Phew! Another Hot, hot day!
Phew! Another Hot hot day, but with the low pressure arriving, we will get the change we feel we need – but whether we get the rain here is another matter… It has a way of bypassing the farm, and we have watched it divide and go either side of us many times. To be fair, that has been a huge answer to prayer during harvests over the years, but not great for keeping reservoirs full for lettuces… The iceberg lettuces, being 96% water, are needing a lot of irrigation as one would imagine right now. One advantage of not having to guess the forecast though, since it’s basically just been hot, sunny and DRY for weeks, has been being able to manage the quantities of lettuces ready to be harvested. The staged watering, controlled by the irrigation, makes lettuce production more predictable to meet the market demands.
We thankfully have also just got all of our wheat harvested, despite Seven Mile Lane being closed due to a water issue (the irony), affecting the access for the Combine Harvester to get to us. But all is ‘safely gathered in’ now. Others in our family, local farmers have also found their wheat being ready a couple of weeks earlier than usual. Talking of this, I’m trying to remember picking blackberries in the middle of August- last year I was definitely picking far later in the year, into the middle of September … but right now there are plenty of sweet blackberries that I’ve been sharing with two hot and thirsty black Labradors whom you may recognise here!
