We’re glad that the rain has stopped, at least for the time being. It’s a bit counter intuitive, but rain is not good. We would prefer mild drought conditions. It’s also a little ironic that as farmers we like to be in control of our fields, crops, etc., but in reality we have very little control over much of anything. The weather being the main agent that stymies our sense of order. The weather is never, ever exactly like we’d like it. It’s either too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy, and too dry at times. But the one thing we can have some control over, in times of drought, is water. We can irrigate our crops when they need water. Pretty basic, but in the Southeast where it can not rain for weeks at a time or rain for weeks on end, we never know what we’re going to get. With rain comes disease, molds & fungus, and the weeds grow faster than any crop that we plant. With wet soil, we’re not able to use our tractors in the fields for fear of compacting the soil, damaging the structure of the soil. So we’re happy to have a few days to dry things out.
Unfortunately, we are starting to see some of the molds & mildews on some of the crops. Basil, for one, has started to have fuzzy grey milds on the undersides of the leaves. We have three different plantings of basil, hopefully the most recently planted will not get the mold, or at least grow fast enough to get you all another round of basil in your boxes.
There’s a LOT of work to do out in the fields. We need to start planting all the fall greens, so beets & carrots, turnips & radishes. We have about a third of an acre of potatoes to dig up, pack up , and store. There’s drip tape to get out of old beds and plenty of old beds to mow down. There’s a summer cover crops of mustard to mow and disk in; getting that field ready to plant strawberries come September.
Photos below: The first sweet corn…looks to be ready on Friday or so. Hopefully in the Wed. boxes next week! Acorn winter squash is huge and plentiful. Our first hazelnuts, only a few handfuls, but it’s a start!
