Why Winter Freeze Is Welcome On Farms
Jeff Hake Welcomes Jack Frost, Plus Call Me Mr. Ambassador
In This Issue
• Why Farmer Jeff Hake Welcomes Jack Frost
• Call Me Mr. (ILFMA) Ambassador
Why Farmer Jeff Hake Welcomes Jack Frost
Jeff Hake is one of the strongest local food advocates in our region’s farm community. Jeff and wife Katie Funk are partners in Funks Grove Fruits and Grains, their farm located near Bloomington, Illinois. They spearheaded the FarmFED Co-op, an important project under development in Mt. Pulaski, centered on a production facility that will enable Central Illinois farmers to cultivate new customers and revenue streams.
In his “free time,” Jeff is an officer for the Central Illinois Young Farmers Coalition and serves on the Board of the Illinois Farm to School Network.
I’d noticed that Jeff had posted on social media about how much he welcomes the arrival of winter’s freeze on the farm. As someone who has always lived with four seasons, I could kind of see why winter dormancy would be a good thing, but I didn’t really know why.
So I asked Jeff if he could explain and he responded with the following article, which is as always both informative and passionate.
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Imagine whole ecosystems as large organisms. All of the ecosystem’s biota (its deer and trees and mushrooms and bacteria) and its abiota as well (the creeks and rocks and silt and gases) are its organs and organelles. They execute their roles through instinct and shared memory and intelligence.
This massive, decentralized mind is older than any of its parts, and its memory extends back through untold millenia, noting only recently the arrival of our clumsy selves.
For all this expansive recall, and all the changes wrought throughout, our ecosystem here in the south-central portion of North America has known a few things consistently. Critical among them: it gets cold, so cold that water freezes.
Every year we lean away from the sun, gaining distance from it while losing day-length. The macro-organism would have to think back a long, long, long time to recall a moment when this did not happen. Accordingly, its proper functioning is built around the phenomenon.
All plants expect this, and every season they engage in a thousand adaptations to suit. Trees drop some or all of their leaves. Many seeds require “vernalization,” a fancy word for exposure to cold, before they can germinate.
The individuals of many species only live one year, but plant their offspring before the annual freeze. The movement of the earth, as it heaves and expands and contracts with the cold, increases its surface area, pulling seeds down into the soil, and sets the stage for effective germination come spring.
This stirring-via-freezing of the soil profile also moves nutrients upward and downward, and creates new channels for the growth of roots and movement of water. Death, too, is expected. The water inside trees will sometimes expand so aggressively while freezing that the trees literally explode, making you feel in danger of an errant hunter who isn’t there.
A particularly deep freeze can finish off dying plants, or loosen the ground under a healthy tree when it begins to thaw, sending it suddenly crashing down. Freezing can also kill seeds of all varieties if they are too exposed, or get exposed to outside water, and of course seeds are a critical food source for animals trying to not become a victim themselves.
Animals also plan for the deep annual freeze, whatever it may bring. Some dive deep into the earth, some make elaborate nests, and whether they are large or small, owl or bee queen or Bacillus, the choice is the same: take shelter, or die.
The shelter may be an extra layer of fat and adapted fur, or a bit of loose bark in the south side of a tree, or a physiological shift to slow the body and wait it out (picture a single bacterium slowing its activity to stillness, just as a hibernating bear). But the freeze will kill, and it must. Nutrients must eventually be returned to the ecosystem-as-organism, initiated in earnest as the warmth returns.
We human animals, in our own ham-handed way, also build our lives around the deep freeze of winter, despite our many attempts to defy or undo it. For our maple sirup operation, the deep freeze — which did not come until January this year — increases the concentration of sugar in the sap. This helps us make good quality sirup and energy-dense mushroom logs which we create from thinned trees, and also ensures good leaf-out and seed-set for the trees.
The freezing and thawing helps us plant frost-seeded clover, pulling it into the ground just as it does for all seeds, and a deep freeze keeps pests and weed seeds in check, as well as diseases that prefer warmer climes, a service we take for granted. Without a deep freeze, the plants and seeds we rely on lose their signal to germinate and revive. What they would do without it is hard to say, and I’ve no interest in finding out.
This December, I experienced what I’ve heard described as “climate grief.” The acute sensation of another mid-50s day in December, whole stretches where not even a morning frost transpires, were experiences that my whole being could not bear.
The grass and the birds need to know when to call it quits, but the signs didn’t come until January. I breathed easier then, rife with relief for the winter come, but I fear it again during our next lean away.
When will our ecosystem begin forming new memories, making new adaptations and decisions, or suffering organ failure? It lives around and for and in spite of the cold, just as each of its parts do, you and me included, and I find no celebration in mid-winter mud.
Call Me Mr. (ILFMA) Ambassador
It has been a great week for Local Food Forum, and here’s some breaking news: The Illinois Farmers Market Association has been so kind to choose me as their first ILFMA Ambassador.
I have been an avid farmers market shopper for decades, dating back to my days as a political journalist in Washington, D.C. I became a regular at Green City Market in Lincoln Park (and an occasional at other city markets) soon after we moved to Chicago in 2011, which played a key role in jump-starting my Good Food network as I developed my second career.
I’d crossed paths with ILFMA numerous times over the years, and that relationship took on a much bigger dimension after I launched Local Food Forum last April. Much of the newsletter’s content through November focused on our area’s robust farmers market community. I am pleased and proud that ILFMA found this such an asset that they invited me to serve as the first Ambassador in their new outreach program.
This relationship will help elevate Local Food Forum’s profile while helping me expand its reach to cover farmers markets throughout Illinois outside Chicago metro.
Here are the kind words that ILFMA has shared on its website.
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Introducing ILFMA’s new Ambassador!
The Illinois Farmers Market Association is excited to welcome Bob Benenson as our first ILFMA Ambassador! An avid home cook, Bob loves shopping at farmers markets and is always in pursuit of the freshest locally grown ingredients. Prior to moving to Chicago he spent 30 years as a political journalist in Washington, D.C.
Bob is a Good Food advocate and the publisher/lead writer of Local Food Forum*, a daily newsletter he launched in April 2021. Local Food Forum works to build public support around a wide range of issues affecting the local food community, including farmers markets. In addition to collaborating with ILFMA Bob is part of the leadership council of ReGenerate Illinois and the board and executive committee of Naturally Chicago.
ILFMA Ambassadors fill a vital role by building enduring relationships with local farmers markets, managers, and vendors, increasing awareness of Illinois farmers markets and local food and promoting ILFMA. Interested in becoming an ILFMA Ambassador? Contact ILFMA at info@ilfma.org for more information.
*Find Local Food Forum at www.localfoodforum.substack.com. Subscribe for $50/year or $5/month, or select “subscribe for free” to receive occasional content.
Local Food Forum was initially focused on the farmers markets accessible from Bob’s hometown of Chicago, but as an ILFMA ambassador he’s eager to share news and stories from markets all around the state – please reach out to Bob at bob@localfoodforum.com and share your local food story!
Such a interesting and informative subject, thanks for the lesson Mr. Ambassador.