You know it's July on a New Hampshire vegetable farm when the best fantasy a farmer can muster up is washing the dishes.
Why, washing the dishes could take two or three hours, since there's no clean silverware, plates, bowls, glasses, pots or pans. Two or three hours, in the nice shady cool house, standing up, as opposed to kneeling and weeding the endless rows of vegetables in the blazingly hot garden.
Washing dishes sounds like fun! It might even lead to a meal, since there will be both clean pots to cook in, and clean surfaces to chop on, and clean dishes to eat from.
Washing dishes wouldn't take much muscle, and not much brain power either, since a farmer's muscles and brain are both sagging in July. Harvesting three times a week, both for fifty-plus CSA members and for the farmers' market, means a fair amount of organization and detail, not to mention physical labor.
We are also sowing and transplanting the fall crops, irrigating, stringing up and pruning the tomatoes, trying to keep the cucumbers on the fence, trying to keep the woodchucks out of the greenhouses, the squash bugs away from the zucchini, the flea beetles away from the brassicas, the Colorado potato beetles out of the potatoes and the eggplant, the deer out of the garden, the horses in the fences, the farm pooch on a good walking schedule.
We can't forget the farm kitty, who must be pet at least once every few days, when she's not busy doing her rabbit-catching job in the garden. We are making hay with our horses, too, and the hay picking-up keeps coinciding with the 90 plus degree days. All the time the weeds are growing, everywhere at once, and our nightmares are of bindweed and quack grass and hairy galinsoga.
This is July, on a vegetable farm.
My other July fantasy is blinders. Work horses wear blinders on their bridles to help them focus on their task, and not be startled or distracted by everything they see with their nearly 360 degrees of vision. This farmer wants some blinders. I need help focusing on my task, of planting the fall broccoli, say, because the minute I step out of the house, a thousand million vegetables call for my help. Weed me! Water me! Feed me! Love me!
Oh, oh, oh, July.
Recently our dear daughter came to visit for the weekend. Why she came in July is a mystery.
“How's it going?” she asked me, which is a kind question, considering she knows exactly what July means here on this farm.
“Well, I'm a little overwhelmed,” I answered.
“Tell me about it,” she said, which was even kinder. Who wants to hear their parents list all the work that needs to be done? Especially if visiting for the weekend might mean doing some of that work?
“Really?” I said. “Tell you everything?”
“Yes,” she said, laughing at my eagerness.
I went through every crop in every greenhouse and garden section and told her every single thing that needed to be done. It took a long time.
“Wow,” said my daughter, “I can see why you feel overwhelmed,” and that was the kindest thing of all. A little sympathy goes a long way with this farmer, and pretty soon we were both laughing, about how much there was to do, and how we weren't doing it.
Instead we were nudging the dirty dishes over on the table, so that we could eat some chocolate chips and peanuts. Never mind the delicious snap peas, the delicious cherry tomatoes in July. Hee hee hee, we said. Chocolate chips and peanuts!
It's laughing or crying this time of year, it seems like. Or a good farmer fantasy, such as washing the dishes.
Originally published in the Monadnock Shopper News, July 23 - July 29, 2025