Early Morning in August

Crickets. Frogs and toads. Birdsong. Hens 'talking' to one another. The hum of the ceiling fan. The gurgling of the last bit of water through the coffee pot.

These are the sounds of the early morning here at Hope Farms. Coupled with a temperature of just 60* Fahrenheit this fine sixteenth day of August makes the day ahead feel like a picnic even though there is much to be done.

Rain is coming in the forecast today, and about a month ago I would have shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, but this time it's welcome. The band on the radar shows a pretty heavy rainfall - even if it doesn't amount to much in inches - it looks like many short downpours are headed our way here at the foot of the Uwharrie Mountains.

There are seeds in the raised beds coming up - the germination rate is so very quick in this warm weather as compared to February or March - and I'm so looking forward to this next round of growing.

Renewed. Refreshed. Energized. That's how it feels to have the very welcome break in the heat this week.

The last six weeks have been difficult to say the least. At the farmers' market yesterday I was talking with a woman who has been coming to the market faithfully, just about every single week for the entire three seasons we've been there, and she was telling me that everyone she knows that had a garden this year did pitifully.

Tomatoes are hard to come by. Okra is offered by the handful instead of the bushel. Squash? HAHA! When usually one is sneaking on to neighbors porches with zucchini in 20+ pound packages, there is nary a one to be found right now. Well, maybe one. Like the one lone yellow crookneck squash I took to the market yesterday and gave to a fellow vendor when she came over to get some Swiss chard (what's left of it after the army worms destroyed 1/2 of the crop) and an eggplant (which are doing fairly well considering their latest attack by aphids).

Today, I'm going to plant more seeds than necessary. I'm going out on a limb - so to speak - because that's where the fruit is. The fall garden here at Hope Farms is going to ROCK! And as ever, with NO SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS. Ever.

Backward & Forward - Or Is It The Other Way Around?

Whilst some folks are just now seeing the fruits of their labor in the garden, it is not the case here at Hope Farms. What some might see here are weeds, some failed crops, and some crops that haven't not only been transplanted yet, but some that haven't even been seeded yet.

The conclusion is painful, but must be admitted: Hope Farms, on opening day of the Stanly County Farmers' Market, was the only farm present with actual fresh produce being offered. There was kale, collards, Swiss chard, lettuces, radishes, carrots, onions, freshly-cut herbs and more. I don't even recall all that I had on the table, but it was a pivotal moment. To have had all of that by just April 13 after the coldest March on record in who-knows-how-long? But I digress.

That in itself is not the painful part.

The punch-in-the-stomach is this: there isn't enough being produced, right now, to support the busiest and largest market that we attend.

Chalk it up to inexperience. Rain. Bugs. Voles. Rain. Oh, and did I mention rain? How about wind? Yeah, all of the above. Maybe throw in some poor planning. But that would suffice within inexperience, yes?

Here's what it comes down to:

I cannot come to the market on Saturdays anymore until my fall crops begin to come in. 

The goal is to be back to Saturdays at the Stanly County market by the beginning of September.

Meanwhile, we will continue to attend Mondays market at Stanly Commons from 10 am to 2 pm as well as Thursdays market in downtown Troy from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm.

A great deal has been learned this year, folks, and one of the biggest and most important things I've come to know as priority is honesty.

So there it is. In all of its painful glorious honesty. Our small-timey farm is not big-time. And that's okay.

Those of you who cannot make it to those markets and would like to stop by the farm - please do not hesitate to call or e-mail (see tab above that says, "Contact Us.") We're more than happy to let you know what we've got available and make arrangements for you to pick it up.

There are many thanks to all of those who have supported us, no matter which market, through this season so far. We're very grateful for you!

The Lull of July

The lull of July: We enter into it with some denial that it’s really summer. “The end of June already?” we exclaim. The cicadas begin to sing and vie for courting honors. The summer thunderstorms sweep in with the strong breezes turning the leaves of the Catawba and Pecan trees upward. It is this period of time, when the thermometer registers 85* Fahrenheit at just 9:30 am, that farming seems so much less attractive than it did in early spring when the muck boots and hooded sweatshirts were in need.

Chores must be done– the weeds need to be pulled, goat & cow milked, chickens fed, eggs collected, as well as laundry hung out on the line regardless of the temperature. At least the heat assists with the radical civilly-disobedient laundry-drying apparatus in the back yard: the clothes dry at an alarming rate – much faster than I can fold it. Especially when all three lines are loaded down and I’m hoping I’ll have time to get it all taken in before the next thunderstorm rolls in. I’m not at all opposed to the second rinse cycle though, and it happens often. It has been especially common this season – we just ended a 21-day streak of daily rainfall. “Rain much?” is the most common phrase my husband and I ask one another as we don our muck boots, a seeming anomaly in the heat of July, to do our chores.

I spent the last week during the hottest hours of the day in the air-conditioning – sorting, folding and putting away the clothes that had piled up on the couch(es) for weeks on end. Really.


Occasionally, during the heat of the summer, I carve out blocks of time for reading. Having just finished Forrest Pritchard’s Gaining Ground I am seeking for more food for thought. This time it is Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. My favorite thing about Kingsolver's writing is that she skips around a bit – much like the way my brain works – and I find myself very much at home in her books. This book, although new to me, is dog-eared in about 9 different places already – that’s how much I skip around.

 

Rightfully, dubbed the “fair-weather-farmer” by Captain Strong Arms, I've accepted the idea that I don’t like to farm when it’s too cold or too hot. Actually, I’ll take the cold over the heat, but I do not care for more than 6 inches of snow. I’m stubborn: just as stubborn as the July heat and the August humidity. I’ll wake early; greeting the morning dew on the grass with my flip-flops and listen to the birds call and sing while I quench the thirst of the plants in the greenhouse and garden. Then when it gets to be too much, I will slink back into the respite of the air conditioning by 11:30 on those days admitting defeat. With raised beds, the watering schedule will increase to twice daily on those days, also.

Got Weeds?

Call it defeat, or call it the way of nature, taking the spent lettuce plants out of the raised beds might feel like giving in, but I prefer to consider it moving through. In my beginning days of growing food I had a hard time with any seedling that was tossed aside – I wanted to save them all – and the same for the beds of lettuce. Since it is only just a few days from the end of July, I’ll count my blessings that the lettuce lasted as long as it did without bolting to seed.


It’s time to plan for the fall crops. Actually, I feel a bit tardy as I’m about 3 weeks behind schedule for starting seeds. That’s okay, I’m late nearly everywhere I go, so why not late to the greenhouse too? The list of crops I want to grow for the latter half of this year is lengthy; kale, collards, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, broccoli & rabe, cauliflower, carrots, radishes, onions and on. Some will go into the raised beds and most will be tried in the greenhouse.


This summer’s weather has been unpredictable. Life can be that way also. What we need to do is learn to adapt and overcome. Those two words may not bring success; however, they will bring lessons for the next season.

Aspire to inspire, not just make a living.....

That is what I’m keeping my eyes on at this point; the next season. It’s too late to un-do what has been done here in regards to crop failures. It’s time to accept the lull of July and go with nature’s dictation.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” Lau Tzu