There is something about the state of Califomia that draws Easterners to visit and explore. It may be a combination of the sun and the relaxed attitude that gives people the itch to move West, or perhaps it is the prevailing sense of “wildness” and unknown. Whatever the case, I was drawn out West this past spring by the promise of a long Californian growing season. I had spent time working on an organic farm in the Adirondacks of New York state, and felt very accustomed to the ways ofthe Northeastern farmer. I was ready for a change in the relative ease and ensuing abundance of Western farming.

In order to explore California’s network of organic farms, I joined the United States’ chapter of Willing Working on Organic Farms, or World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, (WWOOF USA). WWOOF provides its members with access to a long list of organic farms that are willing to host apprentices and, with luck, members can locate legitimate farms that are run by interesting people with appealing ideas. Throughout January and February I looked for the right opportunity, contacting a number of host farms in Northern California. After much searching, I finally got a positive response from Oz Farm, located in a coastal town called Point Arena, and made plans to head out early in March.

When the time came for my departure, I boarded an airplane bound for the West coast. As my plane approached Oakland, I was astonished by the hills of vibrant green stretched out beneath me. Everything seemed so lush and fertile in comparison to the long harsh winters of the Northeast, and it seemed immediately obvious that California was better suited for food production. At the beginning of March, New England usually remains buried under several feet of snow. Sap may start running in the maples, signaling an end to dormancy, but nothing emerges from our agricultural soils until several months later. In California, lack of a hard freeze allows many crops to grow year round. Even those crops that can’t grow all year get started and mature much earlier than their Northeastern counterparts. Thus, California is the land of plenty when it comes to food production. The state produces 13% of all agricultural products sold in the United States, and grocery stores in the East are filled with Californian produce, even during the middle of summer.

However, as I would learn later during my trip, California does struggle with many issues that New England farmers don’t have to consider, and the abundance of agricultural produce brings with it huge resource costs. My time spent in California forced a comparison between farming in Northern California and in New England and made me question the traditional Eastern perception of California’s food production.

On the morning of my arrival in California, a long, beautiful bus ride took me up the coast to Point Arena. A small town on the Pacific coast of Mendocino County, about three hours north of San Francisco, the community of Point Arena is made up primarily of young families, surfers, and old hippies. The community has always had an alternative living vibe and supposedly hasn’t changed much over the years. In the 1970s, Oz Farm was an intentional community and education center. Thus, it is perfectly set up for communal living, with a number of cabins scattered over the property and a central kitchen and living space.

After my first night spent in Oz, I woke up to a green landscape that once again took me by surprise. The garden had living things growing in it, the apple trees were beginning to produce fruit, buds were forming, and the bees would soon be hard at work. Swiss chard and kale were abundant, as well as some salad greens and brussels sprouts. The garlic was clearly well on its way, and we began transplanting onion and leek seedlings into the ground the day after I arrived. After my experiences in New England, the ability to produce food outdoors in March seemed awesome and exciting.

Soon after my arrival, however, I began to understand the more tricky aspects of California agriculture. Many of my preconceived notions about hot, sunny days in Northern California were dismissed when I learned that temperatures on the coast rarely exceed the mid-80s, and usually remain in the 70s- even in the height of summer. Last year at Oz Farm, the temperature was 48 degrees on the fourth of July. Thus, warm weather crops such as tomatoes and peppers don’t grow as well or as easily as they do in certain places in the East.

The next major thing I learned about was California’s water problems when I discovered that the state receives a proportionately low amount of rain throughout the year, and each spring’s greenery quickly gives way to drying and browning. To keep up their production levels, Californian farmers depend on irrigation - a costly and inefficient process that draws an excess of water from the West’s already overburdened rivers. In 2002 alone, California contributed almost 9 million acres of land to the 55 million total irrigated acres in the United States. Out of 300,000 irrigated farms in the United States, California has 56,000. Oz Farm receives no rain from June until October and must constantly irrigate its fields and apple trees. During these dry months, a pump on the Garcia River supplies the farm with irrigation water, and this source is supplemented by water drawn from an underground well in the early spring.

