Pessimism vs. reality

Some loyal followers of this scribble have complained it is unduly pessimistic.  I prefer the term realistic.  Of course, as far as the weather and farming are concerned, all farmers, and even us dilletantes are going to whine about the slings and arrows of outrageous weather.  Things can never be too perfect in the world of weather, because we all know they will get worse.  Unfortunately, my other handicap is being a lifelong Democrat.  I was born the last year of Harry Truman's term, cast          my first vote for George McGovern, married the year Jimmy Carter was elected and turned 50 just after the Bushies stole the election in 2000.  There is enough depression in that last sentence to kill any number of happy hours.  I will try to temper my lifelong pessimism about the perfectability of human nature, but the evidence I see on a daily basis leads me to believe this will be a fruitless endeavor.   Kind of like expecting Republicans to care about 98% of this country's inhabitants.

Rainy redux

There was another 1 1/4 inches of rain in the gauge this morning, and the culvert which shunts the flow from one side of our road to the other was carrying a pretty heavy flow.  I guess it will be another mudfest tonight and tomorrow as I try to harvest for the market.  I did notice the spinach planted during the last week of August will be ready to harvest tomorrow.  It would look good on the cover of a seed catalog.  It is a real rush when you realize that everything went right from the moment you planted the seed until harvest.  The seemingly endless thinning, weeding, not to mention the soil prep all seem worthwhile when the rows close and you gaze over a seamless green carpet.  I used to feel sad when I actually had to harvest, as it disrupted the perfection, but I'm so over that.  All the fall greens look beautiful at this point, and only a light frost is predicted for next week, so the fun continues.

More on the fast food dilemma

The typical moralizing liberal wants to believe that poor people will probably remain poor, but with a little education about the evils of fast food and the affordability of healthy alternatives, our ghetto brethren will soon be out there doing 5k fun runs and bragging about there newly sculpted bodies.  In reality, the working poor have very limited time available after work.  They can spend that time cooking and eating a healthy meal and then to bed, or they can scarf down a greasy, salty junk food meal which pushes the buttons in their brain's pleasure centers.  Those of us lucky enough to have the money and time to indulge in other entertainments don't need the junk food rush.  To someone with little time or money, junk food is the only entertainment available.  Plus it provides the rush we all crave from time to time.  Instead of scolding the poor for their poor eating choices, society should make it a priority to help them out of poverty so they will have more choices for entertainment and satisfaction than consuming large quantities of salt and grease.  Changing the agricultural subsidies which make junk food artificially cheap (That $25.00 Micky D meal for 4 would probably cost twice as much without cheap corn paid for by you and me) will help, but poverty and limited choices for entertainment and physcic comfort are probably the main drivers of obesity in this country.

Food Scares

13 people dead from cantaloupes so far and this story could play out for another couple of months.  The trouble with our food distribution system was pinpointed by one of the guys in the office this morning.  He said, what if Grimmway ( the world's largest baby carrot producer) had a similar problem.  You would be talking about thousands of deaths, simply because this one processor has the power to reach millions of people in a relatively short period of time.  Of course the difference is the melon farm was selling a raw product, but it still went through a wash process where it picked up the listeria bacteria.  This will inevitably lead to more regulations which will concentrate the food production and distribution  industry into fewer and fewer hands.  Soon, the tiny farmers' markets will come under more scrutiny, as consumers demand more protection from food borne contaminants.  Orwell's vision of the future is coming to a supermarket near you in the guise of consumer protection.

Fast Food

A blog that I follow recently put up a post about Americans' addiction to fast food.  Her argument, boiled down to its basic premise is we are too cavalier regarding the real reasons for our seemingly overwhelming preference for junk food.  The elite too easily dismiss this as a problem of income, meaning the lower classes simply eat junk food because it is filling and cheap.  As anyone who has recently brought a family of four or more to a McDonalds can tell you, it is way cheaper to buy a steak, a bag of potatoes and a bunch of broccoli and cook them than it is to spend $25. on a salt and grease high at Micky Ds.  She refers to the aforementioned chain as the "masturbation of food".  So, if it isn't money, what drives the public to deleterious eating habits?  Maybe it is the gigantic government subsidies to corn producers who produce the raw material for the junk food revolution.  Or perhaps the tax structure which facilitates the McDonalds, Burger Kings, etc.  If these meals were taxed the way cigarettes are in order to pay for the health care their consumption necessitates, they would be even less cheap.  I don't believe most people are lazy morons who hate to cook, but the simplistic explanations most people believe are just that.  There is way more to the problem than meets the eye, and much more study needs to be done before we can implement a plan to get the country eating healthier again.  When Cheerios is promoted as a "whole grain" in a weight loss plan, we are in more trouble than we know!

