Ray Goddard, whose family has been growing vegetables on the hills above Otago Harbour since 1946, said yesterday conditions were almost "impossible" after the wettest week he could recall.
"The paddocks are just a floating quagmire".
Mr Goddard said he had crops of carrots, yams, broccoli, cabbages and potatoes and while everything was "growing OK", he was concerned about water lying in his carrot patch ". . . the whole lot of them are starting to go bad on the bottom".
Mr Goddard supplies about half a tonne of carrots to the Otago Farmers' Market each Saturday, only digging them when required to ensure they remained fresh.
"The best store-room is in the soil. Especially for crops like yams and potatoes and things . . ."
But, in such wet conditions his days are stretching into the night and his four-wheel-drive tractor is struggling to make it up the steep, slippery hills of his 10-12ha market garden.
On the Taieri Plain, one of the few remaining large-scale market gardeners, Graeme Young, of Outram, told the Otago Daily Times conditions were "very unpleasant" with "mud up to our eyeballs every day".
He did not grow many root crops, which were the most difficult to harvest in wet weather, but was having trouble getting tractor-loads of leeks, cabbages and cauliflower out of wet paddocks.
"You just learn to cope . . . we just go ahead and get on with it."
Mr Young said most other market gardeners on the Taieri had gone out of business.
"They've all seen the light. We're the only Mr Muggins left on the plains."
The few market gardeners left in North Otago are also struggling with the wet conditions.
Steven Joe of Alma, south of Oamaru, said parts of his family's 50ha property were like a swamp, although crops had not been damaged.
"It just makes things mucky and it takes a lot longer to harvest them."
He was optimistic that a change in the weather was on the way.
