NAVARINO, WI (WTAQ) – An extremely soggy spring, summer, and now fall, has local farmers worried about their upcoming harvest.
“Just to put it nicely, it’s just been a struggle. It’s been a very, very poor growing season.” said Troy Porter, Porter’s Patch Owner.
And the wet weather is also forcing some seasonal activities to be delayed.
On a five-acre field near Porter’s Patch in Navarino, Porter is looking for signs of the season.
“This would be our humongous pumpkin. As you can see, this is a nice green one. Not the color we like to see, but,” he said.
He jokes about the green gourd, but he says he would rather see orange.
“Pumpkins, gourds, squash. That’s all way behind. We figure three-four weeks from normal,” said Porter.
Porter says it’s been a very wet season, and a soggy September too.
“It was seven inches in 12 days. And that left a lot of water standing,” he said.
For the very first time, Porters’ Patch pushed back its annual Farmtoberfest celebration.
“We run seven weekends here, and we felt if we would have had a crowd last weekend and all this water, and stuff. It would have turned into a mud field that would be the end of our grass, and we would have had mud for the rest of the year,” said Porter.
He says if conditions improve, Farmtoberfest is scheduled to open on Saturday.
Back in the patch, Porter says many pumpkins won’t have enough growing time to ripen this season. He says those humongous pumpkins that do make it could be ready by the first week of October at the earliest.
“We’ll have pumpkins. It’s not going to be a bountiful harvest this year. Nowhere near that, Unfortunately, but that’s just the way it is,” said Porter.
