ARKANSAS, USA — Tara Stainton is the owner of Rattle’s Garden and has been growing produce for about 15 years now. She said what started as a hobby quickly turned into a business.
“Over the years, it just grew and grew and grew until we had more than what we could eat,” said Stainton.
Like many farmers, the dry conditions and lack of rain had her worried, but not for her fruits and vegetables.
Luckily, she has a water system that helps to make sure all her produce gets the exact amount of water that they need.
Stainton said the one thing she was worried about is wildfire danger.
“We're standing in a high tunnel, it would not take much for me to lose this if we did have fire come across our field,” said Stainton.
Fortunately, they’ve been okay and although the current produce is good to go, preparation for next season is already underway.
“We cover crop all of our vegetable fields, get them ready,” said Stainton. “And you can see we've still got some stuff standing in some fields.”
Stainton said waiting for rain put them behind on that process.
“Normally, we would have clover, clover and rye grass growing in our fields. We haven't had enough rain to germinate those seeds,” said Stainton.
“Right now, we're about a month, month, and a half behind on being able to do that because we haven't had any rain on the farm for at least eight weeks,” said Stainton.
The rain over the weekend put a stop to what could've been a huge obstacle.
“It's going to make our next several projects just a lot easier and getting farm ready for the winter,” said Stainton.
She's not the only Arkansas farmer thankful for this.
“Whether it's forestry, livestock, hay, row crops produce, I think everyone's very, very happy about the rain we got,” said Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward.
Ward said although more rain is needed plenty of farmers are feeling like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders.
“Just getting some additional soil moisture for into the ground that hopefully will carry over for a little bit,” said Ward.