Pablito~
FARM GHOSTS
We have two ghosts on the farm.  They are mischevious little devils, the kind you would call poltergeists.  They untie loads on trucks so that boxes fall off and spill on the road.  They squash irrigation pipes in such a way that it looks just like someone drove over them.  Just the other day, one of these ghosts bent the steel frame of one of our planters.  You would have sworn that someone backed into it with a truck or tractor.  But no.  It was one of the ghosts, or both.  They both have names.  One is called Nofwayo; the other, Nosay.  How do I know their names?  Simple.  Any time one of them does their mischief, there’s always a witness.  Someone who saw what happened.  When asked, “who left that piles of boxes right next to the sprinklers where they all got wet and ruined”, the witness always responds “Nofwayo”, or just as often, “Nosay”.

(Apologies to the author of the Family Circus comic strip — or in Spanish, El Circus Familiar — for plagiarizing a great gag)

SAVING THE WORLD WITH PLASTIC
Sixty years ago, an Israeli named Simcha Blass invented a technology that will eventually be seen as one of the most important accomplishments of the 20th century.  It isn’t as famous as the internet, the atomic bomb, or the microchip.  In fact, many urbanites may have never encountered it, especially if they don’t have a backyard.  It’s Drip Irrigation.

 When discussions about water conservation arise and environmentalists talk about “improving irrigation efficiency” on farms, this is largely what they are talking about.  Drip irrigation is a system that uses flexible plastic hoses to deliver a measured amount of water directly to a plant.  It does so either through a “dripper”, or a “microsprinkler”.  These terms are  self-descriptive, but the mechanisms themselves are fairly complex.

 Drip irrigation is a truly disruptive technology.   It not only conserves water, it can also save farmers money — over the long run.  (Drip is also used in municipal, commercial, and home irrigation as well).  Older irrigation systems rely heavily on labor and/or expensive equipment.  Drip (including microsprinkler) irrigation, once installed in a crop, requires little maintenance and no labor to move around because it remains in the field until the crop is harvested.  In the case of an orchard, it remains for the life of the trees and possibly longer.

 There is another similarity between drip irrigation and microchips:  it keeps getting better and cheaper.  It is almost astonishing how cheap the individual components of the technology are:  Individual drippers cost just pennies, microsprinklers a few nickels, drip hose just cents per foot.  But keep this in perspective.   An acre of farmland might require ten thousand feet of hose, tens of thousands of drippers.  Multiply that by millions of acres of farmland and you see why the business of water conservation equipment is so competitive and profitable.

 The primary obstacle to transitioning from traditional irrigation methods to drip or microsprinkler is institutional inertia.  Aluminum sprinkler pipe is an expensive asset, and farms that have accumulated millions of pipes are invested in old technology — even if it means spending more on labor to use it.  And farms that have relied for decades on the use of gravity flow irrigation — a technology that is thousands of years old — can’t simply switch over to drip.  The new systems require a high-pressure pump vs. the low pressure pumps used by these farms.  Upgrading numerous pumps is an extremely expensive proposition.

 Government programs like EQIP have helped lots of farmers made the transition to water conserving technologies.  In California, farmers with higher value crops have been the first to make the switch, but now lower value, water intensive crops are being converted as well.  Farmers of alfalfa hay, for example, are now figuring out how to make drip irrigation work for them.  By burying the plastic hose below the soil surface prior to planting alfalfa (which is a perennial crop harvested for up to 7 years), farmers are now successfully cutting their water use by  50 or even 75%.

 So drip irrigation is saving millions of gallons of water worldwide already, and will save more over time.  But on a global scale, drip irrigation is also one of only a few agricultural technologies that has the potential to improve the lives of small farmers around the world.  Used on a small scale with other sustainable technology like small solar pumps, drip can bring down the capital cost of an irrigation system by a huge magnitude.  This could allow small farmers to greatly improve their yields, raise their standard of living, and help fight the historical trend towards consolidation of agriculture and displacement of rural people.

IN YOUR BOXES
Apricots from our 40 year old orchard make their debut in the boxes today.  The fruit is on the small side this year, but we’ve got a good crop and we should have ‘cots in the boxes for three weeks.  Apricots are more like cherries, with a relatively short season, than peaches, which last all summer long due to the dozens of varieties that ripen in succession.  We harvest Apricots at 80% ripeness to avoid bruising; they will finishing ripening nicely on your kitchen counter in 1-3 days.  Eat when they are slightly soft to the touch.

Our first planting of Green Beans has had a rough life.  Planted in early March, they narrowly escaped death from frost and endured several cold windstorms when they were still just inches high.  The plants are small and stunted as a result, so the beans are a little on the small side, too.  But they’re tender and tasty and we appreciate that they survived at all.

We are also harvesting the first of our spring-planted Carrots with their tops on.  These carrots are darker orange with more “carroty” flavor than the overwintered ones we’ve been putting in your boxes.  They also look quite different.   But they are the same variety of French carrot — Nelson.  Remember to remove the tops before storing in the fridge.

Our Garlic crop is now bulbed up and drying out, and we are just beginning to harvest it.  This “fresh garlic” is juicy and easy to peel.  It does not need to be refrigerated, and will continue to dry and cure at room temperature.

Thanks,
     Pablito