January is supposed to be one of the calmer months at Terra Firma. With the short days and cold temperatures, the crops don’t usually grow much — and sometimes not at all. Add in the fact that January is our 2nd rainiest month on average — we normally don’t work during rainstorms — and it can get downright boring around here. Quite a few of our staff take additional time off as a result — there’s often not enough work to go around. It’s not uncommon for our crew to work only 3-4 days a week.
The first month of 2025 has not been that type of January. The last rain we saw was actually while the farm was still closed for vacation, and it wasn’t much. If it weren’t for the rain forecast for Friday, I would expect this month to be one of the driest Januaries we’ve ever seen. And it wasn’t just a lack of rain, it was the nearly constant strong, dry wind that I call “Anti-rain” that dries out the ground and dessicates the plants — the same phenomenon that caused the deadly fires in Southern California.
When the north wind is blowing here, it’s sunny. And while the wind can feel very cold to humans due to the low humidity, it stirs up the air at night and keeps the temperatures from dropping. The sunny days and relatively warm nights make it feel like spring, and our crops respond accordingly. Most notable was the avalanche of broccoli that we have been harvesting. Most years we pick Broccoli once or twice a week in the winter; since New Year’s we have been picking it 5 days a week and still not keeping up with it. All of our other crops have been enjoying the “nice weather”, as well, and we’ve been as busy with harvest as we normally are during the fall or spring.
Sunny and dry weather also makes it possible to do other work we often can’t do in January. We’ve gotten all of our fields weeded, for example. That bodes well for springtime, since the crops tend to grow much more quickly and nicely when they’re not competing with weeds. We’ve also been able to plant crops like lettuce and carrots that will mature in the spring, and prepare fields for our early summer crops. And yesterday we finished planting a new orchard, of Fall-ripening peaches. That task is 100x easier to do when the ground is friable and loose rather than sticky, muddy and wet — and the trees will likely grow better as a result.
But there’s one task we’ve spent lots of time on in January that I would rather not be doing: irrigation. While we got plenty of rain in November and December, the wind dried the ground out enough that we had to start irrigating mid-way through the month. Some crops even had to get watered a second time. Now, the forecast would indicate we could see some flooding by next Wednesday. February may make up for January’s rain deficit and then some.
I’m glad we got the dry spell we did, but I certainly wasn’t ready for the rainy season to be over. I’m looking forward to the return of rain, clouds and our normal sleepy winter work schedule.
Thanks,