Eat Local Challenge: Alarming News

No photos today, just some alarming news from the farmers.

I was at the (insane) downtown market Santa Cruz yesterday, and the word is out: rain is having a devastating effect on the spring planting. Twenty-seven rainy days in March, and more already this month.

Farmer Joe Rubin says, "We'll have to toss our first plantings of tomato seedlings in the greenhouse: they're already starting to flower and we can't get them in the ground because it's too wet."

"It's too wet...we can't plant" is the litany of my farmer friends, and it's bad. Crops are being delayed, and the winter crops are running out.

When I told Joe about the Eat Local Challenge in May, he laughed grimly and said, "You'll be having a lot of bitter greens and six-month-old winter squash." May in particular is looking bleak: these farmers are really taking a bad hit.

A ripple effect can easily occur that will affect the entire country, as they look to California to provide them with produce.

Hey, Locavores, can we move the event to June? Otherwise, I think we'll be discouraged and uninspired, and we will suffer attrition in our ranks.

Meanwhile, at our house, we've got seven tomato plants in the ground, as well as cardoons and some carrots. None of those will be ready in May, but we've got a little garden started. And today the sun is out. I can see blue skies...but I don't know if they're smiling at me.

More later.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "The more we pour the big machines, the fuel, the pesticides, the herbicides, the fertilizer and chemicals into farming, the more we knock out the mechanism that made it all work in the first place." —David R. Brower

Thanks for visiting.

Comments

[tomgirl]

As one of your farmer fans, I agree with you that we are suffering now because of the weather, and consumers don't know yet that they will be suffering along with us very shortly.

[Melissa]

Yikes! I did talk to a friend in Santa Cruz today who mentioned the crazy rain. We got our big storms in January and February (Oregon) and the veg farmers seem to be doing well here and will be hitting the markets soon with fresh greens...thank goodness!

I send good luck and thoughts to the Cali farmers. Could be a hard year. 'Tis the nature of farming from what I have learned over the years. The riskiest business there is....

I enjoy your blog so much! I wish I had more time to spend with mine. :)

[Dr. Biggles]

Or we could find a book with Native American dishes and eat what's growing in our back yards.

Is there anything we can do for our farming families?
I figured it was going to be a tough year when I saw my lemon tree turning brown and my sprouted garlic shoots dying. I figured I'd start planting the maters after Easter, way after.
What to do?

[mary g]

I was glad to see your quote from David Brower--do you know the John McPhee book, Encounters with the Archdruid, that he appears in, almost as a character (even though it's a nonfiction book)?

[Jamie]

It's so dispiriting, isn't it? You folks are getting all the coldness and water for the whole country, to the point where it's killing everything. I'm thinking of all of you.

Do you have a sheltered, un-rainy spot like a back porch or a bathroom window where you could put up a big container or two and plant some radishes and bok choy? 20-some days to maturity for both. Desperate times call for desperate measures!