Summertime Blues

Well, so much for sunshine; our break from cool wet weather has ended, replaced by hot wet weather. We did have a couple of sunny days this past week, but still ended up with over 4 inches of rain over the past 7 days. An all day steady rain on Friday meant a very muddy and miserable harvest day. My thanks go out to the Minglewood crew once again for their positive attitude and willingness to work in the most awful conditions. Digging potatoes was particularly challenging - just trying to find them in the muck!


So the season pushes onward. Today is August 2nd which means we are officially half way through our season, at least as far as farmers markets go. August brings the start of the Thoroughbred horse racing season to Saratoga - always a busy and crazy time of year. It's the time of year that our clientele makes a shift. Many of our regular customers leave town, either to go on summer vacations or just to avoid the hectic parking and crowds that take over the town. But the track season also brings in many new faces to the market, so we get to see lots of people we haven't seen since last August. So it all balances out.

Our crops are also shifting this time of year. Earlier in the summer we had a terrific run with the greens due to the cool temperatures. The past week or so has heated up and I can already see the effect on the greens, especially the arugula. The warm humid days bring with them a whole host of fungus and mold spores, and arugula is probably the first to succumb to them. We are finding lots of yellowing and rotting, and thus much lower yields this past week. The warmer days have also brought out a very hungry hatching of flea beetles, which are turning many of the baby mesclun greens to lace. We struggle on, hoping for dryer and sunnier days.

On the plus side, the warmer temperatures are finally pushing the warm weather crops to mature. We picked our first crop of cucumbers this week, and the green beans are growing like crazy. The watermelons and cantaloupe are a long way from being ready to pick, but they are starting to size up.

On the tomato front, we continue to wait for that first big flush. We picked about 20 pounds this week, but expect that to increase dramatically in the next week or two. We actually should be counting our blessings... Late Blight has spread with a vengeance this year, infecting farms all around us. This is a serious fungal disease which devastates a tomato crop. Basically if your crop gets it, your tomato season is over. The disease spreads very quickly and kills the plants in a matter of days. So far we have managed to avoid this plague, but we have a long way to go before the crop is in, so who knows. The only organic prevention to the disease is to spray your plants regularly every week with a copper solution. This is not a full proof method, your plants may get blight any way, and unfortunately, copper will kill a good portion of the biota in your soil as well. We have opted not to spray and keep our fingers crossed. On commercial non-organic farms there are a whole host of fungicides that can be sprayed to try to save the crop, and most farms are probably using them this season. So if you are buying commercial tomatoes, even local ones, definitely wash them very well before eating them. All this tomato blight hysteria brings to mind the importance of a well diversified vegetable farm. If one crop is doing poorly, hopefully you are growing another crop that is doing great.

We wil keep you posted.