Thanksgiving in Texas... Climate is Changing and So are We

Vernalization, stratification, weatherization, whatever you want to call it, the concept is one we hadn’t really bothered ourselves with much until this fall at Myrtle’s.

However, several events have conspired to make us pay even as much attention to climate as we do to weather.  This is a subtle distinction, but one which will become increasingly more important as as climate change takes fuller hold over the course of the next several decades.

The Brazos Valley is not quite in the wettest region of Texas, roughly defined as the greater Houston area eastward.  We joke in our family that if there is a 40% chance of rain, “Sure hope they enjoy it over in Huntsville.”  Houston gets over 50 inches of rain a year; College Station gets just under 30 inches a year, for now.  This makes us wetter than most of the state, even if not quite putting us in the rice-growing marshes of the eastern sliver of Texas.

We are likely to get less rain in coming years, though.  A wide variety of climate change models suggest that we will increasingly look less like a sub-tropical climate, and more and more like a semi-arid climate, with some suggesting that in as few as ten years, we may see our precipitation averages drop by 1/3rd.  That would mean that instead of getting around 30 inches per year, we will likely get roughly 20 inches per year.

Our normal precipitation pattern is changing, too.  Not only will rain be less abundant in the Brazos Valley, it will also come at different times.  Normally, we have a wet season in May and June, followed by a dry summer, with mild fall and winter months.  In future years, however, winter will be our wettest time of year; May and June will only see significant rain when we get moisture from tropical storms.

And then there will be fluctuations such as those caused by El Niño and La Niña.  This year is a strong La Niña year, so our fall and winter are proving to be excessively dry.  In fact, some models show that tropical moisture during El Niño years will be so prevalent that we may actually on average get more rain, even as soil moisture disappears during our rain-free months – we’ll be both wetter and drier, like some sort of crazy climatic performance art piece.

So what does this have to do with seeds, and planting, and Myrtle’s place?

As it turns out, quite a lot. 

We have spoken before of our strong preference for collecting rainwater; we have spent the last several months working on our collection system.  Roughly 80% of the rain running off our roof will now be collected – first, into two 50 gallon barrels, and next, after the barrels are full, into our fish pond.  These preparations are vital – the fact that our pond is currently sitting dry really stands as the only evidence you need that we just don’t get enough rain here to grow crops without supplemental watering.  We are now prepared to do supplemental watering without relying on the city’s untrustworthy water.

There are other elements of our little experiment in self-sufficiency which are also heavily affected by climate change.  Not only how we are watering, but what we are watering.  Traditionally, the Brazos Valley has two basic growing seasons, spring and fall.  There are winter gardens with greens, but typically very few local gardeners even bother with these tender plants – usually broccoli, kale, spinach and maybe radishes or potatoes, but very little else.  No, for the most part, gardens in Bryan/College Station run from March through June, and August/September through November.

However, while the July/August heat will continue to make that the one time of year when nothing gets planted, and what little is still growing must be tended very carefully to keep it alive, the rest of the year is changing ever so slightly to make our climate a year-round growing season.  The traditional spring and fall veggies won’t change – corn, squash, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, peppers – these are timeless and are likely to be grown here as long as there are people with garden hoes to grow them.

But there is now more than ever a need to diversify, and our changing climate has provided not only a greater need, but also a greater opportunity.  We have spoken before of our desire to branch out into grains.  We started our experiment in grains this fall, with a small planting of quinoa.  While our planting was somewhat small (only about fifty seeds total), our crop will prove even smaller, as only a handful of the seeds actually germinated.

Concerned that perhaps we overestimated the ability of this crop from the colder climates and higher elveations of the Andes mountains to thrive in the still-subtropical Brazos Valley, we did a little research.  What we discovered made us slap our heads in self-accusation, yet also gave us tremendous hope.

As it turns out, in Colorado, several farmers have been experimenting with quinoa for years.  This makes a lot of sense, as they are farming in a mountainous region with much more in common climatologically to the Andes than our own garden can boast.  The planting season in Colorado starts in late May, when the ground has warmed enough, with a harvest in September and October, just before the freezing precipitation begins.

