Last year’s weather was not kind to Jamie Swofford. The summer sent spells of extreme heat and drought to Old North Farm, the one-acre operation he runs in Shelby, North Carolina, 50 miles west of Charlotte; the fall delivered the deluge and winds of Hurricane Helene—16 inches of rain in less than two days—followed by a month with little rain at all. His lettuces bolted, his turnips baked, and his okra simply keeled over.
One of Swofford’s harvests, however, remained proudly unperturbed throughout this meteorological turmoil: His taro plant’s elephant ear leaves and bulbous underground stems, or corms, came through with barely a broken stalk. “That was about the only crop that we didn’t see any damage to,” he says.
