We must really love farming......after this Spring!

This Spring is wearing us out! We had two really low (27 degree temperature) late....late...freezes. The second to the last one just killed us. The damage was severe and we lost several thousand dollars in strawberries and vegetables. If the temperature had only gotten down to 31 or 32 degrees it would have been fine but the strawberries and vegetables were severely damaged at 27 degrees. We trimmed off the damaged veggies in hopes that the folage would come back and it did. It took some time for them to start growing good again. Then we had our last freeze right before Easter! We were prepared for this one. The weather man got it right this time and we spent until 2:30 am covering veggies and berries. Wow! that was a major chore....but the next day all was fine. It took me all day by myself to uncover the berries and vegetables. In all we lost one week due to the freeze and had a couple of light weeks after that. But now the members shares look really good again for the last few weeks. Lots of beautiful vegetables!

Then.......... came lots of rain and hail. Damaging marble size hail! Really did a job on the strawberry plants and the tender vegetables we have growing for our CSA members. Luckily we are not going to miss any weeks due to the hail but some of the veggies are not as pretty as they once were. They still taste delicious and there will be plenty for the harvest. We are going to try to make up the week we lost. I think we have enough planted out to make it.

As far as the summer growing goes we are falling behind several weeks. The late freezes kept us from getting much in the ground early. When we were able to put plants in the ground the hail damaged most of them. We lost over half of our tomato plants we had planted, almost 400 plants. The hail just busted them in half. The raised beds were damaged and parts of them were washed away. We had so many seeds in the ground that were washed away. I am now re-ordering them again (I don't even want to discuss the loss there!). The rains brought cooler temperatures and what seeds that didn't wash away are not germinating. They are rotting in the ground. Luckily we ordered lots of extra heirloom and organic tomato transplants about a month ago and we will be able to replant quickly. Our melon plants were busted up really bad too. Some are trying to recover but most just died. We are re-planting them as well. I just can't get anything to germinate very fast right now. The rain is still coming. Tonight is supposed to be severe thunderstorms and more hail predicted. I am praying so hard it misses us. If it doesn't miss us I pray the damage is not severe.