Record heat, no rain
by Sunday
May has been an interesting month for us, as a new farm. We were hoping to be “up and running” with produce to sell by the end of May. We have experienced some challenges, and we will not be “up and running” as quickly as we had hoped.
We have applied for a grant for improved irrigation. This would be drip irrigation directly to each plant. We could, however, only apply for irrigation for an area in which we were already growing crops, as it must be an improvement to conserve water. In other words, to get “good” irrigation, we must first plant the crops.
Our current irrigation consists of pulling hoses and soaker hoses over 1 1/2 acres of orchard and plants. We should find out about the grant in July.
Most springs, this would be a decent amount of work from time to time, but doable. This May has, however, brought unseasonable temperatures, higher by 10-15 degrees than normal for this time of year. We are hitting some high heat records, in the high 90’s, and there has been no rain in 2 weeks, as of this post. There is no rain predicted in the 10 day forecast.
We knew this was a bit of a gamble, and are prepared to work hard to keep our plants alive. To that end, we are spending 6 or more hours every day, moving 200 feet or more of hose to water via sprinkler, 50 foot soaker hose, and hand watering our 2000 or so row feet of plants plus the orchard. We have a well, so only one area can be watered at a time- there simply is not enough water pressure to do more.
Our older plantings are mulched deeply, which helps tremendously with water retention. We plan to mulch the new plantings as well.
So, all said, we are spending most of our time just keeping all our plants alive. This leaves time for only the most basic of maintenance otherwise. We’re hoping for a change in the weather soon, but we will persevere regardless. Thanks for reading!
