KLINGERSTOWN - The sun was shining on Schaeffer's Farm on Wednesday afternoon, illuminating rows of green leaves, from cabbage planted in mid April to perennial fruit trees.
But when farmer Jeff Schaeffer started talking about how the season was going, starting with the mild winter and showers in April and May, he said, "I won't paint a pretty picture."
Schaeffer said annually he plants more than 40 crops on his 102-acre farm. Recent rains have damaged some of his strawberry crops and have prevented him from planting a second patch of cabbage with more than $8,000 worth of seedlings.
"Diversity is the key to survival. If some crops fail, others may flourish. It takes me about $35,000 to plant this farm every spring. Most years I'd be better off going to Atlantic City to gamble it. Either way, it's a risk," said Schaeffer, 50, a third-generation farmer.
He'll be among the farmers who were in Pottsville on Saturday for the kickoff of the 10th annual Pottsville Farmers Market at the Arch Street Parking Lot. It will be open from 8 a.m. to noon every Saturday from now until November, according to Amy S. Burkhart, executive director of Pottsville Area Development Corp.
Other farmers scheduled to be there include Rumbel's of Ringtown and Little Peace Farm of Auburn, Burkhart said Thursday.
The only thing farmers can look forward to year after year is that the weather is unpredictable, Schaeffer said.
Elizabeth Hinkel, district manager of Schuylkill Conservation District, Pottsville, said the lack of snow this winter has burned them in a few ways.
"The main problem that most of the farmers are fighting this spring is just weed issues and insects. And that's caused by that lack of winter," Hinkel said.
Hinkel is a sixth-generation farmer. Her parents have a farm in Ringtown. She and her husband, Jared, have a farm in Hegins.
"While farmers burned the weeds off with herbicides to protect the corn crops, in some places the fields are green with weeds again," she said.
Meanwhile spring rains hit some farmers more than others, depending on their location.
"My parents got a lot of rain, up to four inches. Overall, we didn't do too bad as far as washing. Most of our fields stayed in place. We have some ditches, but overall we're okay. We have a lot of hay in rotation so that kind of cut down on the amount of washing that we had. Where my husband's farm is, like in Hegins and Barry Township and that area, they really didn't get all that heavy rain. We got about an inch, which was like the perfect amount," Hinkel said of recent storms.
"The farmers who planted early are liking this rain. Me, I got 12 acres worth of cabbage, about 190,000 seedlings, in the cooler here that I can't get in the ground. It's not dry enough so we can the ground in the condition we need it to plant," Schaeffer said.
If the ground conditions aren't satisfactory for planting by Wednesday, Schaeffer said the seedlings will spoil and will have to be thrown out.
"It doesn't take long to lose thousands of dollars in this business," he said.
Schaeffer said he was enjoying the sunshine Wednesday, but not the humidity. It can spur disease, he said.
"We have grain that's almost ready to cut. But if it keeps raining, there's a chance that the grain's going to get moldy before we cut it," Schaeffer said.