The sun is finally peeking out from behind the clouds as I write this, and I can’t help but heave a sigh of relief. It rained nearly four inches in the last 24 hours, a storm that the San Francisco Chronicle is calling the worst since 1962. Make no doubt about it, we need the rain, but the timing couldn’t be worse. We’re right in the middle of walnut harvest, and sodden soils mean the heavy harvesting equipment can’t go out into the fields. We’ll have to wait until the ground dries.
Topped Walnut Trees
The storm also forced us into a defensive move: “topping” our 2-year old walnut trees. As you can see in the photo above, we cut a lot of the foliage off the new trees just before the storm struck. Two-year old trees, or what we call second leaf walnuts, have more foliage than their slender young trunks can support in a windstorm. The trees topple over. Guided by the weather forecast, we made the decision to “top” the trees to try to save them from the winds.
Happily the trees are still standing. However, the storm’s wind wasn’t as strong as predicted, and now we wonder if we needed to cut all those branches. Ah, the vicissitudes of farming…
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