Last night there was a powerful and sudden storm that centered on our neighboring town of Westwood.
Our farm had significant flooding, best noted by the 8″ piles of woodchips stacking up in some areas of our garden, having been washed out from between our raised rows.
The most damaged crops that we can tell so far are the corn, sunflowers, lilies, and snap peas — not surprising, as these are all plants that you would expect to be damaged by heavy winds, but sad nonetheless.
We can’t yet tell what the impact to some of our other plants, like our tomatoes and cucumbers, will be. They were displaced and sitting in standing water and the rain continues on today. Potatoes seem to also have some damage that we’ll need to dive into to determine.
Nature is such a powerful force in farming.
Just a few days ago, we were sharing with customers that we were having a hard time with some of our crops due to lack of rain, and our part of Massachusetts was officially in a moderate drought, as has recently happened year after year. Then, with a single night of heavy rains, we have flooding so severe that local stores are still closed this morning trying to mop up, and our local hospital evacuated patients.
As the rain lightens up today, we’ll be out to evaluate and salvage things.
Thank you all for your support and well wishes, and I will communicate any changes to this week’s pre-orders if need be — so far, the main things that we have for sale all seem fine, it was mostly later-season crops that have severe damage.
Meghan Buckley is the co-founder of Stargazer Hollow, and is the business end of the farm.
Meghan handles the website and marketing, accounting, farmers markets, conference planning, and all the other little admin overhead that a farm needs.
She also loves getting her hands dirty, and helps with duck care, vegetable harvesting, and lots of cooking and canning!