April powers

“April showers bring May flowers.”

This statement comes attached to the memory of my mother beneath the white bloom of an apple tree. Pruners in hand she reaches up farther and farther, pulling at things to snip, swatting bugs. She says the words with unflinching assurance, as if she knows it to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt, as if somewhere deep within an ancient mountainside cave there is a stone etched with indelible rules that mothers can view at will. I can imagine them filing into the moms-only cave, torches in hand, reading things like “If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all,” and “Do the best you can do and you will be anything you want,” and “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” The wisdom behind the adages is time tested and empirically sound, the results are substantiating, the cave is not on any map…

While staring down at our little kale plants, unhappy in the unseasonable heat, I found myself thinking “What does April HEAT bring in May?” and did a quick brain search for a possible rhyme there, to no avail. I thought of my mom and the sayings that in-part make up her wisdom; does this shower to flower equation have a nasty bizarro-world doppelgänger? Or more importantly, what does this heat mean for our farm going into May?

Firstly, let me speak about our farm’s defenses against drought. Periodically throughout the summer, when the rain clouds seem snagged by the White Mountains, we rely on water supplied by a small irrigation pump and subsequent metal piping that gets pieced together in zones and lies like a grid over our five acres. Putting this thing together – with its elbows, T-shaped outflow pieces, switches and varying lengths – is like putting together an enormous puzzle. Every sprinkler head must be cleaned and the flow must stay concentrated and not too spread out between zones or the whole thing will lose pressure and there will be nothing but trickles draining into the fields. There are some weeks when directing and maintaining this flow seems like a full-time job in itself.

We pump the water right out of the Saco River. When seeking out certification, Richard Rudolph (our Executive Director and founder) had to have the river around the pump-spot tested, to see if the waters were pure enough to allow on organic crops. With a little luck it turns out the Saco, which supplies drinking water to more than a quarter-million people and runs 136 miles from North Conway, NH to Saco Bay, is certifiable and clean. It is one of my great pleasures to work near this river that I have grown up swimming in, kayaking on and swinging into. To be able to take a break from the field and go fiddle with the lines or take a wrench to the pump by the waters moving cool against our bank is a privilege I take pride in.

Another tool in our kit is our extensive mulch. Even now when every news station weatherman is prattling about the heat and our irrigation is not yet fully functioning we have captured moisture beneath our heavy mulch. When planting Pac Choi last Friday I found the soil beneath our hay and leaves to be moist and a little cool. An obvious downside here is soil temperature – heat loving plants of the nightshade family would prefer it if you uncovered your mulch first to let the sun directly heat the soil – but overall we find that problem to be inconsequential in the face of numerous advantages. We keep water longer, forcing it to move slower than it would were it rapidly evaporating into the air.

Finally we try to companion plant for shade. Last year our palm-tree like kale plants provided some afternoon shade for lettuces, radish and arugula. Huge cosmos blocked the sun from frying our sorrel. This year we are delving into this a bit more, planning a perennial pollinator border in one of our fields that will bring in good bugs and help us shade our summer lettuce. We may even plant something like a Siberian pea shrub to help us put valuable nitrogen back into the soil.

The last two systems I mentioned are passive; once in place they require no upkeep from us to keep functioning. The pump and the lines, however, require electricity to function and substantial maintenance. Last week we lost the prime on the pump and an after-work full-systems-analysis ensued. I refilled the main pump line with water, I redid the washers on the input line, I checked the flush valve, I reworked the lines; I did everything I could think of. Then, in the heat of the evening, I sort of gave up and sat by the water (it was past work time of course but Marina was still seeding in the greenhouse so I said hey, why not).

I stared at the intake pipe with water streaming by it. The pump sounded fine, we were just unable to get any pull out of it. I felt dazed from the heat and the long work of the day but still intrigued by the problem. At times my curiosity serves me well and I had yet to investigate one last part of the system. I stared at that cold water and with an empty head I took off my boots and socks and pants and waded in up to my hips, which is fairly high considering on a good day I am six-foot-seven.

I tried to shoulder the pipe as I went but could only manage pulling it up about five inches above water. It was filled and incredibly heavy, for a second I considered this and the moving river and the slippery bottom and the legend of Sokokis Indian Chief Squandro who cast a curse on the Saco that it would take the lives of three white people every year. I pushed on and about 20 feet off shore and half submerged I heard the noise: like a great victorious pressurized waterfall. I turned around to see a rip in the line. Bingo.

A wise farmer I met in Pennsylvania used to say “It ain’t farmin’ it’s fixin’.” I really liked that saying and from what I have seen it rings true. In fact, that is half the fun of this whole thing – contending with the ever-multiplying stack of mysteries woven into things like greenhouse construction, water management, tractor implements, companion planting, polycultures, fundraisers, irrigation systems and electric fences. The farmer has to be the everyman; able to transplant delicate flowers, build shelves and stairs and tables, find and snare woodchucks, design posters, talk to customers and take care of the soil all within the confines of a day. There is never want for a challenge and each day requires a full and healthy mind and body; each day requires full attention, creativity and responsibility.

I hope you can find that cave of wisdom some day and impart on others words that will serve them well. Until then, stay cool, wear a ridiculous sun-hat and good luck.

-Stowell P. Watters

April 23, 2012