Carla, I am very sorry for your losses and that of all your
neighbors.
I think you should consider letting your members share in
how this affects you and them. Consider sharing your email and some of our
responses so they might better understand the magnitude of the loss. Your
members may be overwhelmed with their own problems or helping others, but you
should at least give them opportunity to participate fully as a member of their
CSA. The sooner the farm is back on track, the sooner they can slice that first
tomato.
From:
market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Carla Shafer
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 6:19
PM
To: Market
Farming
Subject: [Market-farming] Flood
report from Tennessee
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