By: Diana Johnsen
djohnsen@kcautv.com
Vegetable farmer, Ron Muth runs Veggie Patch and Muth Farms just outside of Ireton, Iowa.
Raising chemical-free, organic raised vegetables, Ron grows his crops based on dry land farming. Meaning he waits for it to rain when mother nature wants to, which has caused a few problems.
"Generally, things like my sweet corn and items like that, there's no way I could do it without a big irrigation system, and there I got hurt pretty bad," recalled Ron.
Ron's sweet corn patches only produced about 30 percent of what they usually do.
With the heat and dry weather, he's only planted seven patches this summer instead of his usual ten.
Also, with the ground being so dry and choosing to stay chemical free and not spray for weeds, Ron has seen his fair share of fast growing weeds in some of his vegetable patches.
This has caused him to keep a much closer eye on them than in past summers.
"When they're smaller, I use little hand tillers or I cultivate. And, over and above that if something gets out of control it's by hand," Ron said.
Now, Ron said that he isn't down in the dirt about his vegetable farm just yet. He still is able to bring a wide variety of healthy and chemical-free vegetables to the Sioux City Farmers Market each week.
He just hopes the weeds stay under control and the rain soon get here.
