Are you sure you want to be a farmer?
When I moved to California in 2014, in the midst of scant rainfall and receding reservoir levels, the state’s natural resources were in crisis. Even before I was a farmer, just by nature of living in California I’d already internalized the urgent need to conserve water. At home, we took shorter showers and turned off the faucet while brushing our teeth. We went without washing our cars and watering our lawns, or we replaced lawns all together with more sustainable landscaping and native plants. In public, restaurants brought water only upon request, and much of the local news and conversation revolved around social awareness campaigns to conserve water.
By my first season of farming, I’d already begun asking a lot of questions to understand water sources and supply, as well as ways to mitigate drought conditions throughout the growing season. I’d been in conversation with experts at the local, state, and federal levels, working specifically with the USDA’s office of Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) in order to develop and implement sustainable practices and conservation efforts on site. While I knew I still had a lot to learn, I was up for the challenge.
What I wasn’t prepared for, however, were the climate conditions of late 2022. The phrase “atmospheric river” had only entered the cultural lexicon within the past year or two, and what came next shocked us all.
That winter, it started raining in December, a deluge of waterfall that created flooding, mudslides, and washed away bridges and roads and thoroughfares throughout the state and along the California coastline. It rained, and it rained, and it rained some more. After a biblical 40 days and 40 nights solid of rain, we rang in the new year with a state of emergency declaration from the state’s governor. Within a few short months, California’s previously empty reservoirs were filled to overflowing, and many began to speculate that the drought was over.
All of that was great news. Except for the fact that there I was, in my first season of farming, with a field that was utterly unplantable. By early spring, it had turned into a muddy lake.
My very thorough and optimistic crop plan was the first thing to go. The precise timing needed to sow seeds, and then to plant them out according to schedule became a backlog of too many seedlings in the greenhouse with nowhere to go. With everything delayed, greenhouse plants became rootbound and stunted in their growth. And all the moisture in the air without time to dry out created conditions of damping off, killing a significant portion of seedlings. The forward momentum, or what little I had of it left, came to a dead halt. There was nothing to do but wait for it to stop raining and for the field to dry out.
That was the first time the question formed in my mind: Are you sure you want to be a farmer?
It felt like the universe was testing me. And despite all that had happened, the answer was yes. Even though I didn’t get plants into the ground until late April, I still felt triumphant once the flowers bloomed, albeit later than planned.
Fast-forward to a year later, when I had the opportunity to sit with that question yet again: Are you sure you want to be a farmer?
At the end of last year’s growing season, bone tired and spent, I nearly collapsed from exhaustion. I didn’t have it in me to clear the farm beds or cut down the dead plants. So there they sat through the winter’s freezing rain, like scarecrows standing guard over haunted ground. And to be honest, the farm was haunted — ghosts of the season past hung low over the field like a heavy fog.
I welcomed the first hard freeze in October. After a nine month season of sleepless nights, constant troubleshooting, and non-stop work, the freeze was my permission to finally give it all up, to let go.
In the depths of heartbreak, I somehow found the strength to tackle just one of many daunting fall tasks: digging up the dahlia roots to divide tubers for winter storage. Would I even grow dahlias next season? Who could say. But there was peace in the simplicity and absorption of the ritual — just a girl with her shovel and pruners: dig, divide, repeat.
The farm sat dormant through the winter months, and so did I. By early spring, and after another winter of record-breaking rainfall, the field had become overgrown with thistle and weeds. As days and weeks went by, to my own chagrin, I still couldn’t face it. What should have been a manageable farm task quickly spiraled into a big, thorny problem.
In hindsight, it may have been the dahlias that saved me.
At the start of May, I finally emerged from hibernation, once again in touch with what made me love farming in the first place. It was the thought of all those dahlia tubers, patiently waiting in storage for their turn in the sun, that beckoned me back to the field.
Where before I’d felt groggy and overwhelmed, I soon found myself waking up naturally with the sunrise, eager to get back to work. Days went by as I worked sunup to sundown, pulling weeds until my fingers were numb, and hauling out dead plants one wheelbarrow at a time. I finally found the courage to face the ghosts of seasons past and give it all back the earth in devotion, like compost that nourishes the soil for new life and new growth.
Small wins turned into big wins. Despite my winter neglect, the plants still grew and blossomed. The plants’ resilience and tenacity was a reminder of my own — our own.
Three weeks later, the farm is thriving and so am I.
Dahlia tubers are in the ground, and zinnias, amaranth, sunflowers, and cosmos are also beginning to sprout. It’s going to be an epic growing season, my friends.
I share this story as a reminder of how we all have the capability to do hard things in life. Chop wood, carry water, as they say. Or in my case, chop thistles, carry weeds. But somehow in the mundane moments of it all, I found myself marveling with sheer gratitude for the opportunity I had ahead of me — the opportunity to grow something beautiful and to co-create with Nature, once again. Once I reconnected with purpose, the necessary steps forward came with ease and fluidity.
This was my task. And I believe this is the task we all face, whether we’re farming or pursuing our own unique dreams. What I share with you today is that all of the the small, incremental steps add up. And before you know it, your garden — whether literal or metaphorical — returns to life.
As for me, I can’t wait to share the bounty of what this season has in store.
xo,
Rachael