Harvest 2019 a Goldilocks year

Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry – to hear farmers tell it, farming is a lot like Goldilocks and the three bears.

Let’s start with too cold. For Dean Swanson, Feb. 8 is where this year’s berry crop began.

In January, temperatures were mild and the buds on Swanson’s berry bushes on La Conner Whitney Road were plump and healthy. “I thought winter was over,” he said. “I was wrong.”

On Jan. 8 the temperature plummeted to 12 degrees. Tayberries, marionberries and boysenberries “got hammered.” Yields for these damaged plants were down about 70 percent this summer.

Cold weather put Beth Hail...