Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Rain damages crops, but washes away salt
A hail storm that blew through Escondido a few weeks back ruined a few important crops.
Despite the rain, some locally grown blueberries (and strawberries) may be found in March.
It’s not news to any of us that this winter has been the wettest in roughly a decade. While San Diego area farms typically do enjoy year-round growing conditions, the parade of “atmospheric rivers” and other storms have certainly had an impact. Touching base with several farmers in the county, it’s clear that, while they’ve enjoyed the abundance of free water, the inclemency has affected the timing and quantity of crops heading into the spring.
For example, JR Organics reports the storms have kept the farmers from planting some crops, while others have been washed away or blown apart by winds. Additionally, a hail storm that blew through Escondido a few weeks back ruined a few important crops, including sugar snap peas. However, they are enthusiastic to be out of drought conditions and assure they still have full fields furnishing healthy March crops of blueberries, strawberries, spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and squash.
Up in Bonsall, Adam Maciel’s organic farm (31952 Aquaduct Road) does have sugar snap peas coming in March. However, it has generally experienced delays due to not being able to transport seedlings from its greenhouses. While some of their yields have been delayed as much as a month, the family anticipates long term benefits of the heavy rains, including salt build up being washed from their soil. Despite some reduced quantities, Maciel’s stands still feature plenty of leafy greens in March, plus the likes of green garlic and dandelions, and should see summer squashes by the end of March.
While it’s strawberries are coming in on schedule, Oceanside’s Rodney Kawano Farms,on Wilshire Road in the San Luis Rey River valley, also reports a month-long slowdown. So does Good Taste Farm, though its farmers point out it wasn’t merely rain and wind slowing things down, but a lack of sun encouraging plants to sprout. Nevertheless, that doesn’t affect tree crops like citrus in the same way, so the Fallbrook growers are bringing navel and blood oranges to market, and also report leafy greens and onions on the way.
Last year at this time, Stehly Farms was beginning to harvest hass avocados, but this season it’s holding off due to a 50 to 70-percent smaller than normal yield. However, co-owner Noel Stehly explains the rains aren’t responsible for this reduction. Rather, he attributes it to the lack of rain last year, and salt build up in the soil.
While this winter’s rain came too late to give Stehly a profitable avocado yield this year, and parts of the farm’s incoming strawberry crop were lost, Stehly says, “That’s okay, I’ll take the rain.” With cleaner soil, and cleaner water than the piped-in water he typically has to pay for, Stehly hopes to see better than average crops growing over the next three or four months. And, with luck, this year’s wet winter will lead to a more robust avocado season next year.
In the meantime, plenty of strawberries have come through in good shape, Stehly Farm shops will have gold nugget tangerines, Meyer lemons, and navel oranges through early March, with locally grown asparagus, cauliflower and broccoli showing up over the course of the month.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Rain damages crops, but washes away salt
A hail storm that blew through Escondido a few weeks back ruined a few important crops.
Rain damages crops, but washes away salt
A hail storm that blew through Escondido a few weeks back ruined a few important crops.
Despite the rain, some locally grown blueberries (and strawberries) may be found in March.
It’s not news to any of us that this winter has been the wettest in roughly a decade. While San Diego area farms typically do enjoy year-round growing conditions, the parade of “atmospheric rivers” and other storms have certainly had an impact. Touching base with several farmers in the county, it’s clear that, while they’ve enjoyed the abundance of free water, the inclemency has affected the timing and quantity of crops heading into the spring.
For example, JR Organics reports the storms have kept the farmers from planting some crops, while others have been washed away or blown apart by winds. Additionally, a hail storm that blew through Escondido a few weeks back ruined a few important crops, including sugar snap peas. However, they are enthusiastic to be out of drought conditions and assure they still have full fields furnishing healthy March crops of blueberries, strawberries, spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and squash.
Up in Bonsall, Adam Maciel’s organic farm (31952 Aquaduct Road) does have sugar snap peas coming in March. However, it has generally experienced delays due to not being able to transport seedlings from its greenhouses. While some of their yields have been delayed as much as a month, the family anticipates long term benefits of the heavy rains, including salt build up being washed from their soil. Despite some reduced quantities, Maciel’s stands still feature plenty of leafy greens in March, plus the likes of green garlic and dandelions, and should see summer squashes by the end of March.
While it’s strawberries are coming in on schedule, Oceanside’s Rodney Kawano Farms,on Wilshire Road in the San Luis Rey River valley, also reports a month-long slowdown. So does Good Taste Farm, though its farmers point out it wasn’t merely rain and wind slowing things down, but a lack of sun encouraging plants to sprout. Nevertheless, that doesn’t affect tree crops like citrus in the same way, so the Fallbrook growers are bringing navel and blood oranges to market, and also report leafy greens and onions on the way.
Last year at this time, Stehly Farms was beginning to harvest hass avocados, but this season it’s holding off due to a 50 to 70-percent smaller than normal yield. However, co-owner Noel Stehly explains the rains aren’t responsible for this reduction. Rather, he attributes it to the lack of rain last year, and salt build up in the soil.
While this winter’s rain came too late to give Stehly a profitable avocado yield this year, and parts of the farm’s incoming strawberry crop were lost, Stehly says, “That’s okay, I’ll take the rain.” With cleaner soil, and cleaner water than the piped-in water he typically has to pay for, Stehly hopes to see better than average crops growing over the next three or four months. And, with luck, this year’s wet winter will lead to a more robust avocado season next year.
In the meantime, plenty of strawberries have come through in good shape, Stehly Farm shops will have gold nugget tangerines, Meyer lemons, and navel oranges through early March, with locally grown asparagus, cauliflower and broccoli showing up over the course of the month.
Comments