The cold, wet weather this month has set the vegetable growing season behind in some parts of New England. And some farmers are already dealing with crop loss.
Seeds for sweet corn, peas and beets didn't make it for some farmers, who were affected by a false start to spring.
Other growers who planted seedlings for onions, cabbage and beets have lost some of those plants, too.
That's according to Katie Campbell-Nelson, a vegetable expert with the UMass Extension in Amherst.
She said Mother Nature has done growers no favors, so far, but can still lend a helping hand.
"Even though we're getting a late start to seeds actually going into the ground," she said, "the hope is that when it warms up, it'll warm up really quickly. And as soon as we get going, we'll catch right up to where usually are during the growing season."
Campbell-Nelson said there's still time for farmers to reseed lost vegetables, but that could be a costly proposition.
![Wade Dooley, in Albion, Iowa, uses less fertilizer than most farmers because he grows rye and alfalfa, along with corn and soybeans. "This field [of rye] has not been fertilized at all," he says.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0197a00/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1841x1026+0+177/resize/560x312!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2017%2F08%2F22%2Fimg_0086-4ad8a5270bcf6a8a5fac7f27a9d172a44a1558b9.jpg)
