Casey O’Neill is a farmer and owner of Happy Day Farms in Laytonville, Calif. The opinions expressed in this column are not those expressed by The Mendocino Voice.
At few moments in my life have I been this thankful for rain, arriving in our time of need to moisten the earth and soften my soul. This is the year for saving rains; I think of the storm we got in August that brought me back from the brink of despair after the brutal July heat. Just like the soil, my inner being hardens without moisture, becoming inflexible, unyielding and stiff. The coming of water reminds me of flow, of movement, of the need to stretch and care for myself. I sit in the warmth of the kitchen, listening to the patter of drops on the roof, and I am grateful.
Yesterday we finished the cannabis harvest, a big push before the storm brought the season to a close. The market is uncertain, but such is farming and we’re glad to be moving out of the vicissitudes of nature. Once the herb is in the sheds, it’s up to us to finish it out and bring the best quality product to market that we can.
I think about how cannabis has changed me over the years, the many insights and realizations it has provided, some good, many difficult. Bob Marley said, “When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.” I reflect on the power of the plant, and the responsibility of growing it to send it out into the world to offer support and succor to people in their lives. We take the energetics seriously, working to maintain good energy throughout. As Grandpa Robert always said, “Let us be happy in our work.”
We’ve had a great team this year and lots of help from friends and neighbors along the way. Fall is flying by in a whirlwind of harvesting food and herb, farmers markets, garden breakdown, bed prep and the planting of winter crops. I’m deeply grateful for all the helping hands, for many hands make light work, and it’s much easier to find joy when the load is spread out to decrease the drudgery. We joke and laugh, chatting and enjoying each other’s company even as we push through difficult labors to gather abundance from the soil.
I think about the cycles of life, the seasons of growth, flowering and fruiting, decline and death. The decomposition that makes way for new life, the building of humus that builds our human symphony through the instruments of the plants and animals that grow upon it. Living soil produces health. This is the principle by which I strive to live my life, a guiding star that is always ahead, unreachable yet clear in direction.
As the rain falls, I think of the many thousands of seeds we have sown in the past weeks, the cover crops germinating in the sudden moisture, root tails reaching for the darkness of cool, moist earth. I think of the successions of brassica cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli, romanesco and brussels sprouts soaking up the moisture and marching towards fruition and the winter tables of family and community. I think of the cool, crisp salads and tasty root crops that will grace our winter meals, the hearty winter squashes that will leave us fulfilled and sated.
This week we began our annual comfrey pilgrimage, digging totes full of the plants with as much root mass as we can gather from the places in the garden where the plant is already abundant. We lay the root and plant mass flat on the ground in a line where we would like them to grow, and cover them up with the cannabis stalks that we clear from their beds after harvest. Large stalks first, with smaller stems and leftover composted material from animal bedding and last year’s harvest layered on top to fill the spaces. A layer of finished compost goes next, and then straw to cover the whole.
I’ve come to appreciate the creation of these comfrey beds as both a closing ceremony to the year gone by, and an offering to the year to come. I think of them as a modified hugelkultur, without the heavier, woody debris but with the stout stalks of the cannabis and the smaller, compostable offal of animals and plants as a baseline for future fertility. The beds we built last year languished during the heat of early summer, crying out for water and hurting my heart, yet when the rains came in August comfrey grew suddenly in abundance in such a way that I rejoiced. With no irrigation at all, the biomass produced in our arid climate gives me hope, and a visible means of adjusting our future bottom line.
Over the years we’ve spent thousands of dollars on straw for mulch to protect the soil, hold moisture and prevent erosion. During that process we’ve also brought in pernicious weeds, hidden Trojan Horses nestled deep in the bales to spring out and release bindweed and thistle among our tender plants. Our long-term goal is to grow enough comfrey to mulch the entire farm with its high in nutrients leaves, protecting soil and moisture levels while cycling life back into itself to grow in strength and abundance.
To be successful in farming is to learn ways to cut costs, produce more effectively, be more efficient and ultimately happier in our work. Planting comfrey fills these goals for us, and though it is an incremental, multi-year process, each step feels right, striding towards that guiding star. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!
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