Night has become a respite not only from work but also from heat. Daytime –  the blazing sun presses on the skin, and clothing blocks the rays but concentrates the heat like tin foil surrounding meat in a broiling oven. Birds pause their flight, perching on understory shady branches, bills wide open, panting. Slowly, the setting sun passes out of sight, the shimmering horizon long holds a golden glow. Stars appear and the world starts to cool. Last night it dipped only into the 60s after a day in the mid 90s. The air is dry – 20% humidity. One would normally welcome a breeze, but on these kinds of days it would be better stilled. The wind reminds us of the possibility of flames carried far, fast. People have become fire-jumpy. Suddenly, summer is upon us after weeks of cold, drizzly fog. We’re sorry we ever complained about that. The weather forecasters are warning about the remnants of a tropical storm peeling northward with chances of lightning this coming week.

Warmth = Growth

The newfound heat and sun make plant growth boom. Thick rows of tomato bushes suddenly get bushier. Winter squash bursts into bloom. Avocado fruit quickly ripen. Apple fruits balloon larger. Passionfruit vines turn shiny green, brightening with new vigor, twining. All the orchard trees press new whorls of leaves skyward, increasing understory shade, shielding tender fruit. 

The unfathomable magic of dry farming is in full play. How does the wilting winter squash continue to grow and set fruit? How are the baking tomato plants doubling in size, ablaze with yellow starlike flowers with such dense, perky foliage?

Fading Wildflowers, Ripening Wild Fruit

The few remaining wildflowers are quickly fading with the heat. The last annual lupines are winking out. Poppy petals have dropped, leaves fading, plant skeletons sporting long dry pods which split noisily in the midday sun, shattering, sending seeds arcing through the air, sewing next year’s color. 

Vast hillside patches of yellow and orange subshrubs are fading: lizard tail, monkeyflower, and deerbrush flowers are browning, setting seed. Leaves curl, turning crunchy. Patches of poison oak are blushing crimson on the dryer parts of steeper slopes.

Coffeeberry, blackberry, acorn and pinecone – all grow, fatten, and ripen but not quick enough for birds.

Elderberry trees have begun to flower. In the cool morning, those huge flat-topped clusters of creamy-green flowers smell sweet and grassy, the scent carrying far, deliciously.

Domestic Flowers

The harbinger of summer: cheerful sunflowers! Sylvie’s garden and Judy’s patch of Molino Creek Farm sunflowers have begun to brighten the farm. Mysteriously, wild sunflowers have also begun flowering for the first time along Warrenella Road, down by the coast – that kind of thing used to only happen way inland, in the hottest part of the state.

Salvias and roses are also blossoming in the gardens and hedgerows.

Birds and Squirrels Feasting on Fruit

Though a Big Year, the apple orchard suffers mightily from many, many jays. Cassandra confirms – it is the biggest year we’ve seen for Steller’s jays. Scrub jays are also quite numerous as are the acorn woodpeckers. Hundreds of husks of apples hang on the trees and more everyday are getting pecked away to nothing. 

At the edge of the avocado orchards, ground squirrels are slow-ripening avocado fruit they have torn from the branches. Avocados are strewn here and there, gnaw marks revealing bright green inner flesh that is still waxy-hard. Pointy rodent teeth continue testing until the fruit ripens or softens and then it disappears. Long scraping teeth marks also mar winter squash flesh and few thus far have survived without such damage.

The Work

Farm workers are beginning to stretch as productivity increases. Mowing and weeding are paramount to give the edge to the desirable plants and to reduce fire danger. Tractors rarely rest, weedeaters whine and growl. In car or by foot, now comes the pacing routine of irrigation travels to turn on and off valves, or to adjust and monitor pumps and storage tanks. More Farm Partners are involved this year than ever, and the sharing of the burden of keeping the watering, and the watering system, running is a real joy. It is not easy operating a community water system that integrates many acres of irrigated crops. Soon, we will be harvesting apace. Each day, daylight hours shorten and we recall last year’s dark evenings packing boxes of freshly harvested apples for the next day’s markets. 

July Fourth was one of those epic clear days. On the drive out to the coast, we marveled at the clarity, took out binoculars and spotted ‘individual trees’ on the Monterey Peninsula way across the Monterey Bay. The Dorrance Ranch homes were Right There on the side of Mt. Toro. Peak naming phone software corrected the location of the very clear Pimkolam Peak, the farthest off. It was clear but yet surprisingly little wind. It was clear like a winter breezy day. Point Sur where the lighthouse sits in Big Sur was also very nicely visible: a curious dome, seeming like an island out past Monterey.