The limiting factor which has prevented quinoa from becoming a major cash crop for this region is the fact that sometimes the summer heat is too much.  When the temperature is in the 80s or 90s for an extended period of time, the quinoa doesn’t go to seed – the heat stress doesn’t always kill the plant, but for all practical purposes, at that point it is not a grain crop any more, it is a greens crop, and in a nation of carnivores, that really isn’t a great sales pitch.

However, several elements of this story stand out to us as hopeful – first, we need a stronger period of vernalization.  We planted our quinoa in late september, when ambient temperatures were still in the mid 80s in the Brazos Valley, and goodness only knows how hot the ground still was.  Next fall, we will wait until early October, and we will have had our seeds in the refrigerator for a week before we put them in the ground.

Second, we are hopeful that our growing season for quinoa may be, in most years, a full six months long – from October to March, there is a risk of temperatures above 90 degrees, but in most years, it will not happen.  Thus, we can stagger planting from October through December, and guarantee ourselves that in most years, we will get grain from our quinoa.  There is also a slight risk of killing frost early in the season, but not much.  Once it gets to flowering – typically somewhere between 45-60 days – quinoa will survive temperatures into the low 20s, which are already extremely rare in the Brazos Valley, and are becoming even more rare as each year passes.

This means that we will be able to rotate several of our newfound favorite crops from a variety of places of origin in such way that we will always – spring, summer, autumn, winter – have a green, a legume, or a grain, and in many cases a combination of the three, growing in one patch or another.  Amaranth will sometimes have delayed germination if the ground has not sufficiently warmed, but even so, a staggered planting from March through May will overlap nicely with the staggered quinoa plantings.  Interspersing velvet beans, cow peas, and maize in these plots will give us a colorful and tasty year round edible landscape.

The coming era of permanent drought in the greater part of the State of Texas will cause hardship for many, and will lead to social and economic unheaval unprecedented in this part of the country, but it needn’t be the end of the story for us.  The time to adapt is upon us.  Ironically, as winter warms up, it is the time of year we need to start leaning on.  We have some heretofore unavailable opportunities coming our way.  Quinoa is just the tip of the iceberg.

When approached calmly and rationally, the problems presented by climate change on a microeconomic level do not represent any particularly terrifying difficulties – finding climates which currently have limits roughly approximating those projected to be likely in the future gives a pretty good indicator of what needs to be done. 

In future years, the Brazos Valley will get roughly the same amount of rain as is experienced in a good portion of southwest Texas today, on a line from roughly Kerrville to Uvalde.  This is excellent territory in which to raise crops only slightly different from what we currently grow. 

Rio Grande peaches have low chilling requirements and thrive with hot and dry summers.  Pomegranates produce exceptionally sweet fruit under these circumstances.  Blackberries and plums also excel in this semi-arid climate.  One particular species of wild black cherry does exceptionally well in this region, even thriving southward into the arid reaches of northern Mexico.  The most prolific olive orchard in Texas sits in the middle of this region.  Corn and okra are ubiquitous here; imported grains like amaranth and millet could (and if we have anything to say about it, will) grow like weeds in our new climate.  And in our mild, wet winters, we will be growing short-day cool weather vegetables that elsewhere only grow at altitude on the shaded slopes of mountainsides in summer.

If the world is going to evolve as a result of humanity’s collective bad behavior, it is only right that our behavior and culture, including agriculture, should evolve right back.  This means things like making the kinds of good friends who will help you replace a burned out stove at a moments notice (thank you Browns!) to collecting all the rainwater that falls on your little tin roof, to planting crops you've never heard of before if that's all that will grow in your new climate.  This ain’t your grandaddy’s farm.  With a little forethought, though, and a for us, a newfound attention to winter gardening, it could belong to our grandchildren.  As long as we can still work a garden hoe, we can adapt... for which we give thanks.

Happy farming!