We need to make another hard decision. It seems like farming is full of guessing and second-guessing. And here we are at another crossroads where the "right answer" (if there is one) is not clear.
The interesting weather we experienced over the summer meant that the beans we planted on the clay field did not germinate well, and/or were choked out by weeds that could handle the concrete-like clay soil better than the beans.
We have a field of weeds with a few beans scattered through them. Black Calypso, Black Turtle, Black Valentine, Hutterite Soup, Jacob's Cattle, Jacob's Cattle Gold, Marrow, Pinto, October, and Tiger Eye. Many of our (and our customer's) favorites.
The combine cannot handle the grassy weeds. In fact, it is on the edge of breaking again. We know there are hardly any beans out there. The choices we have are clear: try the combine and suffer the consequences of it breaking right before we need it to harvest corn and potentially losing that crop as well, hand-harvest (a seemingly-insurmountable task), or walk away. While the choices are clear, none of them is appealing.
What would you do?
If the rain doesn't force a decision on you tomorrow can you have a bean bee and have others help you harvest ?.....since I known nothing about hand harvesting dried beans.
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