Wet weather delays harvest for Southeastern Wisconsin farmers

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Farmers are cleaning up after this weekend's wet weather.

Rain, in moderation, can be a good thing for crops and soil.

A Menomonee Falls produce farmer told CBS 58 this downpour was just a little too much and too late.

Farmer Kathy Nedved owns Healthy Harvest Farm, a nonprofit that grows produce for Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin. 

She walked into work Monday morning to find her farm in need of some major clean-up. 

"The rain was heavier than I've ever seen it," Nedved said. "We got in (the hoop house), and it was just a couple of inches of water sitting on the floor."

The Menomonee Falls area got more than four inches, according to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. 

Nedved said there were between two to three inches in buckets on her farm.

She said the rainfall would have been more welcomed earlier this summer.

"If we would have gotten it in July or August, it would have been great, but we're at the end of the season. So now we've got a field with produce that we need to pick and it's muddy and we can't get in there," Nedved said.

Nedved said she needed to pick crops on Monday, including beans and zucchini.

"I started walking down here earlier today, just to get to the beans to pick, and I went about six inches down and I quickly back-tracked," Nedved said.

Instead, she spent the day trying to dry all of the water in the hoop house up. 

"We had to buy woodchips and we're trying to put them down to help at least absorb some of the water," Nedved said.

Nedved predicted it will take about four or five days before the ground dries out enough to pick the crops and prepare for winter. 

By then, she said some of the produce that is ready for harvest now will no longer be good.

"We're going to have a little bit of loss," Nedved said.

At the end of the day, Nedved remains positive, knowing there's not much that could have been done to prevent the situation. 

"It's Mother Nature. When you're in the farming business, you take what you get. You got some good days, you get some bad days, and that's what it is," Nedved said.