CURTICE, Ohio — A farm in Curtice is struggling to keep its crops and plants alive.
Owners at Bench Farms on State Route 2 said the sycamore tree they have has to be watered every two weeks.
Cindy Bench, co-owner of Bench Farms, said this year's been unusual in that the crops on her farm have been advanced earlier than usual.
"Sweet corn started two weeks earlier. Peaches, apples are starting two weeks earlier," Bench said. "There's already cider available and so it kind of makes me think that perhaps we're going to have an ending two weeks earlier, which means we might have an early frost this year."
She said this season they have being getting less rain.
"Every year is different. Last year we had pretty consistent rains about every week so we did not have to irrigate nearly as much for your home flowers, for our farm," Bench said. "It was a really nice growing season. It was not too hot."
However, this year things have been pretty different.
"We had way too much rain early and not enough rain now," Bench said. "So a lot of the plants that you normally wouldn't worry about going into the fall, we need to be concerned about now. Things like your perennials, trees and shrubs, making sure they get enough moisture."
Normally they don't worry about watering shrubs and their trees too much, especially well-established ones.
"But this year because it's been so dry and they were so stressed early on in the season because it was so wet and then the water just shut off," Bench said. "They're just stressed a lot."
Bench reiterates that you should not fertilize, just water low, slow and deep.
"We run a hose to all the different trees that are under 20 years old, and our shrubs just run it really low and slow all night long so it gets soaked down deep right by its root system," Bench said.
As vegetable season winds down, Bench encourages people to enjoy their local produce as it's available.
She said try not to water over your leaves, just water low, slow and deep so that water gets down to the roots. Bench said it's a good idea to do that from September and into October.