As you have been reading, the tomato blight has hit NJ farms especially hard this season. The tomato blight that is hitting this year is the "late" variety which is also known as Phytophthora infestans and is what caused the Irish potato famine. It can infect and destroy the leaves, stems, fruits, and tubers of potato and tomato plants. Probably the main reason it is so bad this year than in any year in the recent past is that it is most active during conditions of high moisture and moderate temperatures, which of course has been our entire season!
We network with other local farmers, and have been fortunate that we can get some tomatoes from them to supplement the deliveries as our tomatoes are way behind. In another newsletter a few weeks ago we did mention we lost our back field which was about 1/3 of our planting. Though the variety and quantity is not what we wanted to deliver, there will be some tomatoes coming in weekly.
We hope to meet many of you at the 10th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting this Sunday at the Hoboken Historical Museum. We will have what varieties we can offer as well as some fresh produce from ours as well as our local farmer friends.
From the Fields: Our cucumbers & squash that were planted in the garlic beds are doing well.
Farmer Rich hopes to plant some Dicon radishes, beets and lettuces this week. We harvested the remainder of our potato crop. We did have some crop losses (at least half) due to the blight affecting the potatoes as well.
During the week Farmer Rich and the crew fixed out our main on-farm road which had been washed out from the excessive storms we have had.
About 14 people joined us on Saturday for our summer Work-Day at the farm and we planted two long rows of winter squash. Thanks to all who assisted. It was a hot day, but at least a cool breeze was blowing and we all at quite a great lunch, with Farmer Sue cooking up fresh picked potatoes & onions, fresh picked salad, fresh bruschetta made by Farmer Rich and a wealth of other goodies that everyone brought up.
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Weather Report: Nice weather for most of the week, though hot & humid. The plants needed some sun & the heat was great for the tomato, eggplant & pepper plants.
Animal report: Our animal attack of the week involved Farmer Rich encountering a ground hog in our squash fields at Scott's who was a bit dazed after eating two rows of summer squash. He especially like the yellow zucchini. The ground hog probably ate so much that it really didn't want to run when it saw Farmer Rich. The crew usually harvests every day, so missing out on harvesting Saturday due to the work-day at the farm invited the ground hog to have free rain for at least a day. 
Upcoming Events: 10th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting -
August 23rd - 1- 5 pm Hoboken Historical Museum 1301 Hudson Street Hoboken, NJ
Pick of the Week: click on the links below or to the right to bring you to the delivery specific to your pick-up location. Deliveries will be of similar variety & poundage, but may contain different items. Occasionally, some crops are ready to harvest but not enough to deliver to all our drop-off locations. What we do is start to filter them in each week to a different drop-off until there is enough to delivery to everyone.
- Recipe Links
- Beth Haverim Shir Shalom Delivery
- Crossfit Hoboken
- Franklin
- Hoboken Midtown Delivery
- Hoboken South Delivery
- Hoboken West Delivery
- Jersey City Hamilton Park Delivery
1 comment:
I really enjoyed the Hoboken Festival today and blogged about it at:
http://cheznoonie.blogspot.com/2009/08/despite-blight-adventures-in-heirloom.html
Keep up the good work!
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