My daughter Sarah has a postcard on her refrigerator, a painting of a smiling woman drinking a hot cup of coffee.
The caption says “Drink more coffee. Do stupid things faster with more energy…”
I am afraid to say that for those of us in the small fruit and vegetable production business, it is that season where we power-consume too much “more coffee.” The dreams and plans for the growing season (that were formulated in the slower comfort of the winter months) have been usurped by the arrival of drought, wild fluctuations in temperature, the northward advance of insect hordes, and the evaporation of an adequate labor pool. So we bull and jam a bit, trying to get by with “adequate” and “ok,” instead of “optimal” and “done correctly ” in an effort to keep up with what has to be done and to prevent falling totally behind. This seems to happen every year, to some of us it is worse than for others. I suspect it is written down somewhere in the Laws of Nature that farmers should never be allowed to follow through and succeed with their original game plan.
As I drive the tractor down River Road I notice that the basswood trees are soon to bloom and this signifies to me that summer has really arrived. It seems it was moments ago that the magnolias and daffodils were pushing against winter’s last gasp, and now there are small apples where last week there were apple blossoms. We are on the cusp of strawberry season, as Ray has started wholesaling to various Upper Valley accounts. The kind of season we have from here on out will be determined by the weather and how well we keep the crop picked. Pick Your Own will follow in a few weeks, and I think it bears noting that food safety laws in the last 8 years have really altered PYO for farms. Specifically, once we open a field to PYO, the FDA says we cannot go back into that field to pick for wholesale. (Editors Note: Clarification: The farm picking crew cannot pick any area of the field that has been open to the PYO, but can pick areas within that field with PYO , just not in the areas the PYO has been allowed) They feel, somewhat justifiably, that the PYO patch is a wonderful place for cross contamination. That complicates both the PYO and harvest for us, but there is little we can do but comply. This year the plants look pretty robust, with a few areas of root-grub damage. The question we are always asked, “Is the berry crop a good one this year?” is best answered by a quote from Yogi Berra: “It ain’t over til it’s over….” Weather is the major player from here on. The crop will ripen ever faster the hotter the weather. Fruit can rot in damp weather, and the fruit can literally sunburn in dry hot weather. The PYO pickers are increasingly fussy about what kind of weather they favor for picking. As one might expect, they favor cool breezy and sunny days. Unfortunately, the fruit continues to ripen in warm humid weather or scorching hot weather, whether the pickers are there or not. I prefer to reflect on the crop when the harvest is in the rear-view mirror. At this point of the season I can only guess at crop potential; at the end of the season the crop quality and production is best measured by the amount of money put into the checkbook.
This year we have done a lot of irrigating. It’s expensive from the perspective of both capital and labor. And we can never do half as good a job as old Mother Nature can do. A half an inch of rain over a couple of hours can break the back of a drought and buy a week or more of reprieve from the business of watering by irrigation. I would willingly write a check for $5000—without hesitation— anytime I could actually buy a half-inch of rain when it was needed. Fortunately, we recently have had a few showers that have settled the dust and perked up the plants, berries and vegetables. We have stopped wishing for a lot of rain continually with long wet periods because even though the region’s water table may need it, wet weather does not favor the strawberry harvest. This is the Yin and Yang of weather through a farmer’s eyes.
Have I complained about the animals? This time of the year the strawberries are very robust going into fruiting season, and those big green leaves have a pretty high sugar content in them. The deer will forsake other choices of food (browse) that they were designed to eat, and are drawn into the strawberry fields to feed. There are scare tactics that need be employed, most occurring at dusk or dawn. The birds - primarily the very pretty olive-colored cedar waxwings - flock into the fields to slash up the fruit in a brazen feeding frenzy. We have sustained as much as 70% crop damagein years past when under attack. The solution turns out to be the white netting you will see in the fields coverning the strawberries asnd blueberries. It discourages a high percentage of the avian berry predators, although a few persistent individuals always are found trapped under the netting. Recently we have been getting a little help from the local birds of prey. Eagles , chicken and red tailed hawks make the smaller birds a bit edgy. I don’t blame the little guys. I myself try to look a little more lively when there is a big hawk or eagle circling the field. Another notable thing down here this time of year is the length of the work day. The berry harvest starts at five AM - rain or shine, and it will be 7 days a week from now until after Independence Day. The Jamaican crew as well as the local help spent the day of this writing - their last day off for a while - doing laundry , some deep grocery shopping, and likely a beer and as much napping as possible was crammed into the day. After morning strawberry harvest on any given day, there is planting and weeding to do. The workday may not end until 6:30 at night. Abundant sunlight makes the weeds and veggies grow at an alarming rate, especially if there is adequate moisture, so it is a challenging time. So how do we deal with the cycle of too long a day, too much to accomplish and too little sleep?
Drink more coffee