Nash’s Farm gets about 17 inches average annual rainfall, due to the rain shadow effect of the Olympic Mountains, so irrigation is critical. Work on the system starts in late March as we prep infrastructure in anticipation of the water being turned on and flowing through the ditches on April 15. The season ends on September 15 when the ditches are turned off, even if we need the water. This is because the salmon start moving up the river in mid-September.
Because Nash’s fields are at the end of the Cline and Dungeness Irrigation Ditches, several other farms have access to the water before we do. Making sure the water is distributed evenly takes patience and a lot of relationship-building. Irrigation equipment such as pumps, main lines, lateral lines, sprinkler heads, seals, gaskets and pipe trailers also have to be kept in working order for everything to run smoothly. In the photo above, the crew has removed all the pipe from 11 different fields and organized them by size and type for next spring on Delta Farm.
We are grateful to our fantastic irrigation crew every year. The personnel usually changes every season because the job is incredibly challenging, not just physically, but mentally, too. But the people who do this work end up with a pretty good understanding of soil types and how they respond to water in the various fields of the farm. They are also really buff!
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Winter Hours Starting Oct 15 at Nash’s Farm Store
Monday-Saturday 10 am-7 pm
Closed Sunday
Those of you who need to pick up your CSA boxes at the Store on Sunday should email Susan Baker, CSA Program Coordinator, at
susan@nashsorganicproduce.com
or call her at
360-301-9754
by 6 pm Friday