Wildlife on the Farm

Since then, some of summer weather has been normal; other bits not so much. As normal, morning fog has returned. Of note was the abnormal June-gloom-lessness: no fog in June! Very Odd. Now, we mostly wake to a gray-capped sky, a fog deck sometimes dipping low enough to pour small wisps over the ridges north of the Farm.  Then, the fog breaks apart, pieces here and there and then gone. A breeze picks up…and then becomes abnormal: wind land! We are increasingly living in wind land. Not pleasant breezes but hearty menacing gusts, whipping up bits of dry hay and dust devils, setting us on edge about the potential for fire. The wind dies and then breezes commence as ‘normal’….and then after a bit (or not) in no pattern whatsoever, another gust event alerts us to the presence of the out of doors. Sundown brings a welcome calm, the nights peaceful and the fog steals in again by dawn.

Wildlife on the Farm

The cutest of cuties- baby bunnies are proliferating, returning to pre-fire numbers and helping graze the grass for fire control. Weeds nipped off: no expense! Bonus: kind black shiny eyes gazing at you framed by the softest mottled brown fur with a most curious jumpyscoot run only when warranted. Tiny Baby Bunnies. Everywhere: roadside, field side…

There are no deer, still. For the other fuzzy creatures, we mostly see only (fresh!) footprints. Well, there was one report of a daytime fox out the road a bit a few days ago. Oh, and MICE! Millions of mice: voles, deer mice, and harvest mice – leaping, scurrying, scuttling and squeaking away through their grassy tunnels, their woodshed nests, and as evidenced by their chewed up fabrics left only briefly outside. Underground rodent friends aka pocket gophers- still abounding like never before.

Red tailed hawk is having a field day, but just one red tailed hawk will not do it…enter the gopher snake. Huge fresh snake tracks in the dust are a common sight. Yellow bellied racers are the other regularly seen snake.  Snake sign, in general, is regular: we have lots of snakes! We hear snakes or lizards or mice startled through the dry rattly leaves along the road or trail side every few strides: a wave of critters running from our shadows when we take walks.

The Fields

Rows upon rows of lanky but sturdy tomato plants are settling into their summer growth. Molino Creek Farm just watered its young tomatoes, as normal- the ‘one watering a year, after planting.’ The farmers carefully place the aluminum irrigation pipes at the right distances between the tick-tick-ticking spray of the rainbirds. Hit the buttons at the Well and out flows so much water…for hours. How deep is our soil? How deep does the water go? How deep are we saturating? Deep enough. Deep experience suggests that this is the way to go….and then on to withholding water the rest of the season. Contrast this with Two Dog Farm’s dryland farming of tomatoes: not a drop of irrigation, relying solely on the previous winter’s soil reserves of moisture. Two ways to do it, diversity in practice, and experiment in motion….Oh, and yes, you’ll have to wait another month for the first tomatoes!

Fire Work

“It seems like all we do with our spare time!” It has become critical fire clearance time! The late (March) rains grew tall grasses and now we gotta clip it down. Brush clipping, too. Truck loads piled high with precarious brush mounds are hauled out to the middle of a spare field, out away from any mischief they might cause. In 2020, the brush piles ‘burned themselves’ but it will be up to us to do that next rainy season, returning the ashy minerals to areas where we can grow hay for the orchard, cycling the farm nutrients from one corner to the next.

We had a fire clearing work party recently, many neighbors chipping in to clear to ‘bare mineral soil’ around one of our three water tank complexes. Plastic 5,000 gallon water tanks with plastic pipes going into them…all very vulnerable-flammable. So, no fuel can be left anywhere nearby. Again, trucks hauling piles of grass, leaves and branches to safe places. The Great Biomass Transportation Scheme is in motion. Same with around peoples’ houses, the barn, our outbuildings. Living in the Country isn’t what it used to be…(or is).

Many well wishes to all our friends around the American West as we set off into another hot dry fire season.

-post originally published on our Molino Creek Farm website.

A sometimes mysterious and much underappreciated plant family – grass. We eat it, weave it, build with it, wear it, make fuel out of it, livestock depend on it, it blankets lawns and playing fields, holds roadsides and hills in place, serves as winter cover crop in agriculture, and waves about in the prairie breeze providing bison food, grassland bird nesting habitat, and forage for the many small creatures that feed predators – wolves, coyotes, eagles, and bears.

What’s a Grass?

Grasses are all in the family Poaceae and are set apart from similar-looking plants by having a hollow stem. The rhyme goes: sedges have edges, rushes are round, and grasses like asses have holes in their stems. Patrick Elvander taught me that- he was an inspirational botany professor at UCSC who died too young. That rhyme deserves some decoding. Sedges mostly have triangular stems and leaves, with 3 edges to their leaf blades. Most rushes have round leaves and stems, both are solid, filled with a pith. Grasses have hollow stems like a straw.

There are more than 500 species of grass in California; around half are introduced. There are more than 200 varieties of grass in Santa Cruz County, so there’s lots to learn locally just with this group of plants!

Food from Grass

Corn, rice, sorghum, barley, wheat, oats, and rye are the commonly known human food grasses. You might have a hard time telling barley, wheat, oats, and rye seeds apart when they are whole…but corn, woa- what a different looking seed! Corn is a New World grass, the others are from the other side of the world. Rice is pretty different looking (New World wild “rice” isn’t related). Each of these grasses has distinct flavors.

