KWT CSA Farm Makes It Through the Hurricane

Garden of Eve Farm, which supplies the produce, eggs, and flowers to the Kensington/Windsor Terrace CSA and is located on the east end of Long Island, made it through Hurricane Irene with some damage, but nothing catastrophic, thankfully.

They will be able to make today's distribution, and though the shares will be affected for the rest of the season, it won't be as bad as expected.

This is a portion of Farmer Chris' update:

There were trees down on fences and leaves everywhere. Corn was laying on the ground and broccoli and kale were on their sides. I looked at the leaves and it appears that they will be able to rebound once the sun comes out and the wind calms. Overall I felt we escaped the storm better than expected....

The damage was greatest on the summer crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and winter squash. The cucumbers and squash are pretty much destroyed from the wind whipping tender leaves and stems. Beets, Swiss chard and cauliflower plants lost leaves, their roots were damaged, and some young seedlings were damaged. Tomato plants fared well but all the fruit was knocked off, and the late blight fungus, which has already been present in spots this summer, may rebound now that there is so much wetness all around, and kill of the remaining plants. Only time will tell.

We are so late in the season now that these crops can’t be replaced. Although there may be some harvest of these items in small quantities, there may not be enough for a full CSA share for any of these crops.

The seed I did plant before the storm did sprout and we did keep some broccoli seedlings in the greenhouse that were supposed to be planted last week as we knew they would be damaged....

We have onions, potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, winter squash and beets in good quantities to give out in future shares, although tops are damaged roots are fine. Kale, collards, fennel, bok choi, cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli and surprisingly lettuce survived. We are thankful the winds and rains weren’t as severe as expected as plants were pushed to the breaking point and were nearly ripped out of the ground. If you do see holes in leaves of it is probably a result of the storm.

For more information about the CSA, visit the Kensington/Windsor Terrace CSA blog.