Market Farming

[Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>]

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 07:11:33 -0500, you wrote:


> 
>The weeds are so big, we ended up just brush-hogging the spent gardens.
>The gardens looked like jungles because we couldn't get in to weed them,
>it was so wet.  One day I lost my boots in the mud and I couldn't pull
>them out - these boots go to my knees.  I picked green beans in foxtail
>taller than me.  

This is just about the way it is here too (northern
Pennsylvania).  

We've given up on keeping up with the weeds this summer.  In
the fall, my husband will use the string trimmer to cut
everything down, and we'll remove the debris, then cover the
raised beds with black (or clear) plastic until I'm ready to
plant in them next spring.

This all we *can* do about it, really.  

In about 30  years of gardening, I think this is the most
difficult year I have ever had.  I had various health
problems all spring, climaxed by fairly major surgery in
early July that kept me entirely out of the garden for three
weeks, and then all the rain.... So I've just about given up
on this year's garden.  

Nevertheless, the garden is at least still feeding us:
peppers, tomatoes, summer squash, green beans, chard, cukes,
zucchini, spaghetti squash, basil, a few eggplants.  In
spite of everything.

Pat





I felt like I was one big chigger bite!  We lost
>probably 2/3 of our potato crop because the field was under water for so
>long.  But the potatoes we got are just wonderful.  Our land is creek
>bottom and I believe it's the last place on the planet to get dry.  Much
>of our gardens got really low on nitrogen (yellow corn) during all the
>rain, but things greened back up and we had a decent yield on most
>everything.  The melons all died but the squash and pumpkins are
>prolific.  Tomatoes are doing well, but most of them are ugly.  What is
>a lug?
> 
>We thought we did better in the drought with irrigation.  At least the
>weeds didn't take over so bad then.  The better thing about all the rain
>and cool weather is our light bill is much lower than usual.  And the
>water bills have been minimal.  Last year I said I would never complain
>about rain again, but I think I did.
> 
>Marie in Missouri
> 
> 

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