It’s crunch time. More than usual, I mean. As I’ve mentioned here before, there are so many tasks that really need to be done before the first part of August (I’ve decided, only partly arbitrarily, that August 7 is the date this season), after which our window for effective action rapidly begins to close. If the tomatoes aren’t strung now, beginning to string them then won’t help. If the organic fertilizers and soil amendments the plants need aren’t spread now, starting to apply them then won’t make much of a difference. If certain vegetables aren’t transplanted or seeded now, they won’t have enough time to come to maturity before the end of the season. And if a particular crop isn’t weeded now, better to mow it down and plant something else, or even sow a cover crop, than try to rescue and reap a harvest from it. Late August can be a time of hard choices, is what I’m saying—or, at best, a time of letting go, of accepting what is as the best that could be done under the circumstances of the season.

But we’re not at that point. Not yet. And the longer I farm, the more I know where and when to apply my resources to maximum effect. Hard work intelligently applied now can still bring great benefits the second half of the season. So we’re working hard, with purpose and urgency, one eye on the fields, and one on the clock, making the most of this time that we can.