Not all is lost for area farmers despite difficult season
Fred McConn walks in the high tunnel on Harden Family Farm that will produce hundreds of pounds of vine-ripened tomatoes for sale through November.
Homer Harden showcases his bounty at the last Waynesburg Farmers Market of the year.
DEEMSTON – The farmers market season is over and the verdict is in: The weather this year was frightful.
“It rained all spring and when July came, it turned around and dried up,” Fred McConn of Harden Family Farm said while at the Waynesburg Farmers Market earlier this month.
McConn was standing in his booth behind a table loaded with fresh-picked tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, kale, peppers, squash, potatoes, zucchini and onions, so those plump, ripe vegetables seemed to defy what he was saying.
McConn took stock of his produce and smiled.
“I’ll tell you what saved us. It was our high tunnels,” he said.
Those tunnels extended the growing season six weeks, he said, and has allowed them to continue selling tomatoes past when they’re typically finished.
The Harden Family Farm is atop 65 acres of rolling hills about a mile from the village of Deemston in Washington County. Homer Harden, 81, who has been growing produce here since 1959, and McConn, his son-in-law, continue to do business through rain, drought and frost with the help of the three tunnels.
McConn walked between the rows of vine ripening tomatoes, rooted to the ground, supported by cords strung on stakes. Overhead plastic sheeting covered arches made from plastic pipe usually reserved for plumbing. The tunnel covered long rows laden with tomatoes of every color between green and ripe, succulent and round.
“Other guys out east were doing them and the market is in the early stuff, so three years ago we built our first one.” McConn pointed to the tomatoes. “These are Red Bounty, they grow well for us and have a great taste. Planting in here we use less spray for fungicide because we control the weather. There’s no rain and wind damage and with drip line irrigation they get watered every three days.”
Around the edges of the tomatoes were some fruit laden pepper plants and what was left of a row of zucchini.
“We start all our plants in the greenhouse except beans,” McConn said, adding that they planted in there April 1 and had zucchini in early May.
Outside the high tunnel, the farm and its buildings were tucked into crevices in the rolling hillsides that were in various stages of planting and plowing for next year’s crops. The greenhouse, one of the oldest buildings, was another homemade solution to growing great crops, built of wood and heated by a big wood stove. Beside it, with plenty of driveway room to bring in the big truck that carries produce to local farmers markets from May until October, were more buildings to wash produce, fill baskets and crates. There is also a walk-in cooler for picked produce, Harden farm-grown eggs, and apples and cider brought in from fellow farmers in the Chambersburg area.
“Adams County is the apple capital of Pennsylvania,” McConn said. “We have an old orchard, but nothing like what they can grow there.”
Where McConn and Harden saw the effects of the weather this year was in the crops planted in the field.
“We don’t use herbicide. We cultivate, hoe and mulch.” McConn said while pointing to rows of kale peeking through surrounding orchard grasses. “It was so wet this spring we couldn’t get in to cultivate early, so the weeds got away from us. Then it got so dry it affected the size of what grew.
There’s no break during the growing season, McConn said, with always something to do from sun up to sun down. The farm gets a short break after October when the markets close, but people still come to the farm to shop the produce they still have sell.
“You don’t have to call, just come on out,” he said.
Fellow Waynesburg Farmers Market vendor Rachel Miller of Autumn’s Boutique said she was impressed with the tunnels and might try small ones for her own garden next year.
I’m hoping that all our growers will see how it can help them,” Miller said. “People don’t realize how nonstop busy we are when we grow our products, how much goes into doing this and how the weather affects everything.”
As the Waynesburg Farmers Market closed on Wednesday and vendors began packing their goods and taking down their tents, Harden took a moment to reflect on the year’s weather.
“We irrigated as much as we possibly could, but it wasn’t much. Next year I’m going to put in field irrigation again,” he said. “I’m not ready to give up farming and I’m not going to put up with this for another year.”