From the Farmer's Perspective: The Ups and Downs of Flooding

Huge rainstorms, such as the one we received in Austin last weekend, can be a farmer’s worst enemy or his best friend. Usually, it ends up being a little bit of both. On one end of the spectrum, large rains in our area often result in flooded fields, roads, and other infrastructure. Our silty loam soil is very finely textured, which means it can hold onto lots of nutrients. However, it also means that our soils have the capacity to hold on to lots of water, so tightly that our fields have trouble draining in a situation like last weekend. We can end up with some pretty sizable puddles on the farm, especially when we haven't seen rain in a few months.

What does this mean for us at the farm? Well, this week it meant the return of the infamous “Lake JBG.” We had over 13 inches of water pooling in some parts of our fields! It can be extremely frustrating dealing with this amount of water, as it stops us from being able to direct seed or transplant. Our newest plantings of parsley, onions, rutabaga, spinach and more will have to be delayed by a week, and even relatively simple work like harvesting can be much more difficult. I personally spent the better part of the evening this past Friday and all day Saturday working to get our big pump at the Hergotz farm operating. What I thought would be a simple priming turned into a full day struggle to get our vehicles out of their muddy swimming pool!

Despite the inconvenient and sometimes frustrating aspects of the rain, it’s clear that we also have a lot to be thankful for. Our soils at JBG come from periodic floods along the Colorado River over the course of the land's history, which have deposited fertile sediments that allow us to grow such great organic veggies! Who can complain about that? I’m working with our soil consultant Steve Diver to write up a more complete article on our soils at JBG and how we keep them full of the nutrients our crops need to grow- stay tuned for this soon.

We are also grateful for a sunny week after the rains - it’s truly a beautiful site to see the abundant life that water can bring to Texas. I hope that all of you have been enjoying how green all of Austin looks this week, I know I have. The crops are absolutely loving the deep watering, and it feels like we are really in the swing of Fall, one of our most abundant seasons on the farm! This is what I like to call the “green smoothie time of year” in Texas. I hope all of our CSA members use the abundance of greens and herbs in their boxes to make a green smoothie or two. Or, check out some of the great local producers in town using our greens for healthy drinks - this week our Wholesale team sent produce to Juice Society, Peoples Rx, and JuJu Juice here in Austin, Juicer Heroes and Revolucion in San Antonio, and Sustain Juicery in Houston!

Aside from just green smoothies, this really is a time of abundance for our CSA members. If you’ve been putting off joining our CSA, now is the time! This really is the best time of year to share in the bounty from JBG, and we’ll be in the swing of things for the next few months with loads of greens and fresh herbs, root veggies, winter squash, and more! We just finished up a brand new brochure for our CSA program, so if you are a shareholder or business interested in helping out your local farm, shoot us an email to farm@jbgorganic.com and we’ll send you a pile of brochures to spread the message about Community Supported Agriculture!

For more of the farmer’s perspective, follow Brenton on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @farmerbrenton.