Rainbow's end

As the sky gently weeped on my windshield this morning, a gorgeous rainbow deleloped to the west.  I don't know how long it was present before I noticed it, but it was certainly a spirit booster.  It faded, but was replaced by it's twin facing the north.  I will take it as a good omen for the rest of the week.  Flying Spaghetti Monster knows we need all the good portents possible as we head into fall and winter.  The weather over the east coast spinach growing areas has been horrendous for weeks now and the possibility of a good crop seems pretty remote.  We have had good weather here for a couple of weeks, but the damage was already done to our fall crops, so everyone here is in damage control mode.  I doubt the average shopper confronted with the bounty available at their local chain store realizes the heroic efforts farmers and shippers are making to keep the shelves full.  For that matter, the typical produce buyer is equally ignorant of the frantic scramble to patch weather damaged shipping windows.  I guess that is the particular genius of the distribution system we take for granted.  At least until the highway infrastructure crumbles as we cut taxes and ignore the need for repair. 

early exit

Despite all the bluster I have managed over global warming, it looks like a fairly early end to the lettuce deal here in the North Country.  Of course, we can say climate change instead of global warming, but 8 inches of rain in a 10 day period would have effectively ended the season no matter the temperatures.  The latest forecast puts off any freeze for at least a couple of weeks, so if the rest of the weather had been better we might still be harvesting romaine and iceberg for Columbus Day.  I guess the climatologists are correct in saying the trend may be to warmer weather, but other factors will introduce different uncertainties to the growing season.  I guess we won't be planting palm trees in Montreal in the near future.

Another in a series

Of beautiful days, that is.  Except for the slightly later appearance of the sun each morning and the slight chill in the air, it could be a day in late July or early August.  We should have bright sunshine and a high in the upper 70s.  It's too bad we had so much rain during the past several weeks, as it is now showing up as damage to lettuce and leaf crops.  Instead of finishing the season on an optimistic note, many growers are either contacting their crop insurance providers or simply discing fields which are too damaged to harvest.  The cascade of red ink will continue for many as they plan next year's acreage and varieties.  I keep trying to start these posts optimistically, but the reality of the situation in the farming areas gets in the way, and I wind up with doom and gloom scenarios.  If we only had another month of good weather, we might be able to turn this thing around.  But we know the first freeze is right around the corner, so let's just enjoy one day of sunshine and hope the miserable forecast for the rest of the week is not accurate.  Carpe diem.

Late season warm up

Felt like summer again this weekend, albeit a short day summer.  Temps in the upper 70s with nights in the 50s.  Hopefully this will bring along the last plantings of spinach and lettuce.  Naturally, a freeze is predicted for this coming Sunday morning, but we'll see.  The farmers market was not nearly as busy as I had hoped for this week, so I expect a lot of the lettuce I brought in was composted yesterday.  It seems that once the middle of Sept. has passed, the crowds are not as big at the market.  It's a shame, since the best quality of the season is now for many items.  The market for my larger scale farmer brethren has not been kind either.  Even though there are shortages of many items, the public does not seem to care.  Lettuce and celery are both in the toilet.  Items that are in demand, such as spinach are in short supply, so what's a broker to do.  Make a million calls to find short items or 10 million to sell the glutted products.  It's a tough call, but usually you concentrate on the markets you know. 

Fall is for Mosquitoes

Thanks to the abundant rainfall from Irene, the mosquito crop is bountiful.   I practically bathed in OFF, and the little buggers just held their noses (or whatever passes for noses) and dug right in.  By dusk on Friday my face felt like it was twice its normal size.  Ditto this morning as I finished harvesting for the farmers' market.  The cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and spinach are awesome, especially considering the weather.  I bunched some beautiful arugula also.  Potatoes, basil, dill, cilantro, bibb lettuce, green leaf, red leaf, iceberg, romaine, kohlrabi, green squash, kale, collards, beets, carrots and winter squash rounded out the offerings today.  There will be more of the same for the next couple of weeks.

