Thoughts from the T-Shirt Lady

I can’t believe that Christmas is almost here. And to top it off - it’s been almost a month since my last post. Where has the time gone?

Not much has been going on this past month - and I really didn’t want to write some nonsense just to have something to post.

I went to the ocologist this past week for my 4th 3 month checkup - actually a year anniversary. Everything looked good, and I should be able to have the full results of the blood work sometime after Christmas. So I’ll post that when I get it.

My daughter had her last radiation treatment, has been to the surgeon for a check-up and starts her last 3 chemo treatments in January.

Our farm is winding down for the season. We have been selling collards, kale and turnips for the last couple of months - but that too is almost done. So now my dh will have to just figure out something else to do.

He hunts right now - but that ends the end of the month. Oh, well - he can start planning for his planting in the spring!!

I’ll try and post something after the holidays, just to let you know that I’m still here!

Sandi

Well some of our fall crops are starting to come in. We have turnips and salad greens. The collards are not ready yet. And to be honest - we don’t know what kind of crop we will have of collards, as we still have not had any rain. Our area is in a drought situation - almost a foot below the rain fall we should have by this time of year. Of course, the weather man is predicting that we will have rain on Friday - but to be honest - that’s the same weather report we get each week - and nothing ever comes of it.

The selling of our fall crops is different that summer. During the summer, I was out at the stand all day, and my dh would pick several times a day to replenish our stock. During the fall - we have to rely on people either stopping by and ordering, or calling and ordering - because once you pick greens they have a tendency to wilt really fast and then the customers would not want them. That’s fine - since it gives me more time to sew and work on my web site and whatever else I’d like to do.

Did I mention that we sell eggs too? We have about 26 chickens, and are getting almost 2 dz eggs a day. So a couple of times a week, I wash the eggs and get them ready to sell. So far we’ve done ok, and have sold most of the eggs by the end of each week. Hope it keeps up - of course, the eggs will continue thru the winter - when nothing else will be available for sale. So we are just counting on the customers loving our eggs so much - there’s nothing as good as fresh eggs - beats any that you can buy in the store!

My DH has decided that he needs a bigger tractor. Now that we are leasing almost 30 acres of land, he figures a bigger tractor will reduce the time that he has to work. I’m trying to convince him that he needs one with an air conditioned cab - as he gets older, he will need more protection from the heat and dust… but I think that type of tractor will be out of reach as far as price is concerned.

Of course, if it reduces the amount of time that it takes him to do certain tasks - I’ll end up with a DH sitting in the house, saying I’m bored… just like a little kid.

Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone who is so dedicated to what he does. He works from 6am til 7pm with very little down time. He has so much more energy and drive than I do - I’m so proud that he is industrious and hard working. Naturally, this is to help us with our retirement - but he loves farming and that’s a blessing.

Sandi

We finally sold out of all our summer produce. What a downer. I really enjoyed meeting people and chatting, and providing them with quality produce. We have all started going through sweet corn withdrawal

We still have tomatoes - but not enough to sell to a lot of customers. I have a couple of older gentlemen who come by about once a week, and just buy tomatoes - so I told them to come on Mondays and I would sell them what I have. That will probably only last a few more weeks.

We have started selling our free range eggs - they are still on the small side, but oh so good. Those we will sell on a regular basis from now on.

Fall produce will hopefully be ready later this month, and into October through December. We will be selling green beans, collards, turnips, kale and hanover salad. We may have pumpkins, though I’m not sure - they seem to have grown too quickly, and will certainly be ready way before Halloween! Though most of our customers said they wanted to use them for fall decorations in their yards. The pumpkins certainly won’t last too long - they will start to rot.

From what we understand, the greens are purchased with the idea of freezing them, so they are available through the holidays. Well, if we continue to sell them through the holidays, I hope we have repeat customers.

It feels really strange not going out to greet customers, or sit under the tent and wait for them to drive in the driveway. But my time has not been wasted. I have been working on my business and website, and getting a lot done. Oh, and I even went to the fabric store the other day - first excursion I’ve taken since we started the produce stand the beginning of June!

Sandi

It’s so exciting to have repeat customers come and tell us how much they enjoy our produce!

Believe it or not - we still have sweetcorn! Since my last post, we’ve had a couple of good rains, and the corn continues to grow and sell. We should have it for another 2 weeks or more.

