The rain is the big news about town and on the farm this week. As many of you may have read in the Citizen-Times, WNC is 22″ above normal for the year and has received over 8″ of rain through the 8th of July. Here on the farm we aim to get our crops the equivalent of an inch of rain every week. Less than that and the vegetables won’t grow, more than that, well that depends. With as much rain as we’ve gotten over the past week plant root systems maybe under water. For short periods of time, most plants can handle it, for prolonged periods the plants can die outright or other pathogens can more easily access the crops root systems and kill the plants later on. So far we’ve lost quite a bit of lettuce and that’s about it. What we fear is that all this water will allow the other nasties living in the soil to kill the tomatoes, winter squash, and peppers. Time will tell, but let’s really hope that the rain stops.
On a better note, we got the last of the garlic up and in the barn. The first of the spring planted onions are now up in the barn drying out. They look great! The first of the tomatoes and eggplant are just starting to ripen. Oh and the first round of sweet corn has tassled and have little ears of corn on the plants.
We have 6 different sowings of sunflowers planted in various fields right now, the first planted in April and the last planted last week. For some strange reason all but the last one are flowering. It’s a bit of an unpleasant mystery, but for you it means that our coolers just can’t fit them all in, so we’re giving each CSA member 3 sunflower stems.
It’s rained again and again and again. It really has to stop or we’re going to be in real trouble.
Contest!
The folks at Carolina Bed and Breakfast (our CSA members) have started a recipe contest using the ingredients from our boxes each week. The details are attached and the grand prize is a gift certificate to stay at the Carolina Bed and Breakfast. The contest runs from now until September 11.
Susan and James have asked us to be one of the judges so we are looking forward to trying your delicious creations! Click here for details!
A couple of photos from sunnier days…
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