July: Texas Drought & CSA Risk #1

July 30, 2011
Dear 2011 CSA Members,

We are going to suspend this Saturday's delivery (July 30). We picked tomatoes yesterday and there are very few tomatoes------since the nights have been so warm (staying in the 80's for the last 2 weeks) the blooms have not set fruit so therefore very few tomatoes. The eggplant has also diminished in production with the heat and warm nights. So we would have only basil and a few eggplant in the cooler. So I think it would be better to wait until the next crops begin to produce instead of you having to spend your time to come and pick up a small amount of vegetables.

We have potatoes for 2 more Saturdays and onions for about 8 more Saturdays so we will bring a double portion of eggs for the egg share holders and your potatoes and onions next Saturday August 6. We will have potatoes and onions for the August 13 delivery and hopefully the squash and peppers will be ready also. The summer crop of tomatoes are probably finished as the heat stress has "taken its toll on them". However, we will have to see how they respond if we get the rain from the tropical storm. The fall crop of tomatoes are struggling but we should have a fair crop. We received 1.25 inches of rain Monday for which we are very thankful. It was so refreshing to see the pouring rain coming down for about 30 minutes. The rain came from the East which is very unusual and of course the weather forecast gave us no chance of rain at all----we know this came from the Lord.

We have almost finished weeding the peppers and have started weeding the beautiful crop of sweet potatoes. We are also busy planting the 3rd crop of squash and cucumbers. Since we had the rain on Monday, I began burning (with our propane burner) the grass and weeds off of a field where we will plant the green beans and peas. I still have to be extremely careful as the neighbors land is still very dry and we surely don't want a spark to ignite a fire on their land.

We are praying for rain-----we pray we get the soaking rains, but not the floods from the tropical storm.

See y'all Saturday August 6,
Gene