When It Rains, It Pours

Rain brings both relief and challenges to Texas farmers. Photo credit: Tecolote Farm

Rain brings both relief and challenges to Texas farmers. Photo credit: Tecolote Farm

We did a rain dance, didn’t we? While we’re grateful for this drought-busting rain, we’ve been rocked by flooding here in Austin, in Houston, and in the Hill Country. And our farmer friends, already exhausted by years of devastating drought, now have to contend with way too much of a good thing, and can do little but watch as just-coming-in summer crops rot in the ground. Summer’s all about succession planting–nothing germinates in the brutal heat of summer–so that window to plant during these early weeks of the season is quickly closing. We’ll all work together, though, to buy all we can from all the farmers we know and continue getting good food to you. It takes a village, and you’re the brightest hope our farmers have right now. We’ll get through it together.

How can we help? We’re donating food to The Leaning Pear in Wimberley–they’re using it to make hot meals to feed flood victims and rescue teams. In the coming weeks, we’ll be finding other ways to help the Texas flood victims, and we’ll share more ways you can help as more information becomes available.

In the meantime, we know you want to know how things are looking in the field, so here’s word straight from some of our hardworking, tenacious farmers and staff:

MELODY MCCLARY – FARMHOUSE DELIVERY

“Volunteering to help on the farms isn’t really the best way to help the farmers. The best way to help is to continue to buy from local farmers and graciously enjoy the food that they’ve grown.”

KATIE PITRE – TECOLOTE

“We are lucky compared to a lot of other farms. We’re still able to get into our fields, we’re just having to hike everything out cause we can’t drive in. It makes it harder to do everything, everything’s taking a lot longer.”

“You know, we’re not supposed to talk bad about the rain, but our crops are just sitting under water, rotting underground from the moisture. We’re losing tens of thousands of dollars in potatoes and onions. We just can’t get ’em out fast enough. It’s pretty devastating.”

LORIG HAWKINS – FARMSHARE 

“The river has been really, really high and the weed pressure is really intense. We can’t get in to weed, basically it’s going to be one of our biggest pressures. And, you know, weeds like rain too, and tend to grow a lot faster.”

“The other big issue is fungal diseases. It’s been way more humid since the sun’s come out, and there’s not a lot of circulation going on, so the tomatoes, cucumbers, all of that great summer produce is in danger. It stresses the plant for one thing and then stunts it so it doesn’t want to produce.”

“Things are muddier, harder to wash, harder to get out the fields. It’s just thicker, so it sticks to the plant. And we’re having to spend extra time washing the food and even then the mud’s not totally off. It’ll come off with some extra work but there’s also extra work to be done in the fields because all the harvesting is taking longer ’cause we have to walk in and out with the produce instead of driving it.”

“It makes everybody late to plant, too. You can’t get in the fields to work the soil because doing it while it’s wet is detrimental to the ground.”

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