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Article: I have never experienced growing things in a long term heat wave. Our weather in New Hampshire usually is mild in the summer with a few dog days of high heat. Our nights usually are so cool I have to run heat in the greenhouse where I grow tomatoes to keep them over 55 degrees F. The sides of this greenhouse roll up. This usually serves to let the heat out during the day without the expense of a fan and to let the wind blow through for pollination of the tomatoes This year from mid June through most of August we endured temperatures in the 90's and nights in the 70's. The night temperatures would have been beneficial to get the tomatoes ripe. Tomatoes ripen in a dark warm place. Unfortunately, the day temperatures were so high the tomato flowers would not pollinate. Tomatoes set 5 clusters of flowers. The first two clusters did finally set fruit, clusters three to five just fell off. The severe drought did not prevent us from getting plenty of water to the plants. We have a good well. Being inside a greenhouse, you provide the water. Outside the greenhouse, vegetable crops also suffered. Again, we could supply water but the temperatures created problems. Unlike tomatoes, squash and cucumbers need bees. The bees stayed close to their hives, fanning the hives to keep them cool so our flowers were not visited frequently to be pollinated. Finally the heat broke for a few days and our field was alive with buzzing during that time. You could hear the bees several hundred feet away from the field. There were so many bees in the fields we made extra sure we watered very early before they arrive. Now a secondary problem, we got an unusually large harvest of cucumbers and squash all at the same time. When you have a surplus, you need to lower the prices to sell it off quickly. This year is the most humbling experience of my life. The heat and drought have brought me to a higher awareness of our dependence on nature. It also has shown me how so many people do not realize how much our food chain depends on nature. So long have people plucked vegetables from a counter instead of a vine or bush, they do not understand why certain vegetables are not available. It is like we can manufacture something. I have seen farmer friends plow under 5 acres of tomatoes, 20 acres of squash and hundreds of acres of dried up pumpkins. Those farmers who could irrigate also needed to have bee hives close by if they are to have pumpkins. Corn came in too quickly due to the unusual temperatures giving too much supply for the demand and went past the eating stage before it could be sold. Your farmer is the hardest worker you will ever know. It is heartbreaking to see all this loss. Unless New Hampshire is declared a state of emergency, some farmers will lose their farms. I was picking up some vegetables we were running short of at a local farm and of course was chatting with others who were either dropping off vegetables or buying in extras as I was. One lady was very distraught. She and her husband were dropping off watermelon they had grown for sale. Tears welling up in her eyes, she asked me if a state of emergency had been declared yet. She told me of the 40 years they had been farmers and that she had never endured such devastation as she had this summer. She also shared her fears that they would not be able to go on. I am sad to say that she was not the only one I talked with who said the same thing. Now add all this that due to the high temperatures customers also were not buying too much. Who wants to cook anything when it is so hot and humid. It dropped sales down significantly at most farm stands. Home gardeners south of us are watching their gardens and lawns die as water is now being banned for use on them. Many around here have had their wells dry up. I hope you heed the warnings about using water. Mulch well and keep whatever moisture you can in your gardens. Use soaker hoses or drip irrigation to get the most water where it needs to be with the least amount of water.
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