Cartalk recently had a veggie puzzler that was very apropos for this time of year and this particular season. If you go to the link it includes the answer so if you want to think about it first I will summarize the puzzler here from a farmer perspective and provide the answer at the bottom of the page.
But first, we are still looking for help! We are down to the last two people. School seems to be sucking up all our employees. If you are looking to get out of the house now that the kids are gone do not hesitate to come out to volunteer. If you can make it a regular thing we can make you an employee and pay you big bucks (it’s all relative). We had some great volunteers last week. They said it was more fun than the State Fair (at least that is what I heard them say). And the food was better (though you have to prepare it yourself).
Now back to the puzzler:
Say you have a big crate of potatoes that weighs 100 lbs. Typically this happens when someone new works on the farm and keeps putting potatoes into the crate until it is full not realizing that the old farmer has to carry that crate to the pick-up tent. Anyway, when the potatoes were put into the crate they were 99% water, 1% tasty goodness — otherwise known as potato. The old farmer couldn’t move the crate so he left it and eventually forgot about it. After walking around the crate day after day for months on end he decided he had to finally get it out of the way. So he got his dolly and wheeled it over to the scale so he could more effectively grumble about the wasted effort in producing these potatoes. When he read the weight he was surprised to learn that due to dehydration the potatoes were now 98% water. How much did the potatoes in the crate now weigh?
I thought it was apropos since we have been struggling to dig potatoes these last few weeks due to all the rain we’ve been getting. It seems like just when the ground is drying another pile of rain comes down. I’m thinking the potatoes we are growing this year have to be like 99.9% water! Actually potatoes aren’t that full of water and aren’t even 99% water. They are more like 80% water, somewhat hydrophobic compared to cucumbers or zucchini!
Anyway, the season has been challenging in many regards. With the cool, cloudy weather of late many of the warm season crops are maturing more slowly. Our tomatoes are slowing down; no more 4-6 lbs per share. The sweet corn is less sweet due to the cool weather, though this week’s corn is super-duper sweet due the variety. The watermelons that haven’t been eaten by the deer aren’t ripening yet, which confuses me as to why the deer are eating them already! Though we won’t know for sure until later this fall I suspect the cool weather will lessen our sweet potato harvest. Sweet potatoes like it HOT!
The rain is also affecting the crops by providing the ideal environment for diseases to grow. The cherry tomatoes are ripening faster than typical due to the disease pressure. The summer squash is slowing down and getting powdery mildew but maybe some of you are thinking that’s a good thing! The onions have spots on their outer scales. The insides seem to be good but we’ve found in past wet years that the more waterlogged they are the shorter their storage life. So keep an eye on your onions!
On the positive side the carrots and beans are doing great! The fall salad mix popped up days after we planted it. The fall broccoli looks decent. The fall beets are coming along nicely. And the leeks! Don’t get me started on the leeks. So as is expected every year, some crops are dong great. Some crops are doing not so great. And the rest are doing just fine.
Speaking of crops, what will we have this week? Potatoes (hopefully). We will transition from the dark red norland potatoes to the norkota russets sometime this week. Sweet corn. This is a new variety that replaced our usual third variety. I’m not sure if it is an improvement, but it does taste great. Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash, onions, GARLIC (should have put that first!), tomatillos, beans, cabbage, and I’m sure some other things I forgot.
FruitShare, CheeseShare, EggShare, SeafoodShare, SalmonShare (both arrive on Tuesday so may not get here it time to deliver), and FlowerShare. Flowers are also slowing down but we’ll keep making bouquets as long as we can find flowers.
That’s it. As always, do not hesitate to contact me with questions, comments, suggestions, puzzlers and jokes. Speaking of puzzlers, here is one that our 12-year-old neighbor told me yesterday when he was helping wash cucumbers:
A cowboy rides into town on Friday. He stays three days and then rides out on Friday. How is this possible? You’ll have to wait for the answer to this one since he never told me. In the mean time, the answer to the potato puzzler is 50 lbs.