Severe summer drought is only one of the factors making water a constant source of worry on Californian farms. In the winter, Point Arena receives excessive rain, and much of Oz Farm floods. It is not unusual for the nearby Garcia River to overflow its banks by 15 feet or more during the winter rains. Well-rooted cover crops are planted in the fall to prevent floods from washing away valuable topsoil and nutrients, but it is unlikely that the soil escapes unaffected.

After a few days of living and working at Oz, I learned that garden pests were another big difference between the two regions. New England farmers are constantly searching for innovative solutions to remedy their deer problems. In California, however, deer are a minor concern compared with the enormity of the gopher problem. Piles of soil covering the fields at Oz were an indication of something new and extremely influential. Though it took me a few weeks to actually see my first gopher, the widespread destruction was ample evidence of their presence. One afternoon, we pulled up almost half a row of potato plants only to discover that their stems were severed, and the potatoes were gone. Unfortunately, there are no fences or barriers that can keep these elusive and destructive farm pests out of the garden. Oz chooses to trap or shoot gophers, but this has proved to be both an inefficient and frustrating endeavor.

In contrast to the Californian gopher plague, the Northeast must endure its own particular pestilence every summer: the Colorado Potato Beetle. A small, striped beetle that eats leaves of plants from the Solanaceae family, the Potato Beetle is one of the most destructive pests on Northeastern farms. Organic farmers in particular constantly struggle to find efficient ways to remove the beetles. Options for beetle eradication generally include either the use of costly organic pesticides, methods of carefully timed planting, or removal of the beetles by hand. As the season at Oz progressed, I was amazed to find not a single potato beetle, despite the overwhelming number of potatoes growing in the fields.

In the middle of March, we did, however, come across a new and destructive pest in Oz’s fields. Our discovery took place shortly after planting a group of two-inch tall transplants - mainly broccoli, cabbage, and some Asian greens. Several weeks after our planting, those same transplants were still two inches tall, despite what we assumed were favorable growing conditions. Upon pulling up one of the transplants, we discovered tiny white centipedes racing through the root-balls, eating root matter and stunting the growth of the plants. These “symphylans;’ as we found them to be called, are soil arthropods that use pathways created by earthworms and other soil-dwelling organisms to navigate their way through soil. Symphylans can survive at a soil depth of up to three feet, making organic methods for control and elimination few and far between. The primary options for removal of symphylans include flooding and compaction, both of which are harmful to the soil and produce mixed results at best.

By the middle of summer, despite our active cleaning of farm tools - especially the tiller - to avoid contamination, the symphylans had spread to almost all of the five acres under cultivation. The winter squash crop in particular was almost completely lost due to damage from the symphylans. While contemplating this problem, I wondered whether farms back East had the same pest issues. However, I soon realized that the Northeastern winter provides a deep freeze that helps control and kill organisms such as symphylans. Unfortunately, California’s pests, like their crops, can survive year-round.

The contrast in growing seasons between New England and California became even more apparent to me upon my arrival back East at the end of May. When I left Oz, we were already harvesting beets, carrots, fava beans, and broccoli. At the Dartmouth Organic Farm, things were just getting started. When I arrived in New Hampshire, we planted lettuce and broccoli transplants from the greenhouse with visions of mid¬July’s abundance. However, a cool, wet season discouraged growth during an already short season: the lettuce rotted in the field, and the melons weren’t as sweet as usual.

Early in September, I returned to California for the annual Harvest Festival at Oz Farm. I was shocked to see drastic changes in what I remember of the landscape. The once green hills were brown and dry, and there had not been any rain since May. The thriving greens in the garden seemed a false indication of the fertility of a northern California summer. The change of seasons was apparent, however, and the browned hillsides felt like autumn in a completely different way than did New Hampshire’s falling leaves and chilly weather.

Arriving back at Dartmouth in mid-September, I knew that the frost was not far off and that the growing season would soon be over. Manure was being spread and incorporated into fields, and root cellars and freezers were being filled. Even though I regret that I will no longer be able to buy local tomatoes or peppers, I don’t look with envy at the farmers growing California produce that is shipped to our supermarkets. It’s not as simple or as practical as it looks.