Market Farming

[Marie Kamphefner <kampy AT grm.net>]

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