From Flood to Flower:
The Incredible Resilience of Crops NASA climate scientists have stated that as the world warms, the atmosphere will hold much more water, leading to less predictable and more severe rain events like the intense atmospheric rivers in California experiences, or the catastrophic, deadly floods inundating parts of Texas as I write this article. "Water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas. In fact, because of its abundance in the atmosphere, water vapor causes about two-thirds of greenhouse warming, a key factor in keeping temperatures in the habitable range on Earth. But as temperatures warm, more water vapor evaporates from the surface into the atmosphere, where it can cause temperatures to climb further.” (earthobservatory.nasa.gov). Specifically, scientists predict that for every degree of human-enhanced warming, the atmospheric moisture-holding capacity increases by an extra 7%. My wife, Lama, my daughter, Leela, and I live at the tail-end of a small creek with an outlet to the Pacific Ocean only 100 meters or so from our 10-bed unit mini-farm. We are lucky to have a large eucalyptus windbreak, but that doesn’t stop the rain from falling! The nearby highway's undersized drainage capacity causes the creek to overflow into our mini-farm, so we knew from our experience in winter 2023 that we needed to prepare for frequent flooding. This meant that last fall, we had very little time to establish our winter carbon cover crops to hold the soil in place before the creek might inundate our site. To address this, Leela and I attempted to build a water barrier, hoping to at least slow the flow of water using pylons and cinder blocks.
We were excited and cautiously optimistic that our garden might be safe from the faster-flowing water due to our forward-thinking preparation, recalling the famous phrase from Scottish farmer and poet Robert Burns's poem To a Mouse: "The best-laid schemes o' Mice an' Men...". It was December 29, 2024 when the first of many atmospheric rivers came barreling through Northern California. Rain fell in huge bursts and curtains in short periods of time during the deluge, and places on or near the coast received 7-10 inches of rain in a little under 48 hours. The river flowed from the sky and into our creek by the sea, and our inadequate water barrier was easily defeated by the awesome power and strength of an enraged Mother Nature. All we could do was watch the water flow and hope that our carbon-producing cover crops, overwintering vegetables, and seed crops had established a steadfast hold on the soil. Here is what the mayhem looked like during the flooding. You can see Leela standing in the almost knee-deep water flowing around and through our 10- bed unit.
And here (below) are the Monarch Bedford parsnips and carbon crops a day after the turbulence from the flood! They survived!
Eventually, the water receded and drained over the next ten days, and we got our garden back. I recognize that not everyone has such quick-draining sandy soils, but for what it’s worth, I can report anecdotally that in the heavy clay soils of nearby Anderson Valley, I have had parsnips and leeks survive 3-4 weeks of winter waterlogged soil. We all must do the work of learning, over time, the strengths and weaknesses of our vegetable allies in our various climates and soils. In our mini-farm by the sea, most of the kales and collards succumbed to disease and were overcome by the waterlogged soil. However, an older heirloom variety of Champion collards, our Egyptian Walking Onions, and a variety of tree collards had no problem with the flood. And most importantly for the sanctity of our future calorie crop dreams, the parsnips and salsify being overwintered for food and seed also survived! In the end, we learned that sometimes our best preparations are a punchline in the stand-up comedy performance of the infinity of Nature and the cosmos, but if we pay attention, and work with her, that she has ways and means of compassion towards making sure the seeds shall survive. Here is a picture of the parsnips (below, in center) taken today, July 5, 2025, showing our large parsnip flowers thriving in the summer sun on their march towards forever. Best wishes to you and your garden this year, and into the future!
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