No time to relax as Whittle's farm readies for Labor Day weekend
Groton — Rick Whittle snapped an ear of Sweet Temptation butter and sugar corn from one of the 6-foot stalks growing in his field off Yetter Road.
“A few more hot days,” he said Monday, noting the rows of still immature cream- and golden-colored kernels. “We’ve got 10 pickers, and they’ll pick 3,500 ears for Labor Day in 45 minutes, and an hour later someone will be buying it.”
With the three-day Labor Day weekend approaching, Whittle, who owns of Whittle’s Willow Spring Farm with his uncle William Whittle, is checking the rows of slicing and grape tomatoes, noting which Sugar Baby watermelons and summer squash are ripe, tugging at the early Milton apples that are ready for harvest while the McIntosh and Cortlands wait on the trees for the pick-your-own customers to start after the holiday.
And all the while, between remembering not to neglect the pumpkins, winter squash, gourds and other fall crops, he keeps a close eye on the acres of sweet corn — both butter and sugar and Silver Queen varieties — that are the biggest seller for Whittle’s, going for $7 a dozen.
“Up until 10 years ago, we were always closed on Labor Day,” said Whittle, a fourth-generation farmer who inherited the 80 acres of fields and 286 acres of forest, ledge and swamp from his late father, Robert, who also passed along log books of his planting schedules that his son follows. “Now, it’s one of our busiest days. You only have so many days to make it, so why throw one away?”
After sweet corn, Whittle’s Labor Day weekend customers come mainly for the tomatoes, green beans and melons — “like a picnic,” he said — but the farm’s eggs, honey and other fruits and vegetables are big draws, too. The farm stand, in a converted barn on Noank Ledyard Road, will be about 50 percent busier than normal this Saturday and Sunday, “and Monday will be three times busier than any other Monday.”
“From now until Oct. 1 is a crazy time of year for us,” he said, walking past rows of corn planted late in the season for harvest through the fall. “We’ve got to do all the summer harvesting, plus start bringing up the fall crops.”
But like other local farmers, Whittle has had to step in where Mother Nature fell short this summer to keep his farm stand and displays at the four local farmers markets where he sells supplied. Irrigation is being used more extensively this summer than in many years on fields throughout the state, and Whittle’s is no exception.
“It’s the first time we’ve had to use our irrigation system in 10 years,” he said. “It cost me about $100 a day in labor and $50 in gas when we did it. That’s $150 we wouldn’t have had to spend if it would have just rained.”
The irrigation system was built by his grandfather, Frederick, using thousands of feet of pipe and World War II-era pumps that pull water from three ponds on the property. Moving the system from field to field over a two-week span earlier this summer, Whittle and his crews were able to shoot sprays of water over the dry fields to keep the crops growing.
“Every two hours we had to move the pipes,” he said. Since the heavy rain about two weeks ago, he added, he hasn’t had to use the system again.
While he found a way to overcome the lack of rain, he’s learned to live with some other challenges that come on four legs. Years ago, he said, raccoons, woodchucks and rabbits were proliferating on his farm, helping themselves to his fruits and vegetables. Lately, though, coyotes have moved into the area and are keeping the populations of the smaller animals in check. But they extract a payment for their services.
“The coyotes have taken a liking to sweet corn,” he said. “They set up like a camp in a 10-foot circle in the fields” and consume all the ears within the area.
“But I’ll take the trade,” Whittle said.
Those losses, he said, are more than made up by the longer growing season he’s been taking advantage of in recent years, filling the farm stand with summer squash, sweet corn, cucumbers and other crops well into fall.
“The weather has changed,” he said. “Now, it enables us to get three plantings a year in.”
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