Local gardeners and farmers work around drought

 

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. -- Local farmers and gardeners are certainly feeling the heat with little rainfall in Michiana over the past few weeks.

“It couldn’t have come at a worse time for such a fruit that everyone absolutely adores,” says Joe Ziegler, owner of Ziegler U-Pick Strawberries in North Liberty.

They say one thing’s for sure, it's added to their workload.

“Luckily this year we put in new irrigation, we’ve been able to move the sprinklers,” Ziegler says. “It’s been exhasuting moving the sprinklers every single night, but it’s what we had to do to get the strawberries to the customers.”

It’s the first time Joe Ziegler has had to deal with drought conditions throughout his five years at his ‘U-Pick Strawberry Patch’.

He says the toughest part was having to manually water nine acres of strawberry patches, making up for the lack of rainfall.

“It didn’t affect us as much as it could have,” admits Ziegler. “I definitely noticed it in spots, we could have had a better year with better rain.”

Over at Unity Gardens, the gardeners are also making it work despite the dryness!

“Unity Gardens has been doing pretty well all things considered,” says Sam Rush, an intern at Unity Gardens.

They say only a few crops have struggled in the heat, like spinach and arugula.

“The arugula, for example, has been bolting which happens when it starts getting these flowers and it makes it less edible,” Rush explains.

They're combatting the drought by rotating its sprinkling system around the garden to make sure every plant gets a drink.

“Basically, the sprinklers get moved to different poles every two hours,” Rush says.

Although they’re not letting the drought dry out their fruits and veggies, they both agree free water is the best water.

The volunteers at Unity Gardens tell me within a few weeks, closer to July, most of the fruits and veggies here will be in full bloom. Down at Ziegler’s, they say strawberry season is coming to an end, so this weekend will be their last weekend open to pick strawberries.