Bramblings: Growing Confusion

By BECKY NELSON
Bramblings
My Christmas cacti are confused. Occasionally they blossom a little early, sometimes blooming for Thanksgiving, but this year they are loaded with full flower buds with a few opening earlier in the week. I imagine the dull, gray days that were our summer norm have put them into their bloom cycle early. This summer has confused all of us, with rain and gloom the norm and our usual beautiful, muggy, hot summer sun a memory we hope will repeat itself next year.

There seems to be no “normal” in the weather. This makes it hard for everyone to schedule any outdoor activities and makes it miserable for those of us that work outside for our bread and butter. Loggers are finding it impossible to be in the woods to make a living because of the mud and the water. Construction contractors are having a hard time doing outside work without being in the rain. The list is very long of those of us who have been adversely affected by the weather. Then there are those that have been impacted by flooding. Anyone attempting to grow crops this summer is aware of the heavy impacts of the rain and the relatively cool weather. Lots of mold, lots of failure to thrive in plants, lots of plantings lost to rot, lots of plantings impossible because of soggy soil, lots of hay never made because of few drying days…the list is long and soggy.

The couple of weeks have had me looking backwards over the season as we clean up the summer crops. It’s not only the cacti that are confused. Hindsight is 20/20, they say, and we like to take stock of the woulda and coulda’s in our farm plans as we look toward next year. Trying to adapt to unpredictable weather is a daunting task for a farmer. It seems most of what we are growing is confusion of late. One thing is apparent. We must rely more heavily on our hoophouses and high tunnels for some of the mainstays of the farmstand. Discussing the losses and the poor production of the season with a fellow farmer in the Upper Valley the other day, we both agreed that the future of farming in the area is most likely “plasticulture.” Looking at our crops still growing in the tunnels, we are amazed at the continued bounty of tomatoes and even cucumbers well past the traditional harvest season of the area in mid-October. Even as we try to get away from plastics in our lives with reduced plastic bag dependence in the retail end and the use of more sustainable packaging, we find ourselves more and more dependent on plastics for weed suppression and some stability in climate control for our crops.

The crops we raised under plastic this year are the only ones that thrived. We need to be more diligent in succession plantings under the plastic to better cover needs throughout the season, but our hoophouses and high tunnels “saved our butts” this year. Talking with others in the industry, cucumbers planted outside mostly failed due to mold and mildew. Summer squash crops failed to thrive, and in our case, were decimated by deer. Corn was okay in many areas, though it was hard to time pesticide applications to keep borers and earworms from claiming all the ears and many plantings were spotty and uneven in ripening with soggy spots in every field. Tomatoes did the same, with any fruit on the ground susceptible to fungus and subsequent rot.

Industry leaders in the plasticulture field are working hard with biodegradable plastics made of organic matter for some of the weed suppression row plastics, but there is a long way to go to be anywhere near bio-friendly in the industry. We farmers and land stewards need a break in the weather to make our lives a bit more reliable in order to plan and grow. It is impossible to predict the unpredictable and to plan for normal when abnormal is the new normal. I don’t know where we go from here, as I hear echoed with my fellow farmers, but we will try to persevere and keep on planting. Hopeful. All we can be is hopeful.

— Becky Nelson and her family own and operate Beaver Pond Farm in Newport, NH. The farm has been owned by her family since 1780. She can be contacted at [email protected].