This is a difficult post, but so often things that are good for us are difficult. Through these things God grows us into who He wants us to be. So…

I need to let you know the status of the farm. Last year we fought both cane blight that lowered our yield to the point of closeing several weeks early, but we also have a disease called crown gall.

Blight can be dealt with and recovered from, but crown gall is known as the cancer of the plant world because of the way it systemically infects the plants. Once it enters into the plant, even if the pathogen is removed from the area, that plant will forever be infected and will continue to grow weaker and non-productive, all the while shedding the disease and thereby infecting other plants that surround it.

Gall is soil born and enters through any wounds to the plant tissue, such as from pruning, cultivating and even during the planting process. The only remedy to crown gall is to remove and destroy infected plants.

We had a lot of infected plants. And because it can take a year or two to fully manifest itself, we suspect we had more plants infected than were showing signs yet. We made the heart wrenching decision to destroy all the plants in the field so we can get at the root of the problem, so to speak.

In order to rid the field as best we can of this disease, we can either sterilize the entire field or plant the area to grass for 3-5 years and rid the soil of the disease by depriving it of a host (it only affects woody plants like the berries.) Streriliztion is not a practical option for us at this time so we have had to accept that, at least for a few years, the berries will have to be put on hold.

Only God knows when exactly we will be able to plant again, but we will endeavor to stay in His will while letting Him know through prayer that the farm is something that we want to do in the future! : )

Thank you so much for your continued interest and support of the farm.

Penny