I'm back......
I've only occasionally sent an Email to the list since August. Been sitting
by the sidelines since then. By mid August it was evident that the drought
and heat had taken it's toll and caused my Pumpkins to start maturing early.
It started in late July, it seemed no matter how much I watered the sub soil
would just suck it away. After the blow out of the Living Dead last year,
(potentially the biggest Pumpkin I would have ever had), and then this, it
really got to me. You would think after all these years I would be use to
this but I guess not. So I decided to just walk away from the patch. I
didn't even go to the Topsfield weigh off.
I did end up with two between 550 and 600 but they were headed for much
larger. I have a large backyard Orchard that was in need of water too, so I
switched my attention to that. It turned out to be a good decision, when the
rains finally came in early September (9/10 4.80"), the trees responded and
gave me the largest crop in the 27 years I've been growing Apples, 201
Bushels. The watering had sustained them just enough till the rains.
Tending to the large crop consumed all my time.
Well, tonight I tilled the Patch and I'm trying to look to next year. Over
the next few weeks I will try and catch up on Emails. Some of you sent me
some messages I might not have answered, hope to find them and answer them,
though a bit late. I will also update everyone on my soil experiments.
Though the Pumpkins did not produce any results you can count on because of
the drought some other crops showed some surprising results. Talk to you
soon.
George Brooks
N. Tewksbury, MA
25 miles NW of Boston in the Merrimack River Valley
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