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  • From: Carla Shafer <cs13 AT cornell.edu>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Flood report from Tennessee
  • Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 17:18:41 -0500

I shouldn't be sitting down, but aching bones say it's time to take a break from washing mud off the eggplant transplants that got dumped in the greenhouse under 4 feet of water. Plus, today we have internet ... and electricity, and water, and telephones!

Our farm is located in the midst of an Amish/Mennonite community in Middle Tennessee, and our area was hit hard by last weekend's flood - which was classified as a 500-year event. Our largest 5-acre field was covered with moving water. I haven't been able to walk down there yet, but I can  see a couple of green spots where beds used to be. Could those be rows of spinach, chard and basil? It looks like maybe half of the brassica block is still standing, as well. I lost all of our cucerbits which were in flats waiting for us to finish laying plastic so we could set them out. Luckily, our two tractors were several miles away in the shop for repairs, though all our implements are now festooned with flotsam. It appears that rather than loosing our topsoil we actually gained about four of inches of silt on the garden. That'll be good in the long run, but at the moment it's rather discouraging. Our smaller field had similar damage. The strawberries were hard hit. and all the onions look like someone went down the row and pulled each one and laid it neatly on top of the ground. They are actually still anchored in the ground even with 1.5 inches of roots exposed. I think I'll mulch them, and see what happens.

The hoophouse had waist high water flowing through it. We managed to haul about 70% of the transplants up to higher ground before it got too dangerous to continue. Everything is covered with silt and debris. Many of the newly planted soil blocks, of course, disintegrated. But well rooted blocks seem to have fared fine. The aluminum cranks on the rollup sides are bent up like pretzels, but there is not a single hole in the plastic anywhere. It may be well that we were running behind schedule in getting transplants out to the field, as things definitely did better inside the hoophouse than they would have outside. As a result of our lateness, I still have my entire solanum crop in tact. Our next challenge will be to hold the transplants until we can get the field repaired and ready to plant into again.

There's no doubt that we've suffered a major setback (we also completely lost our woodworking shop which is another major income source for our family), but the season is still young enough that we'll be able to reseed many things.

We're still discussing how to handle our CSA memberships: return money? extend the season? give credit towards next year? broker produce from other farms until our late summer crops come in (would probably not be able to provide organic)? Because our area is just beginning to wake up to CSA, and many of our members are in for the first time, I hate to have anyone have a negative experience. Maybe you all have some suggestions. We decided to wait a few days for our own pulses to come down to normal before making a final decision on the future of the summer CSA program.

Other farmers in our area lost crops and suffered building damage as well. We're trying to raise money for one especially hard hit organic market farm family who lost their house and belongings entirely, as well as their two draft horses, all their chickens, and other livestock. They saved one cart horse whose nose was just above the water when they got to him and cut his tether. His legs were already badly gashed from debris that had hit them, but we think he will recover. We've found a 25-acre farm that we hope to help them acquire. If anyone would like to help, please let me know and I can provide more details.

Please keep us all in your thoughts for the next few weeks. This was our first year with this farm project, and it's a tough beginning, to say the least. But I becoming more and more hopeful as I see how much we can salvage. We've had so much amazing support from the community with cleaning up the mud from the houses, shop and barns. It really reinforces ones faith in the goodness of humanity.

All the best,

Carla Shafer, Farmer
Earthly Goods Farm
3344 Hwy 438
Pleasantville, TN 37033

ph 931 230-7567                    Visit us on the web at http://www.EarthlyGoodsFarm.com



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