The watermelons and cantaloupes continue to do well also.

Our butternut squash is ready to sell, though I don’t see it selling as well as the yellow squash we had earlier, but we do have a number of customers who at least know what it is and have eaten it before…

We are also selling tomatoes - though those have not done as well as I had hoped. Perhaps the lack of rain, or bugs or something else. This is the first year we have tried growing regular tomatoes - we have always grown cherry tomatoes and have had so many that we took them to work and gave them away! This year, however, even the cherry tomatoes have had a low production. We’ll see next year - we will try both again, and hope for a better output.

My dh has planted collards, kale, hanover salad, turnips, beets, peas, string beans, and I’m not sure what else, for the fall crops. We live in the south and greens ( collards, kale, and hanover salad) are very popular. We wanted to be able to have the produce stand in operation for quite a number of months - and if the weather holds out - we could be producing right through December. Of course… that will conflict with my husband’s hunting schedule, since he starts hunting the beginning of October and that goes through the end of December as well. We will see how it goes!

We’ve still having really hot days - I try to stay as cool as I can in the house. Looking forward to cooler days!

We should start being able to sell brown eggs in a few weeks as well. We’ve already gotten the egg washer and candler to make sure that the eggs are clean and are unfertilized. We have about 30 chickens, we are steadily gathering eggs - up to 16 now - but the eggs are all very small.

Many of our customers have asked about our eggs - The chickens have the whole fenced in yard around our house for their wandering. It’s quite a large front and back yard, and the customers can see them when they come to the stand. We supply the chickens with peelings, tomatoes that are too ripe or have holes, cantaloupes that are too ripe and watermelon rind, among other foods. We are ready as soon as the chickens are!

More later!

Sandi

We are now in the terribly hot days of August. We have had good rain a couple of times since my last post - of course we are still under low water conditions and are concerned about our crops. All of the farms around here are really hurting for rain - I’m so glad we don’t rely on our crops to make a living!

Our vegetables continue to be in great demand. My last post - we felt the watermelons were not going to make it. Well I have to tell you, those are the sweetest melons we have tasted, and there is a great demand for them. So relieved!

We have wonderful cantaloupes as well - several kinds, and they are popular as well. And of course our sweet corn continues to draw new and repeat customers. My DH says every day that he doesn’t know if the sweet corn we have growing now is going to fill out - nor how long we will continue to sell it - as it is really hurting for water. We could be down to just watermelon in a couple of weeks if we don’t see any relief.

Most days I stay indoors and just come out for the customers. It’s due to be in the high nineties and even 100 this week. Well, still get a lot of reading done - (I’m back to reading the Harry Potter series… haven’t gotten the latest one yet - as all of my others are in paper back, and I can wait…)

My tee shirts are continuing to sell - at the vegetable stand, and I’m also getting orders from those ladies who are buying what I have on hand. All in all - it’s working out fine!

More later

Sandi

Well, it certainly has been a busy month at our vegetable stand. When we started, we had a few different items, and customers every day. When the sweetcorn was finally ready, starting the 26th of June, word traveled fast, and we have had a lot more customers each day.

The situation in our area is one of very dry conditions. We have not had rain for a few weeks. Yet the corn continues to thrive. We really can’t figure it out - other than the water table being so close to the surface, lots of fertilizer that was applied, and spraying for bugs at the right time (my dh is so good with all that!) .

Our corn is very sweet, and we have many repeat customers. We are so pleased. Of course the produce stand is what I take care of - have even put some of my tee shirts out for sale - and I enjoy talking with everyone.

Most days are quite comfortable for me to sit outside, read for awhile, and just relax. These past few days the temps have been in the mid 90’s with a high heat index. So much of the time has been spent indoors - with me going outside as customers come in our driveway.

We finally started having some tomatoes for sale, and in a few days, we’ll also have cantaloupes. Our watermelons probably won’t produce anything that is good enough to sell - with the lack of rain.

Talk about rain - you should sit outside with me and watch the rain clouds. All they do, is circle our area and move on to other cities that have more than enough. It’s disheartening, but nothing we can do other than hope that each day brings a new promise of rain.

