As you can see I haven’t been very faithful blogging.  It’s because this year we’ve been so busy trying to keep up.  Early in the spring we were so excited all of our berries looked great!  Then it frosted and cut the berries we were expecting down.  We worked very hard to pull the weeds and had them all “cleaned” around them in early June.  The fields were beautiful and the competing grass was knocked down. 

We purchased a small mower to go in between the plants because doing it by hand and with the DR Power Trimmer was taking too long.  So the Toro Timecutter joined the farm.  Then the rain stopped.

It seems like forever that we’ve been watering and watering.  We’ve been using a soaker hose, sprinkler, and pulling a 65 gallon tank and watering each and every plant individually.  Day in and day out we water early in the morning and then again in the evening.  With the weather in July being second only to 1936 as the hottest ever, we’re struggling to keep them healthy.  The newest plants are the only ones that are really struggling, we will lose some.  We’ve been amazed though with all this hot dry weather the older plants are sending out new shoots and have more new growth than we could have imagined.  They are hardy if given a little time to grow.  We are just in awe that in ground that feels like concrete and has cracks 1/2″ wide can support the new growth we are seeing on these plants.  

We will be having berries to pick soon, earlier than normal, just not as many as we had hoped.  Hopefully after the trying year we’ve been through now, next year’s crop will be wonderful.