Yay, rain! Sort of. We got a whopping 0.2″ of rain on Sunday, 0.12 Monday, another 0.2″ on Wednesday and a big at Oer today somehow since it rained north and south of us. 0.5″ down, 5″ to go to catch up to normal! To put that in perspective, we’d need 25 straight days like Sunday to just make it up to average for the last 1.5 months. And then we’d still be behind because it’d be the end of September at that point! I’m really only complaining because I love complaining about the weather, but it’s not enough to keep me from having to water the garden again today. And tomorrow. And the next…makes me wonder how long our well can hold on.
It’s certainly better than nothing, and it came at the perfect time as I’m trying to establish a ton of fall crops right now; loads of lettuce, kale, spinach, chard, radishes, turnips, spicy salad mix, carrots, and beets all went in over the last few days. However, it may be too little too late for most things. I had a very depressing field walk on Tuesday checking out the garden. This is typically the time of abundance, but we’re 5″ of rain below normal and it shows. Not only are the plants thirsty, but so are the animals. Crows in particular in this case. We had the driest summer on record my first year running the farm, and the same thing happened to the tomatoes to a degree.
But not like this – I’ve picked over 100lbs of pecked tomatoes and about 5lbs of unpecked so far. And they’ve added sweet peppers and eggplant to their victims. Peppers and eggplant – really? My friend said crows hold a grudge and I do remember shooing them away from the recently seeded buckwheat cover crop not long before the pecking started. But ruining 100lbs of tomatoes seems a little bit of an overreaction! If this is a grudge match, I’m getting my tailfeathers kicked.
The same friend suggested a bird bath (can’t beat them, water them?), and feeding them peanuts and cat food. Since I don’t have a bird bath, I put out my extra cow waterer/self-filling tub of water with a nice perch on top and scattered cat food on it as a peace offering to hopefully save our tomato+ harvest. Fingers crossed it works, but they weren’t just pecking this week’s fruit – I’ve never seen solidly green tomatoes pecked before! Highly discouraging after all the work getting these plants ready for harvest (understatement of the year). Since I have no idea how much eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes the crows will leave me, they will be first come first serve on Monday. The good news is there are loads of cherry tomatoes right now, and lots of great veggies. Order link below.
Veggie Ordering and Pickup Procedures: Put your veggie orders in online before 8pm Sunday. The website is a little buggy so if you don’t see a wide variety of items or you see items out of stock, try refreshing your browser. Also confirm on checkout that you have the correct number of each item in your cart. The two pickup windows are working well, so we’ll keep it going. Choose your pickup window while checking out online: 1230-2pm and 4-5pm Monday on the farm at 64 Potter Hill Rd in Grafton. Pickups are in the long white garage on the left across from the beat up tan and red barn at the crest of the hill.