Our unfinished well just came to life.
For months it's been a hole in the ground and a line item on the to-do list. Drilled and documented at 35 gallons per minute, but never finished — no pump, no pipe, no power. The stumping and the cleanup took priority. Today we closed the loop: pump in, power on, water up.
You can watch the whole thing in our latest reel.
What "unfinished" actually meant
The well was drilled before we bought the place — documented at 35 GPM, with the static water level sitting around 60 feet down. But a drilled well isn't a working well. It still needs the pump, the drop pipe, the wiring, and power run to it. Until today, ours had none of that.
On our family-run 20-acre avocado grove with expensive municipal water, an unfinished well is just a very deep reminder of a job you haven't done.
The install: 100 feet of everything
We laid out 100 feet of pipe, electrical wire, and safety rope, secured it all together, and connected the submersible pump. Then the slow part: lowering the whole assembly down to around 100 feet by hand, keeping everything straight and untangled on the way down.
Nothing about it is complicated. It's just careful work — the kind where rushing costs you a pump at the bottom of a 100-foot hole.
The surprise: a battery ran the test
Here's the part I didn't expect to work this well. For the initial test, we powered the 240V submersible pump with our BLUETTI portable battery system. No grid connection, no generator dragged out to the site — just the battery, and it ran the pump without a hiccup.
That's the initial test, not the permanent setup. But it told us what we needed to know: the pump works, the wiring holds, and we can test and troubleshoot anywhere on the ranch without waiting on infrastructure.
Then came water
The moment the pump primed and water came up — that's the milestone. After months of the well being a theoretical asset, it's a working one. A major step toward a reliable water source for the grove.
What 35 GPM means for 4 acres of avocados
The honest version: 35 gallons per minute documented is a real constraint, and it's exactly why we're rebuilding around a 4-acre core instead of trying to water 1,600 trees. Stumped trees sip while they regrow, and the healthy core gets what it needs.
One good test doesn't prove a year-round supply. Recharge rate and water quality get measured over time, not in an afternoon — that's the next round of work, and it'll decide the final irrigation design. But the well went from unfinished to functional today, and that's the prerequisite for everything else.
Keep reading
- Why We Are Stumping 1,200 Avocado Trees to Bring Our Grove Back to Life
- Fall Garden Update: Carrots, Beets, Radishes and Brussels Sprouts Wake Up at Patel Ranch
Taste it yourself
When the harvest is in, we ship hand-picked Hass avocados from our De Luz grove straight to your door. See what's available in the shop.