when we left the intervale to farm in east middlebury, i never thought we would really have to worry about flooding again. well, we had a flash flood here this weekend. a very isolated area among ripton and east middlebury received 7 inches of rain on saturday night. we happened to be in east montpelier for the night and were shocked when we arrived home sunday evening. we checked our rain gauge in the field and it was full, maxing out at 6". there were mini canyons through our slightly sloped field where water eroded away at the plants leaving little islands of head lettuce and basil. at the bottom of the field, soil settled onto our remay covered cabbage seedlings like lava running from a volcano. the rushing water and soil erased all of our footprints and tractor tire marks from the field. it looked as if we never stepped foot on the field to do any work. it really was a shocking discovery. there was an obvious stream of water still flowing nearly 24 hours after the rain had fallen. all of this happened ,while nearby burlington received a mere .38 inches of rain and rutland to the south of us received 2.45 inches.
some crops have suffered but most survived just fine as far as we know. we are lucky that this field consists mostly of our transplanted crops like cucumbers, broccoli, lettuce, chard, and tomatoes. all of our direct seeded crops are planted in the north meadow in a half acre parcel with much less slope and sandy soils. the force of the rain was rough on our greens but lucky for us we never had a chance to direct seed our carrots, cilantro and beans last week. so, it doesn't appear that any germinating beds were washed away. and to top it all off... another inch and a half of rain today in a massive thunderstorm.
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