SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The North County bore the brunt of Monday's storm in San Diego County. Although flowers love soaking up all of the water from the rainfall, the extra moisture poses some problems for the farm housing them.
Puddles popped up all over a bird of paradise farm on Monday.
Mark Larson has owned the 12-acre farm in Valley Center for about 25 years.
"We're fortunate to have the water run off, being up on a hill, but the soil is a heavy clay soil that tends to retain water much more so than a sandy soil," Larson explained.
When asked what kind of emotions go through his mind when he hears it's going to rain, Larson replied "joy."
"Usually, it's a really good thing, cause the irrigation is going off and the money is falling from the sky," he said.
Larson says two weeks ago, his farm got even more rain. Just because the subtropical plants can handle the water, does not mean it's always a good thing.
"You can see these black spots on the flower. It's called botrytis on the bloom, and that's highly negative. It'll spread all throughout the blooms, and customers of course don't want spots on their flowers," he says.
The same goes for other crops on the farm, like lemons. Although the brown spots are fine from a nutrition point of view, the cosmetic flaw causes a lot of customers at the grocery store to not buy the citrus.
"It's harder to harvest, you know, in the rain of course, and your production stops or slows down of new, emergent growth," says Larson.
Even with the challenges the rain brings, Larson says in his world, it's much better than getting none.
"We have literally the most expensive water in the nation here, so when it comes from the sky for free, it is good," he says.