Grain species have been bred into varieties for different uses. For example, corn has varieties divided into: flint, flour, dent, pop, sweet, and waxy. Wheat has seven such varieties. And so on.

Native peoples ate native grasses, but we’re not sure all of the ones they used. European wild oats spread so quickly that when Old World ethnographers first encountered native peoples in northern California, they had already incorporated them in their dietary repertoire.

Holding the Soil in Place

Beyond food, grasses are useful for soil conservation. Have you ever stood in a parking lot or listened to the rain on a roof during a rainstorm?  It is noisy! That same heavy downpour falling on a grassland is quiet. The flexible grass blades intercept raindrops, lowering them gently to the ground, springing back up to catch the next one. If the rain is very heavy, the soaked blades fall over, protecting the soil.

People have long appreciated the erosion control utility of grasses around California. In Santa Cruz County, there was for a time a specific County-government mandated erosion control seed mix that was mostly grass seed. Alas, the well-meaning County had prescribed a host of species that were non-native and quite invasive, so I’m hoping no one uses it anymore. At about that same time a similarly poor policy was widely implemented across the state: seeding nonnative invasive annual rye grass seed after wildfires. There was concern about the species’ invasiveness, but the practice was only halted after scientists documented slope failure caused by the unnaturally weighty grass biomass and increased fire danger from tons of fine, flammable dead grass the next summer.

Other Uses

You probably know many interesting and useful grasses: lemon grass for Thai cooking and bamboo for stir frying new shoots and use of older shoots for plant stakes and buildings. A local woodland species, vanilla grass, has been grown in plantations for the flavoring of pipe tobacco. Many species have been woven into baskets. Broom corn, a type of millet, makes natural brooms and some midwestern towns were economically supported by this industry in the early 1900’s.

Then there is chicken scratch, cattle and horse pasture, silage for dairies, grains in the feedlots, and bales of hay in the barn: the many ways that grasses feed livestock.

Evil Grasses

Not all grasses are welcomed by livestock. Interestingly, a terribly invasive toxic perennial grass is being sold for seeding horse pastures: tall fescue. This grass easily gets infected by a fungus that is mutagenic and causes horses to miscarry! And, people seed pastures with rye grass despite its tendency to mold and cause something called ‘the staggers’ with poisoned livestock wandering around like they are drunk, losing weight and seeming quite sick.

Besides some species poisoning horses and cattle, other grasses have been bad problems. Some suggest that the collapse of the Mayan civilization was due to the invasion of their agricultural systems by uncontrollable weedy grasses (and drought). Modern agriculture is also plagued by grassy weeds. Some were enthusiastic about using herbicides for grass weeds and even genetically engineering the crops to be resistant to herbicides. Very soon, strains of Italian ryegrass became resistant to herbicides and the presence of that species on farms vastly devalued the resale value of the land.

Achoo!

Italian ryegrass has more notoriety: it is the most allergen filled plant known to humankind. The species proliferates with the nitrogen raining down from air pollution, and so lines highways and takes over meadows around the Bay Area. When it blossoms, everyone gets sick- even people who don’t know they have grass allergies report sore throats and coughing for the 2 weeks of its peak bloom. So, invasive non-native grasses are a health hazard – and grassland restoration and management is important for human health.

Invasion

Walk in a California grassland and 80% of what you step on is non-native, mostly invasive grasses. Each year, new invasive species show up in the grasslands introduced accidently through global trade or purposefully through the nursery or turf grass industries. Once naturalized, new species evolve to become better fit and can be even more invasive.

Moseying Grasses

Did you know that bunchgrasses move around? Many of our native perennial grasses are called bunchgrasses because they grow in clumps, without runners. And yet, the stems of each clump might die on one side and new ones might sprout on the other side, so the grass clump can move around. Long term studies have monitored meters of movement in bunchgrasses over decades.

Soil Carbon and Perennial Grasses

There has been a lot of bogus hand-waving about the differences between native perennial grasses vs. non-native annual grasses. I have been hearing a lot recently that native perennial grasses have much more extensive, deep, carbon-storing root systems in contrast to exotic annual grasses. These distinctions miss the troubling invasion of non-native perennial grasses into our coastal prairies…some of those species are more robust than native perennials. Also, native perennial grasses come in many sizes with many different morphologies- some are teeny tiny (Blasedale’s bent grass, an endangered grass of Santa Cruz’ North Coast), others are very medium sized (meadow barley). I would wager that an annual exotic oat grass on rich soil would have a larger root system and sequester more carbon than the native perennial meadow barley growing alongside it.

This hand waving seems to me to be unnecessary jingoism for soil carbon sequestration via restoration of a very few species of big, burly native bunchgrasses. This is dangerous because our prairies are so much more rich than those few species of large, common native perennial grasses. Planting/stewarding just a few native grasses will cost us a wealth of other species diversity and potentially the resilience of the prairie ecosystem as a whole.

-this article originally appeared in Bruce Bratton’s BrattonOnline.com blog.