Life is busy on a farm! Growers are always adapting to current weather conditions, working on new projects, learning from past failures and successes, and planning for the future. Below are updates from a few of our farm partners, how their fall season is progressing and what their working on for the future.

Gary Wise (Wise Farms): "We're rolling, man!" Gary has seen no major problems this fall. Crops are coming in strong, he may even have more than he can sell. Gary recently purchased 38 more acres to expand their operation, and is enjoying the fall bounty. Gary has not yet winterized his land, but plans on getting to that after Thanksgiving. Winterizing includes bleeding irrigation lines so that they do not freeze and burst, planting cover crops, etc. However, winterizing does not meant stopping production, Wise Farms operates year-round.

Brittany Kordick (Contrarian Farm): "Ironically, for late fall, I've spend most of my time watering". Contrarian Farm is a smaller operation, and does not have irrigation infrastructure as larger farms with water lines and drop irrigation. This means that Brittany is more reliant on regular rains. "The combination of unusually dry weather and constant temperatures of around 50 degree or lower means stuff has stopped growing much earlier than it should here." Brittany was planning on growing into January, but says the current conditions make it feel "like limping to the finish line of the year instead of the usual fall bounty".

Robbie Cox (Cox Farms): Robbie has seen good yields and good progression at Cox Farms through this Fall season. This has allowed him to spend some time on some larger projects that have been pending since the Spring. He had some roof damage on a few structures and hoop houses in a large storm last Spring. The hoop houses were not needed during the summer, but Robbie plans to have them redone this fall and winter, so that he can get a jump start on production next spring. Hoop houses are low cost green houses that allow growers to start planting earlier in the year, and can extend crop seasons by weeks.

Alan Justice (Cloverfields Farm): While Alan says that Cloverfields in winding their year down on a number of crops, they expect to have a variety of greens and cabbage until deep in the winter. Alan has already begun planning for next spring, planting onions. He plans to plant another 2500 asparagus crowns in March, a crop that he has seen great demand for. Alan's son Brian recently spend 6 months in Spain and brought back some new tomato varieties they are excited to try. Alan says that overall they had a good year, despite the long, hot dry spell this summer. He says they learned from the heat, and "we are now better prepared to irrigate our blueberries and fruit trees which suffered from the heat".

Kelley Domingue (Haag and Sons): Kelley says "our local Brunswick County shrimp boats are working right off of our beaches right now". She says shrimp are holding strong, and they expect them to stick around through Thanksgiving, and maybe even until Christmas. It all depends on the weather and water temperature. Once the water cools off, the shrimp will migrate further south, and the season will end until next summer. Kelley says they have seen no lingering effects from Hurricane Sandy, and recently saw Grouper season open back up. They are happy to be on the coast, enjoying a beautiful fall!

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