Blackberries are usually ripe by now in the Navarino Wildlife Area, which is what prompted Navarino Nature Center to plan a fun event involving blackberry picking.
But the event, originally scheduled for Aug. 7, had to be pushed back a week when blackberries were nowhere ripe enough to be picked, according to Jackie Wilber, assistant naturalist for the center.
Then the event was postponed indefinitely when Aug. 14 rolled around, and the blackberries were still not ready.
The event, which Wilber hopes to reschedule in the future, generated a lot of interest, according to Wilber, but there were far too few berries to satisfy the people that had planned to come.
“I had about 30 or so people who were coming out to fill ice cream pails, and only about three or four berries,” Wilber said. “It would have been the best program ever.”
The blackberries exemplify the difficult growing season in Wisconsin this year. An extended winter, in concert with a cooler than usual summer, has delayed crop harvests, said Jamie Patton, University of Wisconsin-Extension agriculture agent for Shawano County.
Corn will be a little iffy this year, depending on when it was planted, she said. Without enough warm growing days, only some of the crops are tall enough to be harvested.
“As you look around the county, we have corn in various growth stages,” Patton said. “We have some that was planted early enough.”
That corn is expected to be harvested in early September for silage. Due to rainy conditions for the second half of spring, the corn planted later in the season is in limbo, according to Patton.
“There’s a low probability that it’s going to be ready to chop,” she said.
Temperatures reached the 90s this week after weeks of highs averaging in the mid to high 70s. The average high for this time of year is about 80, according to National Weather Service records.
Louis Schmidt, who grows corn west of Gresham, is one of the lucky ones. He plants his corn on sandy loam soil, so his corn has been harvestable.
Schmidt was able to provide 14 dozen ears of corn to St. Francis Solanus Catholic Church in Gresham for its first-ever community corn festival Wednesday, and he said he had plenty.
“We could still use a good rain,” Schmidt said, noting his corn is about two weeks behind its normal schedule. “It’s late. The cobs didn’t quite fill out to the end, but I guess it’s good. Everybody (at the dinner) is saying it’s good.”
Soybean plants are in better shape than corn, according to Patton. The only thing that could diminish the harvest would be an early freeze, she said.
“I’ve heard some people talking about an early frost. There’s been a hint of that going around the county,” Patton said. “If that happens, what that would do is keep the plant from growing and maturing, so some significant decisions would have to be made at that point on how we’re going to handle that crop, because it will begin to dry down.”
Fruits are not faring well this year as fungi incidents are increasing, Patton said. The few hot and humid days the area experienced generated downy mildew and other fungi that attack fruit trees.
“We sent off some samples of cherries to the disease lab trying to figure out what is going on and what can be done to save these trees,” Patton said, noting that the cherry samples came from homeowners’ smaller gardens.
Insect numbers are on the rise, also impacting people’s gardens, according to Patton.
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