Subscribe now!This is the time of year when everyone seems to be fighting off a little something, be it a cold or flu, and I’m grateful that I work outside and am not trapped inside with all those germs. However, we’re all literally “under the weather,” affected by what the sky throws at us, even though we sometimes as a culture pretend not to be. Case in point: Just over a week ago in our area, the Brandywine Creek rose to flood levels and many major state routes as well as smaller roads were closed in places due to high water. But the world carried on, everyone attempting to drive to work as usual. And, surprise! Some were met with confused traffic jams on detour that lasted for hours.
As farmers, we’re one of the few remaining professions in this country that seriously takes the weather into account to plan our day. Often, we North Star employees wake up to phone messages from Ike or Lisa, with the morning’s weather-dependent plan of action for the day. People are often curious how a certain weather event affects what we do at work. If we can, we avoid or plan around working in the rain. Some things can’t happen; peach picking, for example, needs to wait until the peach fuzz has dried off a bit. Tomatoes and peppers shouldn’t be disturbed while their foliage is wet, for fear of spreading fungal diseases. There are inside tasks that can be done, like packing CSA shares, washing vegetables, or planting seeds in the greenhouse. But some days, we have to persevere. Last Monday, with a steady rain and the temperature flirting with fifty degrees, we needed to pick vegetables for the CSA. The week before, with the Olympic pears needing to come off the trees and intermittent rain showers for days, we spent the day out in the orchard, hiding out in the box truck at intervals to avoid the worst of it.
We’re a motley crew on days like this – hats, brightly colored and mismatched rain suits, rubber boots, and – if we’re really desperate – neoprene gloves that act like a wetsuit to keep your hands “warm” in cold water. This is often the limiting factor in rain – nothing will slow you down like cold, numb hands. Wet feet are a close second, and rain seeping down the inside of your sleeves is a major annoyance, but not good enough reason to stop. Spirits are varied on a rainy day. Most of us find our minds wandering to daydreams of a hot cup of tea and a warm blanket; some of us find it “refreshing” and enjoy the challenge.
And what about the trees? How do they feel about the weather? Well, this season I’m sure they’re wishing that the rain could have been spaced out a bit more evenly. All of this rain came as Chester County had entered a drought watch, the lowest of the state’s three official classifications of drought conditions. Some of the trees were affected, their fruit ripening even earlier than expected (in a year when the season’s already ahead of schedule) and dropping fruit prematurely due to drought stress, which complicated our efforts to pick the fruit at the optimum moment. Rainstorms can also be detrimental, with high winds flinging fruit from trees. Full-size Olympic pears flying around; now that’s no joke! For this reason, we take special care to remove the fruit from the tips of 
branches when we’re thinning the Asian pear crop. And you can imagine the impact of even a brief hail storm on an orchard. A whole season’s harvest can be ruined in a matter of minutes. We had a not-so-severe hailstorm this summer; perhaps you’ve even seen a piece of fruit or two that was “kissed by the hail” with a tiny, cosmetic blemish. Other weather events can have a lasting impact on the trees. While an annual crop can be wiped out and tilled in, perennial crops like fruit trees are an investment. When disaster strikes, you try to pick up the pieces as best you can. Last winter’s blizzard left us scrambling to devise the best way to deal with split peach trees and to correct broken scaffold branches in the young apples.
Obviously (I hope), the weather plays a huge role in agriculture. In an orchard, weather patterns determine which varieties you can plant – different varieties have different levels of cold hardiness and chill requirement; each type of fruit requires certain conditions to reach peak flavor. An apple that loves upstate New York won’t fair as well in southeastern Pennsylvania and vice versa. Weather patterns also make some areas more ideal for growing beautiful fruit. The major fruit producing areas of Washington and California, for example, have a summer dry season without rain, which makes a world of difference for the control of fungal diseases that thrive in wet, humid conditions. Furthermore, in a world where climate change is already manifesting itself in eccentric weather conditions that affect agriculture, a commitment to eating locally means that everyone, not just those of us who spend our days out in the elements, should pay a bit more attention to just how “under the weather” we really are.
