The News from Windflower Farm
What you’ll get this week
- Tendersweet cabbage
- Fennel
- Red onions
- Swiss chard
- Beets
- Dill
- Zucchini or summer squash
- Tomatoes
The tomatoes are coming in well now. We should be starting sweet peppers next week, and I think that we’ll be back into lettuce next week, too. But downy mildew has struck, and the cucumber harvest will grind to a standstill soon.
The fruit share will be Yonder Farm’s peaches.
News from the farm
Water, water everywhere. We’ve had 15” of rain since the beginning of June, more than half of it since the beginning of July. Last year, we had about 4” in the same period. Ponds, creeks, and rivers everywhere are swollen and brown with runoff. Lake Champlain has risen an incredible 26” in the last two weeks. Our barnyard is all puddles. Our fields are all mud, with standing water in low places.
We need several days of drying out or we’ll begin to experience losses. So far, we have lost our garlic crop and we will till under plantings of spinach and arugula because we have not been able to cultivate them. I worry about our winter squashes, and our cucumbers are on the way out because the storms have brought spores of the fungus causing downy mildew northward from its overwintering grounds in the Mid-Atlantic. Succession plantings have been delayed. Our greenhouse has a backlog of lettuce, broccoli, squash, and cabbage.
Vegetable growers’ listservs have lit up with questions about disease management in a very wet season. One wonders, for example, if there is a fungicide approved under USDA’s organic farming rules that is actually effective against downy mildew of cucumber or basil? Or against early blight or Septoria of tomato? Answers: No and no. Organic disease management is all about variety selection and pre-planting cultural considerations.
Small farms are fragile. The limited financial reserves most small-scale farmers have leave them especially vulnerable. I am reminded of how grateful I am for the CSA model and your willingness to share in our risk every time I think of our own exposure. I’ve been hearing that several of the Vermont farms that were hit by last week’s intense rainfall are on the brink of insolvency. Just as they were about to market their crops and begin to repay their operating loans, their crops were lost to flooding.
Farming is a risky business, and weeds, diseases, and insect infestations are just a beginning. Having little control over the environment in which we work is especially challenging during seasons with extreme weather. Most of us struggle in the high heat and humidity, naturally dislike extended periods of work in the rain, and cannot work in the mud. Prolonged rainfall prevents us from making timely plantings and makes effective weed control nearly impossible.
So, we’re struggling. But I don’t want to close on an entirely gloomy note. We have a fair amount of high ground, and potatoes, summer squashes, peppers, eggplants, sweet corn, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, leeks, beets, and a variety of leafy greens look good. Good things will continue to come along. But the Dutch may have it right: we may have to work toward a future where we grow everything under cover.
Have a good week, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 