Home stretch for the crowdfunding campaign

What an unusually cool week. Zucchini and eggplant are starting to produce. It looks like the okra plants did not get enough heat to get started. We planted them to try something new to most of us, because we had requests for okra last year.

There is a big gap in our seeding and planting because of wet weather (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/us-usa-corn-weather-idUSBRE94T0H320130531) in May and June. We have not seeded as many beets or beans as we would have liked, and we need to seed beans again soon so we can have them in mid-September. We did not get parsnips, summer radishes like daikon and red meat, or heat-tolerant lettuce seeded due to wet ground.

I reported earlier that the rain also kept us from weeding or hilling potatoes. We got through the potatoes with the tractor last week, and hopefully pushing soil towards the plants will help the late season potatoes. Early season potatoes are a little scarce. This morning we dug 500 row-feet of yukon gold potatoes, which in previous years would have provided 750# of potatoes. We fell far short of that this morning, because of stretches where the water sat and the plants died. We came up with 200#.

In more encouraging news, this week we have been picking lots of green, yellow and purple beans! It is hard to believe it is July already. In fewer than 6 weeks some students will be going back to college.

Friends of The Cornucopia have done a terrific job of raising awareness of what we do, and we appreciate it. Thank you for your patience with our efforts, and you might be happy to hear we have reached the homestretch in our crowdfunding campaign, with less than a day to go!

It is clear that we will not reach the admittedly ambitious goal we set for funding two hoop houses. But, we have almost reached the threshold where purchasing one hoop house is feasible, thanks to additional funds from the benefit held at the Fruited Plain. We need to make some decisions this week about how to best move forward. If you would like to contribute and have been waiting until the last minute, now’s the time. Thank you for your support!

–John Wesselius

P.S. If you plan to join the CSA for the fall, all it takes is $300 by August 1 to reserve your share.