First Day of Autumn

Around here, the first day of fall could also be the first snowfall of the season, but today starts clear with temps in the upper 50's.  Looks  like we will avoid rain this weekend which will allow farmers to get in needed fieldwork.  The recent bad weather has taken its toll on most veg crops and lettuce however, so there will be loss of yield and lots of grading to make a saleable package.  The markets for most crops remain depressed considering the lack of supply.  In my gardens, which remain pretty wet, there is some decay in the carrots and spotting in cauliflower.  The spinach is up and down, depending on how well the soil drained.  In lighter soil, it is growing like gangbusters.  In heavy ground, not so much.   The  kale and collards are doing really well.  Now if we had some customers for them...but I guess most North Country residents are not into eating their greens.

A modest job plan

How about this.  Let every Republican and any Blue Dogs who agree with them go on unemployment for a month.  Let's add a twist to the program by requiring them to work on a farm if their local unemployment office can't get them a Mcjob.  After two weeks, let them go back to Congress and force them to read the President's jobs plan line by line and then vote on it.  I can already smell the scent of unanimity in the air!  Personally, I would love to see Mitch McConnell at the end of a potato line, bucking 50 lb. bags for a couple of days.  Or how about Boner on a lettuce harvester.  He would probably be a couple of shades darker than most of his new co-workers.  Just a late summer fantasy....

End of season outlook

The fog cleared out and we have a beautiful day with unlimited visibility.  I wish I could say the same for the rest of the growing season.  The warm weather crops such as peppers, cukes and eggplant are in demand, but they are pretty much done for.  The lettuces are overrun with various weather related problems and the cilantro has run out of fertility and is turning yellow.  Carrots are rotting in place and the spring mix deal died 2 weeks ago.  About the only things that seem to take this weather in stride are leeks and celery.   Potatoes are holding at the moment, but more rain in the forecast makes that an uncertain deal in the short run.  This is the kind of weather that makes me glad I'm not a full time farmer.

Foggy outlook

The fog is really dense here this morning.   It is supposed to blow out later and be partly sunny.  Could be the pricing report here also.  Supplies for most of the stuff we offer are spotty and without regular offerings, it is very hard to make a market.  We wind up responding to offers for various products and chasing growers.  Very stressful.  The cauliflower should be at its peak right now, but we are rejecting product as fast as it comes in for various defects, and it won't get better.

Sloppy weather continuation

As nice as the weekend and Monday were, today and the rest of the week are promising to be the flip side of glorious autumn weather.  Rainy, drizzly and just warm enough to tease you into thinking your last crops will make before the inevitable freeze.  Without sunshine, the temp. is not enough.  Besides, the whole dreary depressing mess hurts my attitude.  Every grower is totalling their losses for the season and no one is happy at the moment.  Tempers are short and both customers and brokers spar over pricing.  Usually the grower will cave to make a sale, but at this point, some will go out and disc a field rather than compromise on the price.  From their point of view, they have bent double all year, trying to satisfy customers.  The other point of view is they failed more often than not and they need to suck it up and give a few dollars to the poor wholesaler who has not had the packages running through his warehouse all year and as a result won't be able to trade in his 2 year old Lexus for next year's model. 

Prices and demand

It's been another challenging day in the produce business.  The growers here in the North Country are loosing their collective shirts this season as the weather is harvesting far more of their crops than they are.  The problem is, Mother Nature doesn't pay for what she takes.  Some farmers may throw up their hands and say they'll get real jobs.  But are there any real jobs out there?   The seductive aspect of growing fresh produce, at least until recently, has been if you do your job of growing the crop and you harvest it, the worst case is you will make a living, and if the market is high due to someone else's misfortune, you may make a king's ransom.  The problem today is almost everyone is misfortunate, due to weather, foreign competition or government regulations which disregard market conditions.  The chance to make that big score gets more and more remote, and the idea that it takes the investment of a small fortune just to make a lower middle class income starts the head scratching at any gathering of practicing growers.   Add to those concerns the wild card of global climate change.   One third generation grower has already suggested his two sons find off farm employment unless they can come up with a viable business plan for increasing farm revenue.   This kind of thinking will lead to the off shoring of America and Canada's food supply, as surely as our industrial base has relocated to China.  Without a coherent national plan to preserve and protect our produce growers this might be the last generation of consumers to eat a diet of American grown fruits and veggies.  This is a bleak, but all to possible future.

