To us city and suburban dwellers, flooding involves interrupted subway service, maybe a run on water vacuums. We stock up on provisions to weather a celebrated storm, most of us taking for granted that our infrastructure will arise intact, in time, and confident that markets will re-supply once the storm recedes. To farmers, those same winds and rains drown entire crops, harm animals, upset lives.

I received the following email from Kira Kinney of Evolutionary Organics, a New York farmer with an ardent following at the Grand Army Plaza Saturday greenmarket, in Brooklyn. I reprint it below, with her permission; I suggest reading it to the end. Let’s remember that as we croon over summer’s last produce, our appetites are fed by the tireless work of farmers, such as Kira, and luck that runs either way.

From a letter by Kira Kinney, Evolutionary Organics farm, to her customers, 9/1/11
(note: the fire to which Kira refers happened last October):

“First a fire, then a flood. I can only think of one word left that starts with an F and my parents told me never to say it.

Last Friday, we farmers were all told that the mayor’s office had revoked all parks department special use permits for Saturday and Sunday as part of the emergency preperations for the impending hurricane. I told greenmarket staff I was going to market no matter what. I told them that there was no way I could skip a market, when I had product available, when I was staring down the throat of a storm prediction that I knew might wipe me out. At 7:30 that night we got phone calls that said somehow, we now were able to go to market, but that we had to be off parks property at noon, and that only three market locations were going to be able to open because of the transportation shutdowns. I wish there was some way for you all to understand how much that market now means to me. I was able to meet my payroll for the week, and to pay the current bills.

I guess I want you all to know before I get to market this Saturday that the farm is fine in terms of people, animals, and structures. That is good to be able to say considering how much some other people I know have lost. The real problem is that 19 out of 22 acres that were planted all went under water- really under water. On the home farm things sat under two to four feet of water, on a farm I rent, the water was much deeper, easily over 6 feet and not all of that had drained out of the field as of last evening. Ray Bradley told me that he had canoed over that field and that the water was up to the eaves on the old barn that sits at the edge of the field.

The losses come at a very bad time in terms of the planting calender. The farm was full of summer crops that were being harvested or were near to harvest, and it is now too late in the year to replant any of those things, they simply do not have enough warm days left to grow and produce a crop. The farm was also full of crops that we had planted in the early summer, like winter squash and potatoes, that are a significant part of my market income through the winter, and those are almost all lost. There were many things that were planted in mid July through August that were intended to produce the fall bounty- broccoli, bunching greens, head lettuces, salad greens, root crops that were also meant to be harvested as storage crops once the weather turned too cold for them to live in the fields any longer. Much of this can not be replanted at this time and still produce a mature crop, some will be replanted once the fields dry enough to move equipment out onto them and we will hope for a long warm fall and some things will push right up to the edge of making it. I would like to say with luck, but I always get back to those lyrics in some old song that say “if it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all” So to hell with luck.

I do have tomatoes that did not drown, although I have watched green plants turn brown this week as wet weather spreads disease faster than you can imagine. I am also watching disease set up on some of the winter kale. We harvested some stuff last Friday and Saturday in case of a flood- we saved one variety of potatoes, some cantaloupes, and a small amount of summer squash to sell this week.

You will no longer see a lot of other products at the market this season and some, like the salad mix will return, but it will take about a month- maybe a little longer before it does so. Some stuff I am just waiting to see if it lives- the plants are covered in silt and the roots are sitting in soggy soil, but i am holding out hope that the eggplants and peppers will pull through. There may be some young transplants that survive, it is all kind of wait and see right now.

There are a lot of tough decisions that I am faced with making right now- I have to cut staffing or at least pull back severely on everyone’s hours, I cancelled my cover crop seed order for the fall, I will be switching my chickens off of organic feed when we run out of what I currently have on hand. I will till under a season’s worth of hard work and hope.

I say all that and know that I am fortunate to have any thing left at all. I can cross my street and see Hector’s farm and I know that he has lost everything, the water climbed at least 6 feet deep over everything and was three feet deep in the greenhouse. His land borders the river so it flooded first and receeded last. I helped rescue 5 of my neighbors horses that were belly deep in water,and then moved another three a day later when the flooding had covered the whole farm. I have another friend who farms in Vermont, she was flooded out twice in the spring and now again, and last I heard was about to get into a boat to try and save her chickens, her boyfriend was trying to decide if he should stop her or help her. Another set of friends had the contents of their house swept away after a raging stream jumped its bank, pushed three feet of water into the house which floated the couch that then crashed into the sliding glass doors and broke them open allowing everything to wash away.

It is a really difficult time right now for a lot of us. I am super touchy to any one suggesting that the storm was a dud- yes, New York City did not fall to pieces, but just be aware that a lot of other people were not nearly that fortunate, and be sensitive. I will bring whatever product I can to market and will continue to set up each week with what i do have, but I so do not want to be asked “no salad mix?” or “when are you going to have______?” I am touchy right now and can’t really handle that kind of stuff.

I am working on a couple of plans- they will take a little while to enact, I will keep you all up to date on them and invite you all to help support the farm. One thing I do say about myself is that I am an idea factory, so I will get there somehow, it is just going to take a little time.

Kira
blondykinney@yahoo.com