By Russ Cerocke, Farm Manager
Hello everyone, we hope you have fared well through this last round of heat and smoke. It seems I am talking a lot about extremes lately, and I believe it is for good reason. It seems we may be experiencing unprecedented times in regard to our weather conditions in the region. Beginning in June and ending on the July 4 weekend, we were inundated with 14 inches of rain, enough to cause standing water in our fields for several days and at peak, we had knee deep water in one area. I have heard many people talk about the floods in the early 90’s that were worse, and I believe it. However, as we wind through July, it seems the persistent rains were only the beginning of this season’s weather woes.
Last week, the heat came back, you may have noticed. For a few days the heat indexes were 100 and above. This part we understand, it’s summer, days are long, the sun is high in the sky, it gets hot. That alone is not too unusual. The fact that we have already had 2 weeks with heat indexes pushing past 100 degrees, is a little more concerning this early in the summer. But not unheard of. We are farmers, we understand the challenges of working outdoors in the summer and we can prepare for it. If temperatures are predicted to be over 95 for the week, we move up our start time to 6am and get everyone out by 2:30 pm, adding an hour of cool weather to everyone’s day, while removing an hour of peak heat that no one needs. We take water breaks more often, work in the shade in every way we can, and even change the way we dress to accommodate for the hot weather.
This year it seems to be a combination of heavy rains, heat, drought (the rains have stopped since July 4), and to top it all off, not to be negative, but for the past several days we have been dealing with air quality indexes at the top of the charts. The Chicago region briefly had the worst quality air in the world last week, and it wasn’t much better through the weekend and into this week. Due to the changing precipitation trends and temperatures across North America, our neighbors in Canada, North of Minnesota, have been dealing with fires that historically were less common in that region. The smoke from these some 900 fires gets caught in the wind and is carried across the Great Lakes region, bringing respiratory hazards to our front door. Smoke is more dangerous than many people realize, it contains many toxic and carcinogenic chemicals and in high concentrations, it can cause a host of health problems. Luckily, we were able to send our crew home early on Thursday to get them out of the worsening conditions. Then on Friday morning, with conditions as bad as they can get, we worked through 3 hours of harvest wearing protective masks to ensure we had enough food for all of our obligations, then everyone went home.
One piece of good news that came in recently were the results of our residue testing that was a part of our annual organic inspection. Our garlic field was chosen to be randomly tested for harmful prohibited residues and came back 100% clean! This is great news because our garlic has been living in municipal leaf mulch since last November. We have had a few questions about how “organic” leaves from the city are, and it has always been difficult to answer. Although they are allowed in organic production, we always wonder if there is anything coming from those leaves that we wouldn’t want on our farm. According to our organic certifiers, after testing the crop we grow for the longest time under our leaf mulch, there were no signs of harmful or prohibited substances as defined by organic standards. Using organic mulch is a great way to mitigate heat and drought for our crops, while also adding organic carbon and nutrients back in to our soils. We are thrilled to have a test that shows that our leaf mulch is indeed safe as defined by the national organic standards. We know there is more to the story than this one test, but to know that we can continue using our leaf mulch is a big win for climate resilience and the sustainability of our farm.
We hope you are all able to stay safe and healthy through these unpredictable conditions, and that our food helps you to grow stronger, wiser, and yes, older 😊
Be well,
Farmer Russ