Robert and Nicole Goetz missed the window to plant tomatoes this year.

There was too much rain. And so they won't have tomatoes to sell.

"We completely missed tomato season," Nicole Goetz said. "It rained for the entire window."

The couple grows herbs and vegetables and raises chickens, goats and turkeys on their nine-acre farm in rural Marshall, which they call Frontière Farm House.

Near-record rainfall has created problems for Michigan farms of all sizes. The wet ground has made it difficult to plant certain crops during their planting windows.

Many larger growers have been faced the decision over whether to abandon their corn and soybean crops and plant something else or to plant a cover crop and file a claim against their insurance.

But the problems created by too much rain are felt more sharply by small farmers, who have less land, less equipment, less insurance and, often, less time.

Rain isn't always a good thing

June had more than twice as much rainfall than normal in Lansing, the closest area where the National Weather Service records data.

The average June rainfall is 3.03 inches. There had been 7.45 inches as of Thursday.

Rain is essential for a successful farm, but a flooded farm can cause as many problems as a drought.

The Goetzes have had acres of onions, lettuce and other vegetables completely submerged in water, making the crops nearly impossible to salvage.

Both of them grew up in cities, Robert in Ann Arbor and Nicole in Windsor, and neither had a lot of experience working on farms when they started their farm two and a half years ago.

Nicole Goetz has taken the farm on as her full-time responsibility.

Robert Goetz still works all day as an engineer and can only be on the farm first thing in the morning and in the evening.

He said there have been many days this year when it has been nice enough during the day to get work done on the farm, but, by the time, he got home from work, it was raining, and he was unable to get anything accomplished.

“If I was able to dedicate all my time to the farm, I would be able to sneak out during a bright spot during the day,” he said. “Working all day prevents me from taking advantage of a nice part of a day.”

They also do not bring in enough revenue to buy some of the farm equipment that bigger farms use, including equipment that makes wet ground easier to till.

“Mud is a lot heavier than dirt,” Nicole Goetz said. “When we’re using our hands to do most of this work, it makes it much more difficult.

It's a problem shared this year by other small farmers.

"For smaller farms where equipment or labor limits the number of acres that can get planted in a hurry, it was difficult to get weeds controlled with tillage" and herbicide, said Eric Anderson, field crops expert for Michigan State University Extension.

It’s not just the rain that’s hurting

The cold hasn't helped.

“Plants need sun, but they also need warmth,” Nicole Goetz said. “We just haven’t gotten the warmth to properly grow our food.”

Anderson said soil temperatures didn't reach their proper levels until much later this year.

"We started the planting season roughly two weeks behind in heat units," he said.

For the Goetzes, the cold meant spending more time tending to their chickens.

“We have to put the crops on hold until the health of our animals is good because we have a life in our hands at that point," Nicole Goetz said.

Will this affect the price of food?

Nick Juhle, the director of research for Greenleaf Trust, said that most of the big corporations will not see a rise in food prices because of the rainfall.

“The big distributors like Meijer have sourcing networks much bigger than local farms,” he said. “Sure, there may not be the same glut of some of the regional fruits and vegetables, but nothing major.”

Robert and Nicole Goetz buy from other local farmers and are worried about increases in the price of the grain they used to feed their animals.

“Grain will be tough to come by this year,” Robert Goetz said.

Moving Forward

But what the Goetzes have lost from rainfall, they'll gain back from expansion. Two and a half years ago, their garden was a fraction of the size it is now.

"The garden has come a long way," Robert Goetz said. "It's so much better than what it started out."

The couple owns several acres of farmland that aren't in use right now, and they plan on continuing to expand the farm a little bit each year.

Robert Goetz has plans to start growing a greater variety of crops and more of them. Nicole Goetz wants to start raising pigs.

"We're excited for what the future holds," Nicole Goetz said. "We don't plan on changing a whole lot, but we're getting better each year."

Contact Brooks Hepp at (269) 223-0114 or bhepp@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BrooksHepp.

Frontière Farm House

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