Another rainy week forecast

At least it was a beautiful weekend.  No frost, so the warm season stuff will probably hang on for at least another couple of weeks.  Most of the tomatoes are eaten up by blight, so they will be slim pickings, but the lettuces still seem robust and the peppers  are still sizing.  Unfortunately, the rains will resume starting tonight.  Some of the gardens are so saturated at this point the carrots are starting to rot from excessive moisture.  The same heavy soil that helped keep them alive during the worst of the drought is now causing 10-15% of the carrots to start rotting from the tips.  The same soil is not bothering the broccoli and cauliflower and corn planted next to the carrots, so the longer root system of the carrots are their downfall.  Did not plant anything this past weekend for the first time since April!  Feels wierd, but at the same time cathartic.  Time to move on.

To frost or not to

Looks like we will dodge the frost bullet for the forseeable future.  It got to about 38 this morning at 6:20 as I was harvesting lettuce for the market.  A little white frost came down on the barn roof and I could feel it starting to form on the lettuce leaves, but I don't think it hurt anything.  I dragged some reemay cloth over the zucchini plants as a precaution.  We'll see later today and tomorrow if anything was touched.   Most of the tender stuff is on the way out anyway, but it is always a bummer to see frost damage this early.  The only consolation is the galinsoga will go down also.  At this point, the only planting left to do is the garlic.  Probably the first week of October.

Another week in the trenches

Well, another week is done, and it seems like the veg deal can't get out of its own way.  Lettuce is cheap and no one wants it.  People want romaine, but it is not good so we can't ship.  Peppers are dear in Canada and cheap in the US and no one seems to want them anyway.   The spring mix deal is ugly, and the harvest conditions are horrible for all crops.  The cilantro deal was hot and we had no volume.  Now we have it, but the color is gone due to heavy rains so no one is interested.  There are no happy faces in the office and it will only get worse until the weather puts this deal out of its misery.  The best thing about 2011 will be when it is over.  Let's go 2012 !

frost on the you know what

Or at least on the roof tomorrow morning.  The weather gurus are predicting widespread frost tomorrow morning, even on the North Country Riviera where casa Monzeglio is located.  We are close enough to the lake where we might dodge it, but I wouldn't care to bet on the zucchini and basil making it without cover.  I have to harvest the lettuce for the farmer's market tomorrow at 6:30, so I precict freezing hands.

More fall than you may have wished for

Certainly more than I wanted.  It's raining again this morning, but when that passes, we'll flirt with frost for a couple of nights.  Really, in September!   But I guess it is all about the averages. We had a hot, dry summer, so we'll have a cool wet fall.  I hope not, since manyo of the crops in my gardens and the local farms here in the North Country need several weeks of moderate temps and dry weather to mature properly.  Of course, growers up and down the east coast are dealing with similar conditions, but it doesn't make it any easier when you see the crops you spent the summer coaxing along languish in these cool rainy conditions.  There was a fine whine, but there's plenty more of the same vintage.  Stay tuned for the first snowfall.

Fair pricing

After a customer complained about the price we are putting on leeks today, one of the buyers in the office said it was a fair price.  I almost fell out of my seat, and automatically said if we always got fair prices for produce all farmers would be driving new pickups.  The same buyer was begging me to sell leeks for any price two weeks ago and seems to have conveniently forgotten that as he has some chain store demand for that item.  Meanwhile, another chain wants to buy a 50 lb. master of carrots for about half of what they will bring at wholesale.  This caused howls of outrage from the same people who were ready to kill for that business last year.  It's funny that now they are on the inside and others are ready to jump into their shoes for the coveted chain business.  So, what is a fair price.   Most people would say it is the cost of production, plus a reasonable profit.  If you have a bumper crop, a 50 lb. bag of carrots might cost $8.00 to grow and pack.  In a challenging year, the same bag could easily cost $14.00.  But your competitor in Ontario had perfect conditions and can easily pack for $8.00.  What can you do?  If you have been in this business for longer than a week, you know you sell for $8.00 and shut up, hoping the situations are reversed next year.  So much for fair pricing.

Sunrise, moonset

Driving north today, the sun was rising on my right and the full moon setting on my left.  I have been making this drive for 10 years and can't remember seeing this effect.  The perfectly clear sky added to the beauty of the scene.  It was definitely a "smell the roses" moment.  I'm sure it will be downhill all the way for the rest of the day.  We already have a couple of late trucks and a rejection, so here we go again...
    Meanwhile, in the garden, I covered a couple dozen heads of cauliflower in the 4-6 inch range.  They will be beautiful for the market on Saturday.  It is mercifully remaining dry, but there is a 50% chance of thunderstorms this afternoon.  Since we don't need the rain, we will certainly  get it today.