I have been pretty successful in selling my tee shirts at our produce stand. And that’s good, since there seems to be a lull on the internet as far as orders from my on-line website is concerned. Perhaps that’s just as well - since I don’t have much time each day to work on orders - up at 5:30 - do whatever I can for my business for a couple of hours. Pick tomatoes or blueberries before it gets too hot, get my tee shirts set out in our tent (tent stays up all the time) as well as all the other items I need for selling the veggies. Our stand opens at 10am but there are many days when customers show up before 9am, and that’s ok - if my dh has already picked a lot of produce for the day.

We officially close at 6:30pm - but again, there are times when customers pull in the driveway after that. Also, on Sunday’s we are open from 11am to 3pm - most of the time we don’t have customer come until noon or later - but 3pm doesn’t seem to be late enough as we often have customers drifting in for a couple of more hours. At this point we are trying to decide for next year if we will be open on Sundays. I opt for being open - but not until 1pm to 5pm instead of 11 to 3. Of course we already have business cards and fliers printed and distributed stating our current hours - so we don’t want to change it this year.

More later - and if you are in the area, do drop in!

Sandi

We opened our vegetable stand last Thursday, selling beets, carrots and squash. The number of customers have started to increase. We have a sign at the end of our driveway, and another down the block.

We plan on putting more signs out - creating fliers to hand out, and putting a message on an answering machine to announce what’s for sale each day.

We will have cucumbers, green beans and corn in about 10-14 days, and everyone asks us about our corn.

My DH’s green thumb is always showing, since he has the most beautiful vegetables growing.

We will have blueberries later - though we lost the first blossoms on the bushes when we had a late hard frost back in the beginning of May. So we won’t have as many berries as we have had in past years.

My DH goes out each morning and picks the vegetables we will sell that day. Any left over at the end of the day gets donated to a charity.

My job is to sit outside all day (with frequent trips inside the house) and wait on customers. I’m getting a lot of reading done…. But that’s ok - things will really pick up once our corn is in. And it’s nice to talk to all the local people that come by.

If you are in the neighborhood - we live in Suffolk VA - do drop in - we’d love to have you stop by.

Sandi

After the last snow and cold snap we had, my DH checked out our early crops.

As I had mentioned before, he did an early planting of the corn. Well the leaves turned yellow and we thought for sure it was going to have to be plowed under. But it is growing - he doesn’t think it will be really good - since the frost, but we will have to see.

Everything else - peas, carrots and potatoes seem to be ok. My blueberry bushes don’t look all that great. I think the front did damage to the first blossoms. If it doesn’t affect the remainder of the blueberry harvest - we will still be able to sell them. We always have such a large amount of blueberries and they are a good seller in this area. Here’s hoping!

It’s still very cool - can’t wait for spring to get here in earnest. Then we will really begin to see the fruits of my DH’s labor!

And I do love to watch him on the tractor!

Sandi

Yesterday was the 8th of April, and it SNOWED!

We live in the southeastern corner of Virginia, almost to the North Carolina border. So by now, it’s supposed to be getting warm and we should be seeing crops starting to grow.

My DH - the farmer - has planted potatoes, peas, carrots, and sweet corn already, with the hopes that we will have a good crop this year and be able to sell some of our produce. The sweet corn was an early planting - he always tries to get one of those in each year. Since the major portion of our vegetables is sweet corn, he will be planting that every so often through out the coming months.

Well, when it snowed yesterday - actually we saw lots of small and large snowflakes, all day - but since the air temp was about 40 - none of it stuck. However, it went down to the 20’s last nite, and that doesn’t bode well for the crops already coming up.

DH went out yesterday afternoon, and covered the potato plants with dirt in the hopes that they will not be hit very hard with the cold temps from last nite.

The early corn might be a loss. The carrots are coming up, but most of the veg is underground, and we don’t think the ground froze as the temps have been more in the 50s-70s range for the last couple of weeks.

He also needs to look at our blueberry bushes and see how the cold affected them.

I’m glad we don’t depend on our farming to support us. I feel for all the farmers who do - the weather plays a big part.

I asked my DH if he had checked any of the crops yet - he hasn’t. Will update with more info after he has seen what damage there is.

Once our crops start coming in, and we are ready to sell - we will put an ad in the paper. If you all are in the area, don’t forget to stop in!

Sandi