Greetings from the farm,

2026 Summer
Hope everyone is surviving the rainy week. It has been a week of strategic harvesting. All the rain and mud have made it tough to get everything ready this week. On top of that having a rainy forecast for this weekend, things have been gloomy. But we are loaded on crops and there are only so many weekends left, so we are making the most of it! Many of our Pumpkin customers placed their orders for delivery this week, ahead of the Fall season demand spiking. So we had a lot of commitments to fulfil, but almost zero dry conditions for harvesting. With Pumpking harvesting, we normally pick directly into bins and sell the bins of pumpkins from there. When those bins are picked dry, we can wipe off the little bit of hardened dirt and they become presentable. When they are picked wet, it is extremely difficult to harvest without smearing them and wiping off any clumps of dirt/mud becomes impossible. That is when we would need to get them back to the farm, unload the bins, wash them and re-bin them. This triples the work compared to dry conditions. Not to mention the difficulty in trying not to get stuck in the fields in that process. The only day we had fairly dry conditions this week was Monday, so after last weekend, we went crazy on harvesting for our orders. We were able to get about all of it done somehow and after the rain kept on with fresh produce harvesting. Of course, most of the fresh produce needed to be washed, but that's not nearly as costly to do as pumpkins. Sweet Potatoes never really dried out enough to dig this week unfortunatly. We will try this afternoon yet, but it isn't looking promising. Most of everything else is good to go! Next week we will be attending the Elkhorn Flea Market, which is a big Pumpkin sale day (if the weather is right). So things won't be slowing down going into next week! We are hopeful for better weather though. Praying for the rain to lessen for this weekend still!

~ Geneva Lakes Produce Team and Koster Family