Farmer Dave's likes to ensure that our healthy produce makes it into the mouths of those in all corners of our society regardless of income levels. We believe good food should not be reserved only for those of affluence, rather reserved for all who seek to eat healthy. Unclaimed CSA shares go to various hunger relief organizations in each community. Beyond the CSA shares we are proud to provide food to many other organizations. In the past weeks we have provided more than 100,000 pounds of produce to area organizations including: Boston Area Gleaners, Merrimack Valley Food Bank, Greater Boston Food Bank, Lazarus House, Neighbors in Need, and Catholic Charities. (Check out this cool video that Boston Area Gleaners posted of them picking up 6000 lbs of cucumbers and squash last week.) This number of pounds, while a lot, normally does not look like a huge amount to me as we have provided more in past years. Yet, what is amazing is the fact that we have done this in the midst of a severe drought. Even in the face of so much adversity, we have been able to provide abundance.

The drought continues. We have still had less than an inch of rain in the past month and we are several inches deficit in rain for the past several months. Most of our irrigation is from "surface" water meaning that we are not irrigating from deep wells, rather from shallow wells and from ponds and brooks. The amount of surface water is related to the ground water level below us. With so little rain in such a long time, the natural ground water level has been falling every day. As we pump water from the ponds they would naturally refill from the ground water. They are now refilling to a lower and lower level every day. In some of our fields we are now making the difficult decisions of which crops we should let go due to that lack of water. This is one of the worst droughts I have experienced in twenty years. Though we have invested heavily in our irrigation systems, they are no good if we have no water at the source. I have spent many hours in our backhoe trying to dig small ponds within ponds to get down to more ground water. Usually we go through some dry periods and then it finally rains. Unfortunately we have been missing many of the storms that have come through the area. Due to this lack of rain our top priority has shifted to irrigation. We might as well pump the water from the ponds now before they naturally dry up.

Often I curse the fact that we have fields in at least six different locations meaning that we need to drive tractors over the road to get from field to field. Yet, having fields in different locations has made it a lot easier to rotate our crops and lessen our insect and disease problems. This year, having so many different fields in different locations has also reduced our drought risk. While some of our irrigation supplies are running dangerously low, we have others fields that will continue to have ample irrigation water. In those fields as long as we have the time to pump the water onto the crops, we will continue to have abundant harvests. So, this year I could tell you stories of woes and fields that are bone dry. Or I could tell you other stories of the most abundant harvests ever because the days have been hot and sunny and we just keep dripping water at the plants roots. Our diversity in crops, soils, and water makes us who we are.

Still praying for rain,
Farmer Dave