Good news and bad news

Greetings from a wet corner of Northwest Iowa.

The good news is that there is no serious structural damage after last night’s tornado-producing storms. Tunnel 3 and the Greenhouse did survive. The chimney for the greenhouse was detached from the heater and hanging oddly toward the ground, but that is a relatively easy fix. We are thankful.

The not so good news is that we were pounded with heavy rain (1.75′) and hail for about 20 minutes Sunday night. The greens anticipated for this week do not look harvestable. We have some greens in Tunnel 3 and some outdoors that with 4 or 5 days of sunshine will make leaps and bounds. The carrots in the tunnels are are about 4 to 6 inches tall, so they are making progress too.

So, we will not be at the mall on Wednesday in Sioux Center. We will not be in Sioux City on Wednesday. We plan to resume next Wednesday, May 21.

In recent weeks we also told you about wind damage at The Cornucopia, which is financially significant. As you may recall, we lost Tunnel 1 in a spring storm two 2 years ago, and Tunnel 2 was destroyed beyond repair by high winds on April 24.

Insurance does not cover any of our damage, so we have been brainstorming how to stay viable and maintain an extended growing season. A group of friends of the farm have begun to plan fundraising activities to help us invest in sturdier hoop houses/green houses to turn things around. A number of people have asked how they can help; we’ll pass along information as it becomes available.

Thank you very much for your participation and understanding.

–John Wesselius