Spring Planting

Written by Melissa Haack

Spring has always felt like a season of rebirth. We hear this all the time. After a long winter, we head into spring carrying a lot of optimism. Most people probably assume that optimism centers on hopes for good rainfall, favorable markets, or a bumper crop. Those things matter, of course, but our hope in the planting season goes much deeper than that.

At its core, farming takes faith.

It’s not always something we talk about, and sometimes we don’t even realize how much faith is involved because it becomes part of everyday life. But when you really stop and think about it, putting a tiny seed into the ground and trusting it to grow is kind of incredible.

We do everything we can to give those seeds the best possible chance. We pay attention to seed depth, spacing, soil temperature, moisture, and timing. Most of the time, we do those things almost automatically because we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t. We know getting those details wrong can hurt emergence and eventually affect the crop we hope to harvest months later.

But even after all the preparation, so much is still out of our hands.

This spring has been a reminder of that. Between widespread wildfires, daily fire weather warnings, severe weather and very little rain, it has been harder than usual to stay optimistic. There have been plenty of days spent watching forecasts change, looking at radar maps, and wondering when the next good rain will finally come.

Still, planting continues.

We go out to the fields every day, placing seed into the ground and trusting conditions will eventually improve. We believe the decisions we made and the timing we chose were the right ones. In years like this, faith takes on a different meaning.

There’s always an amount of risk in farming. No matter how much technology, planning, or experience you have, you can’t control the weather. You can’t guarantee rain. You can’t promise a crop. All you can do is prepare the best you can and keep moving forward.

Right now, seeds have begun emerging across the fields. Every year, there’s a sense of relief when those first plants appear.

Then the focus shifts again.

We start thinking about what the crop needs next: rain or irrigation, heat, sunshine, protection from disease, or defense against insects. Farming is a constant cycle of providing what we can while depending on Mother Nature for the rest.

Every season reminds us that there are things we can control and things we simply can’t.

But every spring, farmers plant anyway.

We trust the process. We trust the land. And most of all, we trust that with enough faith, hard work, and a little help from above, something good will grow.

‍