Delayed reckoning

It is even worse than I thought.  All the weather we experienced in the last few weeks is finally coming home to roost.  Decay in iceberg, yellowing romaine, dead looking green leaf.  Forget the cukes and zukes, this is a horror show on the wholesale market.  The worst is when it happens this late in the season, the customers head for the exits and they never come back.  I guess we'll just have to concentrate on the hardware items like carrots and potatoes.  As one broker put it, this is the season that never was.

All harvest, all the time

The summer garden is waning fast.  The tomatoes are played out, and with nighttime temps in the 40s, the peppers and squash are in trouble.  But the cole crops and spinach are loving this weather.  The weekend was gorgeous, with bright sun all day and drying breezes.  The ground needed this weather, and the plants are responding.  Now if we can avoid the near freezing temps they are predicting for this coming weekend, we should be good until mid October. 
   Meanwhile, on the wholesale end, prices on many items remain stubbornly low, while other crops command a premium for weeks on end.  I think there will be a lot of soul searching on the west coast after this season is over.  Business as usual is not going to cut it for the traditional lettuce, broccoli, romaine rotations the giant farming companies use.  They need to be more diversified, and they need to realize the local farming movement is here to stay.  Chains will support the local farmers, and even if the volume is not as great as California, the effect will be multiplied as each area peels away from Salinas earlier each year.

9/11

Planted my last spinach today.   I guess that was my way of commemorating the 10th anniversary of BinLaden's successful plot to freak out America and begin the slide to where we find ourselves today.  Instead of a national call to unite and call out AlQueda for the criminals they are, we began a 10 year War  on Terror which has exhausted the national bank account and sapped our will.  The only people happy with this are the terrorists and defense companies.  What a legacy the Bushies have left.  Over 3000 innocent people who went to work one morning and never came home.  A moment of silence is the least we can do in their memory.  It's a shame we couldn't come up with a better memorial than a pointless war in Iraq which has killed hundreds of  thousands of Iraqis.  Anyway, no more planting for this erstwhile farmer this year.  I put in the last lettuce transplants on Saturday, but the weather needs to stay fairly warm between now and the middle of October, or they will never mature. Columbus day is the last Farmer's Market in Plattsburgh, so we will have to be done by then.   Unless the local food co-op buys my surplus like they did last year. 

Autumn harbinger

The 14 day forecast shows a high of about 45 Degrees on Saturday the 23rd.  That is way too cool for us growers.  We need a couple of warm weeks to get the last plantings close to maturity by the last week of Sept.  If it slows down now, chances are we will not get the extra heat necessary before the first frost.  I still have beets, turnips, spinach and daikon that need the warm Sept. sun.  Besides, it is no fun playing golf when you are flirting with 40 degrees in the morning.

Scary TV

Nothing like getting home after a long day's work, turning on the TV and getting a new episode of the Twilight Zone, aka the Republican Presidential debate.  If this is the best and brightest the Repubs can offer, we are in deeper trouble than anyone can imagine.  Instead of trying to raise the level of discourse, they seem to believe that every primary voter is a mouth breathing racist who is hell bent on destroying 2 generations of social and environmental progress.  The Koch brothers are laughing all the way to their bank.
   Meanwhile, here in the North Country, we seem to be missing the worst of the latest  tropical depression, but south of us the situation  is pretty dire.  People who were cleaning up from Irene are now under the gun from Lee.  I'm pretty sure most of the farmers getting 8-10 inches of rain on already saturated ground are wondering what if any crops they will harvest for the rest of the season.  Many farms  in Pa. and NY depend on fall crops such as pumpkins and potatoes, and both of these are in a world of hurt at the moment.  My own gardens are saturated, but we are supposed to have a 3-4 day repreive from rainfall.  I hope we also get some warmer temps, or most veg will just stand still.  That is not a good recipe in Sept.

