MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. – Local farms have been battling with weather conditions this summer from extreme heat to historic flooding.

Andy Welle, the general manager of Theis Farm, said July’s rain helped the plants. 

“It quickly rose and it quickly left. So, everything was able to drain within two days, we started seeing water leaving the property,” said Welle. “It was great. It’s hard to believe it was that quick. A lot of crops have improved because of the amount of water that they got. Other ones were injured to a degree. Pumpkins down here really took a little bit of a beating, but they’re coming out of it and I think we’re still going to manage to get a pretty good pumpkin crop.” 

He said prior to the rain, they were only producing enough fruit and vegetables for their market.

“Since we’ve had the rains, we’ve actually been able to wholesale a lot more cucumbers, which we didn’t do before all the rains came,” said Welle. “Squash is the same way, a lot more squash coming out of the fields than it was prior to the rain.”

He said summer fruits such as watermelons and cantaloupe are ripe and ready to eat.

“Finally, the watermelons are coming in, so we’re actually going to have a little watermelon sampling tomorrow here at the farm,” said Welle. “We’ve got about five different types of watermelons. We’re going to have the cantaloupes and stuff.”