Most people think about seasonal affective disorder as a winter occurrence. But since June 8, there have only been four day of full sunshine and local farmers are trying to keep their spirits, as well as their crops, up.
Just on the heels of a soggy strawberry-picking season, newly planted corn may be in jeopardy and bales of hay need to dry out to be sold to horse and cattle owners.
"The rainy weather definitely affected how many people came out to pick strawberries this month," said Dan Hicks, owner of Sunnycrest Farm in Londonderry.
Hicks said that his four acres of strawberries fared well enough as they are planted on a tile draining system.
"We still have some late varieties that are ready to be picked," Hicks said.
"We have to keep picking them whether people come or not. This weather has been bad for everyone - golf courses, camp grounds."
Wayne Elwood of Elwood Orchards in Londonderry said he's "never seen as much rain as this June."
While the orchard lost a little of its strawberry crop to rain, Elwood is looking forward to the cherry and raspberry crops ready to be picked later this week, as is Hicks over at Sunnycrest.
"I'm waiting for the ground to dry to finish corn and bean planting," Elwood added.
Lorraine Merrill, New Hampshire Commissioner of Agriculture, said she has been receiving a lot of calls and e-mails from farmers bemoaning the weather.
"Corn is growing very slowly," she said.
Phil Ferdinando of J&F Farms in Derry said that he was out earlier this week with a shovel digging trenches so his strawberry crops could drain.
"The crop started out great with beautiful berries, but is started raining as soon as people began picking them," he said.
According to the National Weather Service, there have only been four days of total sunshine in June and 16 nonconsecutive days of rain since June 8.
It's bad news for horse and cattle farmers who need dry hay for feed.
Londonderry farmer Hank Peterson was purchasing a bale of hay from Ferdinando on Tuesday afternoon for a customer.
"I'm down to 15-20 bales of hay in my barn," Peterson said.
"This is worse than last year."
But the cool weather is good for some crops like lettuce and spinach, Merrill said.
"And the blueberries will be really big this year because of all the moisture," she added.
TOMATO/POTATO ALERT
A disease called "late blight" that infects tomatoes and potatoes, has been confirmed in New Hampshire reports the UNH Cooperative Extension on its Web site.
Late blight usually doesn't strike the Northeast until August, but the rainy, overcast weather has provided very favorable conditions for development and spread of the disease.
Classic symptoms include large, irregularly-shaped, water-soaked, olive-green-to-brown spots on leaves. Under wet or very humid conditions, a slightly fuzzy, white fungal growth may be visible on the underside of the leaf. Leaf lesions begin as tiny, irregularly-shaped dark green or brown spots. Brown to blackish irregular lesions also develop on upper stems. Firm, brown spots develop on tomato fruit, and infected fruit often looks bumpy.
Thoroughly inspect potato and tomato plantings on a daily basis, because late blight moves fast and can be difficult to control once established in a planting. If you see signs of infection, pull all infected plants from the ground, bag them up, and dispose of the bags in the trash. Do not put them in the compost or in a refuse heap.
Put a few samples (include several stems plus leaves and/or fruit) into a plastic bag and bring it to your County Extension office, but don't wait for confirmation to pull out the infected plants.
Don't touch healthy plants after handling infected plants until you've scrubbed your hands with soap and water thoroughly. For more information and photos showing diseased plants, visit www.http://extension.unh.edu/.
