January Farmer’s Perspective: Sam
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The turn of the new year is always both a special and difficult time. There’s lots of dreaming, planning, and flipping through seed catalogs as I think about what crops the upcoming seasons will hold. At the same time, January usually poses a really uncomfortable and challenging lull in harvest and revenue, making the business side of the farm trickier to navigate as we move into the busy Spring season.
New shipment of Fig Trees ready to go in the ground.
This year especially, as we mark our 1 year anniversary of being on the new property, I’m finding the visionary side of me really grateful to have a stable property to pour ideas and more ideas into. Because of our long term lease at Van Dyke (the new property in Gilroy), there’s a lot of things that we can plan for that we previously never could do. One of the big additions this year are fig trees. It’s a small start to what we hope will someday be a multi-variety fruit tree orchard, and it feels good to be planting some long-term perennials. When the Van Dyke Ranch initially started in 1921, fruit trees were their only crop, and now we get to start new trees all over again! It’s so special to carry on the legacy of another family owned farm at Van Dyke Ranch, one of the first farms in California to grow and dry fruit organically. Because of their commitment to organic farming (all the way since 1976!), we’re benefiting every day from the healthy soil they’ve cultivated. Like all new and exciting things, I wish we could start with more fruit tree options, but this year so much of the farm income has been set aside for making our new property a workable farm (shed space, irrigation systems, larger harvest crew etc). That’s all part of the fun of the process though- picking and choosing what and how much to start with!
Another exciting addition I’ve spent a lot of time this January planning for are chickens. Getting chickens is something we’ve talked about for many years and now, with a more permanent space, we can actually make happen! We’re hoping to start with about 250 birds which should provide us around 70-80 dozen eggs a week. If we stay on schedule, the chickens could give us enough eggs to begin collecting around July. Of course, with all the chicken preparation comes planning for coop designs and deciding what types of chickens to get. It’s a great reminder while planning that the mobile coops will also really help our soil health. Chickens are super good at pooping (natural fertilizer), eating pests, and slowly turning up the soil as they claw around. Not to mention, we could give a lot of our compost and scraps to feed the chickens, allowing us to move towards fuller circle, regenerative farming practices.
At the same time I’m dreaming and planning for chickens and fig trees, January is also a time that we hold our breath as we wait for Spring sales to come in. During the first couple months of the year, we always see a big revenue drop. It’s expected because of the shorter days and longer time needed for growing. This year in particular, artichokes have been slower to come up and start producing strong yields. Although we started harvesting in Mid-December we’ve seen very small harvests. Right now, we’ve been getting an average of 3-4 field totes per week, while last year at this time we were bringing in 2-3 pallets a week. With that kind of volume, we were able to fulfill our needs for the CSA, farmers’ markets, and a few of our retail and restaurant partners. However, this year, we’ve struggled to bring just a few totes to each of our markets. Since artichokes make up a large portion of our winter sales, their delay brings some unexpected challenges and a lot of customer anticipation. The artichokes have always been a very ‘finicky’ crop; they are in the ground for nearly 6 months before we ever start harvesting, and then usually have a 5-6 month harvest season- nearly a whole year in all! That means that small changes in the weather or our practices can have a big effect. The comparably mild summer we had this past year definitely has something to do with it. We are also looking at different foliage sprays that could affect harvest timing and yields, as well as our watering schedule, nutritional program, and planting configuration. We’re constantly pivoting and changing our growing practices to try and figure out how to minimize the winter gap and keep a steady flow of quality products throughout the year.
Rain, of course, adds an equally difficult and beneficial dynamic to the farming life. In the short term, it’s tough. In the long term, it’s great. Because of the December rains we’ve found ourselves with a backlog of tractor work that can’t be done until the soil dries. This puts us behind on cultivating and planting, which then affects our harvest 3 and 4 months down the road. On the other side, lots of winter rain means that our soil’s groundwater is recharged and the well is full for summertime. No matter what season we’re in, it seems that we’re thinking about how it will affect us 3, 6, 9 and 12 months down the road.
January flowers. Our first crop ever of overwinter Ranunculus (pictured here), Anemomes, and Stock are ready for harvest.
As January closes I’m both grateful and expectant for the new year ahead on our property. My brother, dad and I are finally feeling like we can take a deep breath with the hog and squirrel fencing put up and plow forward with minimal wildlife interruptions. Of course, we anticipate new challenges and rolling with the punches each week, month and season. We’ve already started harvesting the first of our over-wintered flowers, and that’s as good of a sign as any that spring will be here before we know it!