Monday, June 23, 2008

Such is Life...


We came to the conclusion long ago that there were three indispensible vegetables (as far as customers are concerned). In no particular order, they are: tomatoes, corn, and watermelons.
In any given year, your corn could get blown over or the deer could ge
t in and kick around your melons or the aphids and squash bugs could overcome your tomatoes....you get the idea. The jury is out on the melons so far, because they're just starting to run (crawl along the ground) and set melons - they look good so far, but you never know. The tomato season has been really fine, but they pretty much all set at once, so we are over-run with tomatoes (that's not a bad thing, though). The corn, on the other hand, has been interesting. Will works so hard to plant, thin, hill, etc. etc. and the corn, as you have seen here, has been quite beautiful.You know, the critters can tell you exactly when the corn is ready. Because they start to get into it. And the battle begins. This year you would be amused at our efforts because they were, well-amusing. But necessary. We were trying to protect this crop for about five or six days, until the weekend (because Saturday is our big selling day around here). So...the raccons made themsleves known first. They come in from the far side; pull down a stalk - take a bite from an ear - pull down another stalk. Pretty big damage in a short time if you're not watching. So - Will wrapped the whole patch in electric fencing. It's a long story, but it got done and he stopped that monkey business:
Then the blackbirds come in from above. I'm sure you remember the Big Plastic Owl who sat watch on the dock in the winter and early spring. Well, his original purpose was to lord over the corn wen the time came. So up he went.And you remember the Osprey - the Kite Bird - also for pond protection - but, for good measure, Will put him out there too, although I wasn't able to get a decent picture - you can just visualize.
An army of measures and only for a few days...Alas - a wierd thing happened to the corn. DOn't get me wrong. We got corn...and some of it was beautiful. But as we inched towards the weekend, the ears started to shrivel up on the ends and the shriveled business began to creep down the ears..it is quite strange and we are not at all sure what it is all about. We've had many, many seasons of corn and have never seen this before. Maybe not enough water at the right time...but that doesn't quite fit the picture. There was enough water. who knows? We probably lost 50% of what was out there to this strange phenomenon. Maybe Will has some new ideas about it, I don't know. Our customers through the week and through Saturday got all they wanted, I think. But there would have been much much more. Oh well, that's the way it goes. This year, we have yet another patch of corn right behind this one, so for the first time I can remember, we'll have two crops this summer. We'll see what happens with crop #2. I guess what we always want is so much of something so good that you just don't care anymore and you can wait until next year to taste it again. That didn't happen with the corn. But it is close to happening with tomatoes, I can tell you.

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