect netting in the rows at Pops’. 

The truck was full without the trays of plants, so I headed down the hill to do the initial prep work and come back later for the starts. The beds had already seen a heavy compost layer before cannabis planting, and the soil had been loosened when we pulled the stalks so I skipped compost and broadfork and just raked off the straw, spread the amendments, worked them into the top three inches of soil and raked the bed smooth. I think of this as a quick-prep for shallow-rooted, short season crops that doesn’t disturb the lower soil profiles yet incorporates the amendments and makes a nice soft planting surface for seeding or transplanting. 

I seeded two beds, Paperpotted one, and then installed the hoops and covered them with insect netting, holding it down with the T-posts that alternate seasonally between holding down covers and holding up cannabis. Multi-function, minimal-movement equipment is a core strategy for increasing production and cutting down on effort to make the most of time and energy. It’s a balance between keeping things as close to hand as possible, and centralizing storage to avoid weather damage and know where tools are. 

I left the tools that wouldn’t be damaged by some sprinkles in the night so that I can come back today and Paperpot the last bed to bok choy and collards, which will complete the planting at Pops’. It will also complete this succession of crops, which means it’s time to sow more seeds, which I can do in the greenhouse while the rain comes down this week. Forward we go, as always, much love and great success to you on your journey!

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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.