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market-farming - Re: ristras (was growing leeks)

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  • From: Marie Kamphefner <kampy AT grm.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: ristras (was growing leeks)
  • Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:36:23 -0500


Regards to the list:

Condolences to those who have lost friends and family. It's times like this that one sees what is really important.

Jay, first of all, it was a terribly wet and cold spring and the rain just kept on and kept on. We have bottom ground that is the last to dry up anyway. So we didn't get a crop in. We had it in clover, alfalfa and brome so thought we would hay it again. However, the guy who did the work last year apparently cut it so short, it didn't come back. Fine crop of cockleburs.

One very bright spot in the whole thing. The transplants being grown for us were killed with weed killer. Wonderful people on this list GAVE us TONS of organic tomato, egg plant, pepper, lemon basil and other herb transplants! We planted them all with the transplanter we drove to Indiana and got. It worked perfectly and the plants did great at first.

The weather got terribly hot and dry suddenly. Even with watering, the plants struggled and barely even bloomed. We got perhaps a bushel of tomatoes off about 500 plants. They died pretty fast. The green beans never came up with three plantings. I lost track of how many pounds of sweet corn seed never came up. The pole beans died. We did end up with decent garlic harvested in July and a few wonderful cucumbers from the Seeds From Italy. Zucchini came up and died as did cantaloupe, winter squash and watermelon. And on and on. This is the first time in my life that I didn't have green beans to can.

Some other bright notes - we had an abundance of wild plums that made good jelly. Also, the blackberries we planted all lived and are tied up to their wires now. Looks like we will have lots of walnuts and hazelnuts. Several of the apple tree grafts we did have survived so far.

We didn't lose any lambs to coyotes this year, thanks to Minnie, the Great Pyrenees guard dog. We will be selling some lambs soon along with about 30 geese.

Others around us had terrible seasons too, so we're putting most of the blame on the weather. Some of the soybean fields around here just look terrible. I had knee surgery in May and I mistakenly thought I could work in the garden after a couple of weeks. WRONG! My knee is just now getting back to normal. That may have been a factor.

All this seems so petty compared to what others are going through right now. My heart goes out to them. I feel blessed. Dori, I'm certainly glad you didn't get that job!

Marie in Missouri







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