Weathering Together
Because farming is never a solo endeavor
Every morning, just as the world eases from night to not-quite-day, I pull on track pants and a long-sleeved shirt over my pajamas and head out with Peri the Puppy for our dawn walk. Sky the Farm Dog accompanies us, but comes and goes on her own scent-induced errands throughout our tour of the farm. The morning symphony of bird song is just warming up as we wander the fields, the dogs checking in on the “farm-message boards” to see who has passed through in the overnight hours while I look over the crops as the daylight strengthens. It is a time of observation and introspection.
Peri is nearly five months old and has grown into a spitfire delight of a pup. Our current daily training is focused on short off-leash sessions during our walks and practicing responding to “Come!” She’s a smart little girl and knows that quick response to this command usually produces a treat, however she is also “nose deaf” so when her sniffer is distracted by something, her ears no longer work. Not surprising for a curious pup at liberty, so we continue to practice. There are a lot of rules for a dog on our farm and there is much trust to be earned before she gets to free-range as Sky does.
Why is it important for a dog on our farm to know and obey the rules? Because we grow food in our fields and it is critical that our animals understand and respect that they don’t belong where food is grown. It’s easy for an excited dog to damage A LOT of leafy greens or knock down brittle fruiting plants like peppers or ground cherries, which results in a loss of those crops for our members and customers. The dogs have to know that those areas are off limits so we practice…and…practice and practice. Without that, there is no way for a dog to know what is acceptable behavior. We have to trust that they'll remember the rules, even when there aren't treats waiting or we're nowhere nearby.
In many ways, training a puppy isn't all that different from training our farm crew on food safety and best practices. There are so many little things that the average person doesn’t think about, (like not handing a field crate over the top of a tote of freshly harvested salad mix)…but we are handling people’s food and so we train and practice (though with fewer treats than the puppy gets) on how we handle our crops, tools and ourselves in our environment.
Somewhere between teaching a puppy to stay out of the lettuce and teaching a crew member not to pass a harvest crate over freshly washed greens, I realized something.
“Trust is one of the few things we grow that never appears on a harvest list.”
You can’t weigh it.
You can’t bunch it.
You can’t wash it.
But every season depends on it.
Every time someone signs up for a Bounty Box months before the harvest, they’re trusting us.
Every time someone orders through VegEmail without knowing exactly which squash they’ll get, they’re trusting us.
Every bouquet, every jar of jam, every head of lettuce begins with that simple act of trust.
Of course, trust only gets you so far when you're farming in Iowa. We know that we can trust in the weather to do radical and unexpected things…even though we wish it wouldn’t.
In the past two weeks we have been under Excessive Heat Warnings for multiple days as well as Air Quality Alerts originating from the wildfires in Canada.
Oddly the summer squash and cucumbers don’t stop growing in those conditions, so we work through them though with much consideration for farm crew health and safety. I keep threatening to get a T-shirt that says Water Nag on the front and Bossy on the back as I am constantly nagging the crew about water breaks, especially on these hot days.
The most recent heatwave finally broke last Monday night with a raucous summer storm, complete with high winds and 2.50 inches of rain. The power lines in our area weren’t up tot he challenge and our power was out for about 17 hours as we prepared for Tuesday’s Bounty Box delivery. It made for an interesting harvest day. We loaded in and out of the walk in cooler via flashlight, strung hundreds of feet of extension cords to generators, and sent out the newsletter hours late. Farming doesn't stop just because the power does.
The storm was also rough on a number of our crops, shredding greens, heavily damaging peach trees and laying our popcorn down flat. Most of the greens will recover, some peach trees will recover, the worst will be replaced. The popcorn was my biggest worry, but after nearly a week, much of it is trying to stand back up again. The yield will certainly be affected and it will be a pain to harvest as it’s no longer in straight rows, I’m hopeful that there will be some popcorn to harvest this fall.
And speaking of fall, even though we’re at the height of mid-summer and it’s currently 95 degrees, it is time to put fall crops in the ground. It’s a bit of a conundrum this time of year…fall crops tend to be those that flourish in cool weather and many will not germinate if the temperatures are above a certain threshold. So it can be challenging to get the plants to survive and grow through late summer heat waves. Challenge accepted! In the past 2 weeks we’ve sown and transplanted most of our successions of leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi, radishes, turnips, beets and carrots. There are still a handful more to go, but we are well on our way. I’d love to tell you that I expect the weather will settle down for the rest of the season. But after more than twenty years of farming here, I’ve learned not to make promises on behalf of Iowa weather.
One final thought…
This month has reminded me that trust is something we grow in many ways. We earn it by caring for the land, by training our crew well, by adapting to whatever the weather throws our way, and by treating food safety as a daily responsibility-not a response to the news cycle.
We appreciate the trust you place in us. We never take it for granted.
What a fantastic message-and thank you for all you do to grow wonderful food, safely for us. We ❤️ Blue Gate!!
There's no one I trust more with my food than BGF!!! Loved the description of the puppy walks lol