Oh Barry!

This hurricane named Barry, has not been brilliant for the farm.  It could be worse.  It could always be worse!  There could be hail.  Hail is worse.  We could get struck by a meteor.  A herd of cattle could stampede through the field.  That would surely be worse.  Kidding aside, I know some farmers have seen more rain with this storm and more severe weather, so we are counting our blessings.

Splits: Good for Bananas, not for Melons

What happens when it is rainy, wet and warm for four days in July?  Some plants like tomatoes and melons just keep drawing up water through their roots until the fruit splits.  It has been particularly bad timing for the cantaloupe, which is just starting to ripen.   I am hoping we will still get a decent harvest but we will just have to wait and see.  There are a lot of split tomatoes out there, too.  I am bit worried about my butternut squash splitting but I haven’t really had a chance to check on it and there isn’t a thing I could do about it, anyway.

A Fungus Among Us

Warm and wet is perfect for incubating fungal diseases.  It is a good thing that we got the last of the potatoes out of the ground before the rain, otherwise they’d be goners for sure!  Fungal diseases are a big issue for tomatoes and plants in the cucumber and squash family.  I noticed some southern blight in the tomatoes as I was picking.  Again, we just get to wait and see.  The practical effect of disease pressure is that the plants wont live as long as they should and wont ripen as much fruit.

The Tomato Situation

In a perfect world, we would have picked all the tomatoes before it rained.  But we were already flat out trying to get everything harvested.  We could do no more!  And I cannot blame the tomato “situation” entirely on the hurricane.  I am culpable.  I planted too many tomatoes.  Probably planted about twice as much as I should have.  For the past couple weeks, we haven’t been able to harvest them fast enough.  Even if we could harvest all of the tomatoes, we wouldn’t be able to store them.  And even if we could harvest them and store them, we wouldn’t be able to sell them.  Too many tomatoes.

The problem with planting too many tomatoes (besides the guilt and disappointment of looking over a field of over-ripe, unharvested fruit rotting in the sun) is that we haven’t had time to take care of them as well as we should.  The second planting of tomatoes, which is producing now, didn’t get trellised well enough.  When the plants aren’t trellised they flop over and expose the fruit to the sun.  The fruit gets sunburned and is no good.  Because we had so many plants, we didn’t keep everything properly weeded.  Stink bugs and leaf footed bugs really like weedy areas, and they feed on the fruit and damage it.  The plants are producing like crazy, but because of these issues a significant proportion of the fruit is unusable.

Less is More

I told Randy that come January, when we do the crop plan, I am not allowed to plan for so many tomatoes.  He said we had this exact same conversation last July.  Well then, if that is true, where was he in January?  I guess it’s possibly I forgot that conversation as well.  To my credit, I did cut back on some crops.  We reduced our okra and sweet potato plantings by 20% to make things more manageable.  See, I’m learning!  Next year, I am going to seriously rein myself in on tomatoes.  Mark my words.

The good news is, right now, we have tomatoes.  Lots and lots of tomatoes.  Two weeks from now, who knows?  So while we have tomatoes, we are going to be putting plenty of them in the shares.  We had the best potato harvest in the history of Tubby Creek Farm, so even if a herd of cattle does stampede through the field, we will have potatoes.  The sweet peppers in the high tunnel are loaded with fruit.  The okra is starting to produce.  It may be ready next week.  The spaghetti squash is almost ripe.  There is always something to look forward to.

Small Shares

• San Marzano type Tomatoes
• Green Zebra Tomatoes
• Red Pontiac Potatoes
• Red and Yellow Italian style Sweet Pepper
• Cucumber
• Yellow Squash

Full Shares

• San Marzano type Tomatoes
• Slicing Tomatoes
• Red Pontiac Potatoes
• Red and Yellow Italian style Sweet Pepper
• Islander Purple Bell Pepper
• Cucumber
• Yellow Squash