Letter: Wet, cool spring hard on potato, corn farmers

Posted 5/21/19

While we non-farmers have been counting up the rainy days and bemoaning the lack of warm and spring-like weather, the local potato and sweet corn growers have been in serious, deep trouble.

The …

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Letter: Wet, cool spring hard on potato, corn farmers

Posted

To the editor:

While we non-farmers have been counting up the rainy days and bemoaning the lack of warm and spring-like weather, the local potato and sweet corn growers have been in serious, deep trouble.

The potato farmer in Tiverton would expect his tubers to be blooming by May 10. This year he hadn’t even been able to plow under the winter wheat to get the fields ready by that date, but of course potatoes can stay in the ground.

For the sweet corn grower in Little Compton it’s a very different story. With luck and if the ground warms up, maybe corn will be ready by mid-July. In other years by April 20 there have been three plantings. This year by that date there has only been one.

Now translate this into a normal Fourth of July weekend when on Saturday and again on Sunday 50 bushels are sold at the stand, each bushel containing five dozen ears and this does not count the bushels sold on the wholesale market.

Safer alternative to Roundup

On a more cheerful note, I promised you an alternative to the dreaded and dreadful Monsanto Roundup. (It has now been proven to cause cancer in humans as well as deforming salamanders, frogs and butterflies.)

We have actually tested the following on my driveway which was turning green no matter what we tried and will be a boon to those who have flagstones and bricks and cobblestones. The magic potion is D-Limonade which you will have to order on the web at 888-854-3914. This is derived from citrus peel and used as follows (while wearing rubber gloves and protective glasses): 1Tbs dish soap, 2Tbs Limonade, 1 gallon ordinary white household vinegar. You will need a good sprayer and as you will have a quart of the Limonade, you will see that it lasts a good many summers. (Ace Hardware will have a non-toxic alterative to Roundup but they don’t yet know when).

Visiting the gardens

My fact checker was correct about the hours for Sakonnet Garden – 9-6 Saturday and Sunday, May 25 and 26, but really messed up on the Blossom and Sweets sale outside of Wilburs. It will be Satuday also, from 7:30 -10:30.

Enjoy every minute of our fleeting spring now that it has finally arrived.

Sidney Tynan

Little Compton

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