Floods and Fires

Just received an e-mail from my sister-in-law regarding the recent flooding in Vermont.  It sounds horrific.  She belongs to a CSA which is located on a small river.  River valleys are where most of the decent soil in the Northeast is located.  Unfortunately, by their very nature they are also the most flood prone.  These plucky farmers are trying to cope, but the weather is definitely against them at this time of year.  There is no recovering warm season crops, and even the cool crops need sunshine to mature before the freeze that is sure to come.  They are having a benefit party in October and I wish them well.  Meanwhile, in Texas, I would be  tempted to say the judgement of Dog is upon them, if I was religiously inclined.  The fire next time has already burned an area the size of Connecticut so far this year, and it shows no sign of slowing up.   Many winter crops that Texas plants between now and Christmas are in danger due to lack of water.  The aquifer which most of S. Texas depends on is in decline and without a tropical storm, there won't be enough water to grow the winter crops.  If these two disparate events are a preview of future weather, we are in for a wild ride.  But not to worry.  The Republicans have an answer to global climate change.  Let them eat cake, because veggies will be too expensive.

Who'll stop the rain

The roller coaster ride of a growing season continues.  There were over 2 inches in the rain gauge this morning.  Enough already.  The rain and cool temps threaten to derail the rest of the gardening season as surely as the hot dry weather hurt the summer crops.  All the compost and fertilizer in the world won't make the late planted crops grow if the weather is rainy and the sun don't shine.  It's a wonder anyone ever plants anything with confidence these days.  But despite the gloom and doom I guess I and the rest of the masochistic farming and gardening fraternity will continue.  Where else do you know you can be perpetually surprised both good and bad besides your garden?  Maybe your children!

Labor Day?

Reading Paul Krugman's blog reminds me of what a world of hurt the American working class is in.  Pummeled by capital, ignored by the political class and attacking its would be defenders, it looks like we will all be Walmart greeters in the coming decades.  I remember in the 70s and 80s how we were entering the post industrial revolution and were being told it was not important to manufacture stuff anymore.  The information society was the ticket to future prosperity.  But something happened on the way to utopia.  The Chinese and Indians not only took over much of the manufacturing we outsourced, they also began supplying the information much more cheaply than Americans could.  From all the call centers that migrated to Bangalore to now software engineers who work for the equivalent of American minimum wage we have sold our future for a handful of plastic crap at Target.  The only thing we can't outsource is actual hand's on health care and construction.  Amazingly, these are the biggest employers. Duh!  The politicians, especially Democrats pay lip service to labor, but they are more interested in big donors than industrial policy.  Until and unless we get serious about making things in this country, labor day will continue to be a punchline.

To rain or not to rain

That would be a good question is I had any control over the answer.  We are now getting the tomato killing rainy, humid weather that all gardeners and farmers hate.  A two or three day on again off again rain, with brief sunny windows which raise the humidity to hateful levels.  The only plants which love this late summer misery are the many weeds looking for one last fling before depositing their abundant seed crop into my late fall beds of spinach, lettuce and turnips.  The late cabbage is growing like gangbusters and all the cole crops seem to be doing well, although I'm sure the cabbage loopers are having a jamboree.  Got to spray as soon as this rain passes.  The last plantings of beets and carrots are also doing fairly well.  We need a long mild fall, or they will produce more tops than roots.  It's almost time to think about getting the bed ready for garlic planting.  The last push is definitely starting, although next week is the Battle of Plattsburg celebration and the festivities will cut into gardening time.  All work and no play, etc.

Labor Day weekend

Prices are still low, but at least there seems to be business on the last official weekend of summer.  Our little corner of the world is still in cleanup mode from Irene, and some of the damage in the Ausable River valley is pretty horrific.  Many houses knocked off their foundations, others need to be totally gutted as the Ausable River flowed through their living room.  I passed a local Friendly restaurant this morning and there were at least 40 power company trucks in the lot.   That means a lot of frustrated customers.  I hope the farmers market crowd is out in force tomorrow.  I have a lot of red leaf and greenleaf lettuce ready to harvest.  Have a good weekend.

And the rains came

Looks like a washout Labor Day weekend for much of the east coast.  Naturally, now that we got a whole month's rainfall in a few hours, we will get the next month's this weekend.  For a tiny farmer like me it is frustrating.  For the full time live or die with the weather farmer it can be the end of the line.  Drought in the heart of the growing season and deluge during the harvest must be the ultimate insult from Mother Nature.  Meanwhile, the markets remain depressed as millions of people have recovery from Irene on their mind, not buying fruits and veggies.  All those people without power, and many with limited access to restaurants with fresh food spell lower sales for market houses which translates to lower prices for what growers can even sell.  I guess the cloudy weather is making this post more depressing than necessary.   As "they" say, Good Times.