It has been awhile, friends! I hope you’re enjoying a wonderful summer of fun and relaxation, and perhaps heaping bowls of panzanella fresh from the garden. The days seem to be passing as quickly as plants grow in the summer months, and I cannot fathom that it’s almost August.

I’m going to attempt a full, but hopefully not too tedious, update on the past three months. This note has a more personal and pragmatic ring to it, and includes a lot of photos! So if you’d be into that sort of thing, then read on. 

Historically, summer has been a difficult season for our family as the kids are out of school, and my husband Chris and I both still need to work our actual jobs. This also, coincidentally, collides with my most challenging season on the farm. It’s hard to describe exactly why farming in the summer is so challenging; it’s a compilation of many things. It hasn’t rained in many months, leaving plants and soil desperate for water and a good cleansing. Even the concrete cries out for rain this time of year. Crops burn out quickly, plants get sick left and right, and the weeds grow faster this time of year than anything we could ever hope to plant. Working long hours outside in the hot sun puts an extra stress on our bodies, adding to the cumulative fatigue that has been playing in the background since the growing season started in January, and it grows ever louder with each passing day. 

Despite its regular seasonal challenges, this summer has felt, well, different. Shockingly, I’d even call it “good.” The kids are all one year older and more independent, and our time with them is beginning to feel like it’s slipping away. Highlights of this summer with them have been the more relaxed summer schedule, late bedtimes, movie nights, and sleeping on the floor in forts, all without the looming pressures of school. 

But the thing that made the greatest impact, I think, on the aforementioned “good summer,” was adding someone new to my farm crew for the summer months. Sam Cheung was just that person, and for 20 hours every week since April he’s been doing things around the farm that I now no longer have to do. Sam leaves for Boston at the beginning of August for grad school, and he’ll be leaving a fairly large, and extremely pleasant, Sam-sized hole in his wake. 

Another saving grace this summer was closing down the farm for 10 days so I could go on vacation with my family, my first true break in a good long while. This year, we drove a good bit of California in our van, tent camping on Santa Cruz island, in Lassen National Park, and in the coastal Redwoods in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The perspective shift when returning from a trip like this is everything. How can one not be a little bit changed after standing so small in an old-growth forest under 2,000-year-old trees?

A few other noteworthy things worth mentioning: In early June, the farm sent out 29 Curated Cutting Gardens into the community, which means that we helped plant 29 gardens! My parents flew out that same weekend so Chris and I could run a fun trail race with our friends just outside of Yosemite (I was very lucky to be able to run at all after waking up with a swollen and throbbing left Achilles just two weeks before the race). Our back alley native plant project was put on standby when we found out the city is going to be developing the space. We rebuilt our chicken coop which was in complete disrepair, and I planted a vegetable garden.

The farm’s bouquet subscription is humming along and we are at week 26 of 31, August being the final month of subscription bouquets for the 2024 growing season. 

2024 summer hacks which saved my brain daily:

• Grab-and-go snack bags made up at the beginning of the summer (jerky, granola bars, seaweed, crackers in paper bags). A life-saver when transitioning quickly from work to kid activities, like spending the afternoon at the pool. 
• A “Yes” list of always approved snacks posted on the front of the fridge for the kids. 
• A huge 3-month-long wall calendar by The Essential Calendar so we can more easily visualize trips and camp schedules.
• Cooking as many dinners outside on the grill as possible. 

Reading continues to be a soothing balm for me in hectic seasons of life. My favorite reads so far this year:

1. Train Dreams: A Novella, Denis Johnson
2. East of Eden, John Steinbeck
3. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott
4. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
5. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
6. Night Watch, Jayne Anne Phillips

I’m grateful to be able to farm from a place of more relative wholeness this summer. Thank you for reading and following along on my journey of building a sustaining flower farm here in urban San Diego, and thank you for supporting our farm which would not be possible without your support.

I’ll end with the words of Marcus Aurelius, quoted by Steinbeck in East of Eden.

“Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered. Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the universe loves nothing so much as to change things which are and to make new things like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.” 

Wishing you beautiful final days of summer,

Rachel Nafis