Happy Friday y’all!

Writing to all you big and small growers from our parched farm in North Georgia. It’s crispy underfoot. I gotta admit, that despite studying the mechanisms and forecasts of climate change way too intensely for multiple years in college, I didn’t believe in my bones that the forecasted climate models of this area getting hotter and drier would manifest quite this rapidly. When I moved here 16 years ago, I was amazed at all the summer storms we’d get. The rain was frequent and reminded me of my summer in the cloud forests of Costa Rica. It was almost overwhelming. A shift to “not enough” just didn’t seem probable in the short term. “Sure, it may get modestly drier in the next 50 years” I thought, but I really didn’t anticipate the reality. It only took 10 years before we started getting some really unusual hot and dry stretches that last for months.

After writing that paragraph, I thought it wise to check my facts against my memory or even my bias. I pulled the data since 2010 from our local weather center and indeed from 2010-2019, summer weather was consistently wet, with rain evenly distributed throughout the season in afternoon storms. After that, we got multiple years of very dry summers. ‘20 = dry late summer and fall, ’21 = historically dry (16” below norm), ‘22 = severe late summer drought, and according to the National Weather Service, the second half of ’25 through August of '26 has been the longest drought in recent history.

The total rain of some of those years was within range of normal, but here’s the catch: the rain was concentrated into major deluges, separated by extreme dry spells. That was the major change we experienced and is also the shift in pattern being experienced by much of the world. Irregular and sporadic weather patterns are very detrimental to all agriculture. As you growers can attest to, regular rain in the heat is something plants love. Four inches in a day followed by 2 months of extreme dry heat, however, will wash away your soil, drown and rot some of your plants, leave the rest stressed, then proceed to fry whatever remained.

So if your plants are struggling, you are not alone. These are challenging conditions to grow in, and in addition to patience and acceptance for that which you cannot change, you need to have all sorts of contingency plans in place for the things you can.

Speaking of contingency plans, Mandy and Sarah just mentioned we have no water. I paused this writing, went down to the well house, and after battling a wall of Joro spiders to enter a tiny room filled with hot angry wasps, I noticed a rat’s nest in the corner. Didn’t see the rat though. I took the pressure valve’s cover off and found a fully cooked rat stuck in the electrical contacts. This is not the first time a rat, or fire ants, or time itself has fried out the pressure valve on one of our 2 wells. This well happens to control the irrigation to 80% of our crops at present.

I learned awhile back to always have extra pressure valves in my shop so we don’t have to be stuck without water for extended periods of time. I have extra thermostats, switches, circuit boards, filters, motors, etc. Everything that can die and leave you in a precarious situation in the middle of the night, I buy extra of. It can be the difference between a failed crop and just a bad night’s sleep. That can be the difference between a yearly raise for your employees and yourself, or a raise for your employees and a major pay cut for yourself. Contingency plans are crucial to farming. You’ll need about 1,000 of them a year.

So, I got munched up by mosquitos while removing the crispy critter, disconnecting all the electrical, removing and replacing the pressure switch, and re-wiring it, but the job was done. Patted myself on the back, turned on the power, opened a faucet…and nothing. Removed pat from my back.

It appears the pump itself may have fried out when the rat got stuck in the electrical. That’s not something I can fix as easily. But…I have a contingency plan for that too. When we drilled our second well, I had the forethought to plum both wells together and also separately. The separate part is ideal and what happens when they are both functioning. Each well does a part of the farm in isolation. The together part is usually valved off, but in case of emergency, I can flip a few valves and make one well operate the whole system without backfeeding the other well. Fortunately, now we have water again for our thirsty, overheated plants and a buffer period to further fix the well. Contingencies upon contingencies.

Our mum sale just went live, so jump on it fast in order to get your preferred plants and ship week before they sell out (they often do).  That said, if you’re growing heirloom mums right now, you should be preparing to net them.  We use those little red 3’ rebar stakes obtained from Tractor Supply and Hortonova netting.  It’s the easiest approach we’ve found. Their stakes have fins on the bottom of them so you can use your foot as well as your hands to push them in.  Makes it easier.

It’s also time to start scouting for pests.  In that vein, avoid the temptation to fertilize with nitrogen at this point.  Excess Nitrogen is utter catnip to aphids, and aphids are guaranteed to be your biggest challenge in growing mums.  Everybody says mums are heavy feeders, but our best results have always been just by amending the bed per soil test results prior to planting, and nothing else after.  Our plants still get as much as 5’-7’ tall depending on variety and never seem to want more nutrients.  We’ve tried fertigating midseason, but saw no benefit at all, so have reverted to the simpler approach that yielded better results. We share more about pest control along with many other growing tips in our Heirloom Chrysanthemum Growing Guide.  It's a helpful resource to reference throughout the year.

Hang in there. Hopefully whatever intense weather you are having in your location eases and gives you a bit of grace. Meanwhile, whatever failed on you this season is your teacher for the contingency plans you need to put in place next season. Working with nature is a never-ending lesson in humility and personal growth. If you don’t regularly revisit and review your biases and revise your systems, you will find the frustrations piling ever higher and growing fangs. If you’re evolving along the way and continually learning, you’ll find a greater degree of resilience and success as each year passes. It’s the long game folks. No selling to a fortune 500 for 100 million. We’re building soil, character, and community, not enterprises. Much more rewarding if you can pull it off though.

Cheers and have a great weekend.

Steve