Washington: Cold hits sweet corn hard

Plagued by cold, wet and even snowy weather in spring and then a cool growing season, sweet corn growers in Western Washington are not a happy lot.

"Our corn didn't do worth a damn," said Olympic Peninsula grower Nash Huber. "It was too slow to germinate and too late to ripen. I don't know if I've ever seen it so bad for corn in the 40 years I've been farming."

Huber said he typically has some corn to sell by mid-August and early September, but this year it's different.

"Here it is mid-October and we're picking some of our early stands," he said.

Washington: Rating the '08 tomatoes : Chris Smith : Kitsap Sun

It's no secret that the summer of 2008 will be remembered as an awful time for heat loving crops. As one Seattle Master Gardener put it to me in a recent letter, the weather was "too cool in mornings July, August and September." As a result, tomato plants were undersize, less than loaded with fruit and late to bear.