Local Growers Weather The Good And The Bad

The hot weather of the last few weeks may feel oppressive to some, but it's been a godsend for some farmers who sell produce at the Kingfield and Fulton farmers' markets.

"I know that 70-degree nights might not sound like good sleeping weather, but the plants are enjoying this," said Peter Marshal, of Peter's Pumpkins and Carmen's Corn of Shakopee. "The warm weather will help us get caught up, especially the warm nights."

Last year, he said, he was picking corn by July 11. Not so this year, where consistent spells of rain and cold in the last few months have kept his and other growers' crops struggling long past late spring.

EJ Gurley, manager of both farmers' markets in Southwest Minneapolis, said that growers' weather problems had been "nearly universal" among the usual vendors. The year started out slow for local produce, said Gurley, who had to fill the empty stalls with prepared food and crafts sellers to help the markets break even.

Most farmers able to bring produce at the start of the markets' season could only do so, he said, because they had greenhouses to protect their plants.

Marshal followed a similar approach. 

"We grew the vegetables in the ground, but we were able to transplant tomatoes and cucumbers in that hoop house," he said, mentioning a type of collapsible greenhouse constructed on a farm field. "We've been bringing cucumbers and tomatoes for the last three weeks. We've been bringing strawberries, too, and cold crops like that."

For some farmers, though, the problem hasn't been too much weather, but too little. Michelle Grannes, of The Weed Patch farm, in Belview, MN, said she was excited at the prospect of more thunderstorms.

"Hallelujah! I could use more rain!" she said. "Even though we had four inches of rain last week, you’d never know it."

Still, the rapid changes in temperature and weather patterns since the start of spring have played havoc with her plants. Many of her plants either washed away or went right to seed. Grannes called this "the worst growing season I’ve had in 10 years."

"It's so cold, then so hot, then so wet, then so dry," she said. "Plants are just like people—they go into shock when the temperatures fluctuates 40 degrees in a few days."

Grannes is laying her hopes for financial success on her abundant tomato crop. Despite losing a quarter or her crop in a wind storm earlier this summer, the hot, wet weather has helped them grow quickly—so much so, some plants look like small trees, she said. Some of her heirloom varieties, she said, have been bred for hundreds of years to increase their drought resistance.

"You make just do with what you got," she said. "You make it work."

Marshal echoed Grannes' sentiments.

"I’m in it because I enjoy doing it, not because I'm trying to make money. The challenge makes it fun," he said. "Every year’s a challenge, you learn from your mistakes, benefit from past years.

"The markets that we do, especially in Minneapolis, have been really good for us," he added. "I can’t imagine doing it without the support of those farmers markets."