Patience and test fields

Test fields are not fun.  Here is why:

1. They are little.  If they go well, you wish you planted more.  If they do poorly you end up telling yourself, “I could kill a hydrogen atom!  What am I doing with my life?”

2. They are little.  Your peers say, “We just made our first shipment of 24 varieties to Africa!  The famine is over!  President Obama is here to thank us, so I have to go.  We are so excited!”  You say, “We have radishes!  Oh, wait. No.  The rabbits got them.”

3. They are little.  I picked a couple zucchini this weekend.

Test fields are a good idea.  Here is why:

1. They are little.  Our cost outlay could be handled in a single ATM withdrawal.

2. They are little.  Yellow Star Poopyhead Thistle can only grow around so much border.

3. They are little.  Less to turn, water, plant, and generally spend labor on.

And we have learned so much.  Here are a few things:

1. 400 square feet takes 86 gallons per week in our summer to water.  This is a mathematical input to our infrastructure planning process.

2. The cheap fishing line deer fence seems to work.  At least for now.  We didn’t have to invest in 7’ fencing.

3. We have rabbits.  They like radishes.  They do not like basil, potatoes, or squash (much).

4. Vegetables are far more expensive to produce in our climate than fruit.  This will be an input on our production plan and revenue plan.

5. Vegetables take up more labor.  See above.

6. You may as well plant on the moon if you don’t amend the soil here.  We compared potatoes here in Palermo to those we grew in Pacifica.  Even with a later start in cool, wet Pacifica, they outperformed the Palermo crop significantly.  The Pacifica plot had a cover crop the season previous and compost.  With proper amending, we should be able to grow that thing from “Little Shop of Horrors” by the row.

7. Raised rows will be the way to go after we amend.  We need to figure out some other things before we do the intensive beds.

8. Double digging gets out the rocks, but will be a waste until we amend down the clay.  Compaction comes back quickly.

9.    Get big farm logo stickers to cover up the tooth marks on the veggies.  No, not really.

This is a start, and there are other things yet to know.  The “learnings” we have gathered (I really don’t like that word) suggest we should continue adding trees in the coming season and build soil through cover cropping, gypsum, and perhaps some compost.  Our field may not be much bigger until we get indications that our soil has arrived at a profitable point.

I started getting worried about being a tree farmer out here.  Everyone grows tree fruit.  Where is the differentiation?  Then I remember that our market is going to be in the Bay Area where the tree fruit market is not saturated.  We won’t give up on the vegetables, but with our water and labor constraints that offering will be limited until we change our resource basis.

One Response to “Patience and test fields”