Just looked at a few of my last posts. Boy they seemed upbeat and optimistic. Balance is the key so here we go in the other direction. Currently raining.....again. Just tore out all my canning tomatoes because of the dreaded late blight that was graciously imported into our beautiful state by a few large box stores from an infested nursery down south. Another rather poignant example of why people should be buying locally. I am sure the dollar loss and the hardship to vegetable farmers is huge and growing. Being as small as I am it is very hard for me to replace that revenue. Going to try though. Please keep in mind as you buy local produce this summer and into the fall that the reason you are seeing lot's of salad and greens is because it is some of the only stuff surviving this extremely difficult growing season. I will be planting kale, chard, spinach, and salad greens in where my field tomatoes were this week in order to try and recapture the lost money. The tough choise was pulling the tomatoes. They were 2 weeks away from my best harvest ever. Had to do it though in order to try and keep this stuff out of my greenhouses, tomatoes in there are hanging on and producing. Hopefully I can get 4-5 weeks of harvesting out of them. Never to early to start but keep in mind I will have another 40 chickens ready at the end of September. All raised on pasture and fed with local grain. Ducks will be ready near thanksgiving.

I will also be at the Barre Farmer's market tomorrow and starting this Saturday I will be at the Montpelier Farmer's Market. Hope to see you there and keep thinking dry, hot weather. We could all use some. Joe