Agweek editor reflects on Minnesota's growing season

CATHY WURZER: The entire state woke up to frost today-- to be expected. It's that time of the year. Friends along the North Shore, you have already seen some snowflakes, may see some more today. Winter is undeniably on its way. And this leaves everyone from neighborhood squirrels to farmers taking stock of what the summer yielded and cleaning up for winter.

Michael Johnson is the news editor for Agweek, and he and his wife also grow vegetables and cut flowers near Deer Creek in Western Minnesota. He recently wrote a lovely column reflecting on the growing season. I read it, I loved it, so I invited him on the program. Michael, thanks for taking the time.

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Cathy, thank you for that.

CATHY WURZER: To say the least, it's been a really weird growing season. How have you done?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: I think it went well in some areas, [CHUCKLES] other areas, not so much. We have a very diversified amount of produce that we grow. So some things like a lot of moisture. Some things didn't handle it so well. So you got a mixed bag for sure.

CATHY WURZER: So, if I'm not mistaken, you're on the second year on your farm, only two years on the farm so far. What have you been growing?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Oh, my goodness. So let me start out by saying that we're kind of in the experimental stages of trying to figure out what we like and what we think a lot of people at farmers' markets or at our own farm stand would like to eat.

So we grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers in our high tunnel. And of course, we grow probably six different varieties of each within there. We grow eggplant, garlic, onion, leeks. We grow beets, peas, bush beans of every color. There's just a--

CATHY WURZER: That's a lot.

MICHAEL JOHNSON: --great variety. So we always have things that we're trying new on our plate. And some of the things that we've grown up enjoying that we know we're going to like.

CATHY WURZER: Did you have a better time of it-- or do you have a better time of it as a farmer growing vegetables than, say, some of your other friends, I'm sure, who have the big cash crops of corn and soybeans? I mean, they're trying to get the crop out of the ground right now that it's dry, obviously.

But it was kind of tough for them because corn and beans can be a little finicky. So, I mean, when you look at what you grow versus what they grow, how does the weather parse out for everybody?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Well, certainly on a small scale, we have a little more control about what we can do, particularly in our high tunnel. We control exactly what moisture is getting to every plant with drip lines. We can heat things up, cool things down in there. We try to have total control there.

Outside of that, we have several other gardens where less control, but a lot of variety, too, where if something fails, it's not the end of the world for us. We might be able to get a second planting in. On a large commercial crop operation, you might be able to get away with that, or you might just have to call it a loss. If you have a long growing season, there might not be time to replant.

CATHY WURZER: Boy--

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Had some scary situations this year because we had three different hail events. Well, that can spell destruction of everything you have very quickly. Luckily, nothing was too damaging other than some bruises and scratches on some of our bigger vegetables or zucchinis and cucumbers or whatnot. But--

CATHY WURZER: Whew.

MICHAEL JOHNSON: --some of our other farming operations near us, they lost entire fields of corn because of that, so.

CATHY WURZER: Boy, my farmer friends say this to me-- and I'm hearing you talk-- and it's so true that farming is not for the faint of heart. I mean, all the unpredictability and stress, it's part of the job. But how do you navigate that?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: [CHUCKLES] Well, I guess, for my part, it takes a lot of faith to trust that things are going to be OK. We see a hailstorm coming, and my wife kind of likes to go hide in the bedroom and not watch it destroy things. But amazingly, it didn't really damage us that much this year.

I think I indicated in my column that you're trying to, overall, look at the brighter side of things, look at the overall season. And in the end, we had a lot of things that were out of our control. But still, amazingly, we have an abundance to harvest. So you can't dwell on what you can't control. You just got to trust that somebody in a higher power has more control than we do.

CATHY WURZER: I liked your column because it was just so well-written, and I loved the fact that you talked a lot about abundance. And you have a lot of gratitude, which was lovely to read that. And I'm wondering, did that get you back into farming? You grew up on a dairy farm. I know that, because I've read your stuff in the past. I know your family raised livestock and grew some corn, I believe.

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Yes.

CATHY WURZER: And what drove you back into farming? Was it the sense of this-- you seem like you have a spiritual link to the land. Would that be right?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: I'd say so. Once you've done it-- with the upbringing that I had anyway-- it was just nothing else like it. I mean, you don't really have any escape from it. Once you're into it, you're in it, especially if you have crops in the ground or animals.

You are with them every day. Every morning, you're thinking about what do all these things need. And they need me, for the most part, to take care of them, unless you can find somebody else who would like to step in and help you with that, which is important.

But I spend a lot of time at a desk as well in my job in editing and reporting, but those escapes that I have where I can get my hands into the dirt, see everything around me growing, there's just nothing like that, to just forget about everything else that's around you.

CATHY WURZER: Mm. Say, before you go, I'm just curious. Year 3 is coming up here. What are your goals here for the next year? Are you already thinking about what crops you want to plant, what veggies?

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Yeah, as mentioned, the frost hit all of Minnesota. So we had our second frost, and I'm still working on-- I dug some carrots this morning. We're still working on clearing out some of the garden beds. I got to plant garlic still. So we're looking at filling everything up again. But there's a part of me that really enjoys seeing it all die off.

[LAUGHTER]

It's been a long season, and you like a little break from it, but by the new year, we'll have a renewed excitement about it, I'm sure. And we will have plans in place of what we want to grow.

CATHY WURZER: Well, Michael, it's fun talking to you. Again, that column was beautiful. I really loved it. And thanks for joining us. Best of luck in the coming growing season.

MICHAEL JOHNSON: Thank you, Cathy. I appreciate it.

CATHY WURZER: Michael Johnson is the news editor for Agweek. That's a news outlet focused on agriculture in the upper Midwest. He and his family grow vegetables and cut flowers near Deer Creek, which is in Western Minnesota.