Parched Earth: Siri Erickson-Brown, of Local Roots Farm in Duvall, says all the groundwater has already evaporated. ANGELA GARBES
Everybody in Seattle knows that summer doesn’t typically start until after the Fourth of July. It’s when, after months of rain (the infamous “Juneuary”), the clouds finally part and the temperatures rise. But not this year.
Nobody knows this better than local farmers. While people have been jumping in lakes and exuberantly eating strawberries and cherries weeks earlier than usual, farmers—whether they’re located in the Snoqualmie Valley, in Island County, or on the Olympic Peninsula—have been wrangling hundreds of thousands of feet of drip irrigation tape (thin, perforated hoses that run along the base of the crop rows) under relentlessly sunny skies…
