Week of June 7 : Correction

(Here is a picture of our first stand of corn. This corn has suffered frost damage, hail damage and wind damage. But it has survived each threat. The target harvest date is July 23 but with the warmer than expected weather this stand may be harvested sooner.)

My last comment, let it grow, was true but not the complete truth. While we did catch up on the transplanting that was not the end of the sowing. Ahh, and it was just the beginning of all the maintenance!

We need to accept a fact: we will never be done with all the maintenance.

There will always be more weeds. There will always be more bugs. There will always be more pruning and training. There will always be more threats of disease. My neighbor once gave me sage advice, harvesting a clean crop is both a physical and mental challenge.

Farming is well known to be physically demanding. But mentally challenging? Anticipating the threats and prioritizing those threats certainly requires knowledge and foresight. Discipline is also necessary.

Consider how many crops we are growing (14), how varieties (39) and how many stands (as many as 8 per crop). Just organizing the sowing schedule is challenging for me! Only now comes the physical labor.