Jack Frost is Knocking!
For the last two nights we have been receiving "freeze" and/or frost warnings in Sussex County. Saturday morning we had our crew harvest all the peppers & other tender crops to prevent any damage if the freeze did indeed come. Fortunately at the farm, we did not receive the predicted freeze or even a frost. Some surrounding areas did. Farmer Rich's hypothesis is that the dew point was at 34º, so all the moisture came out of the air & fell on the plants, then the temperature proceeded to drop to 31º, which he noticed while going to the Franklin greenhouse. When water starts to freeze it lets off heat, so we were able to avert the freeze. The principle is similar to when the Florida citrus growers turn on sprinklers when a freeze warning is issued. 
What happens with a freeze is that not all crops are destroyed, only the warm weather crops such as tomatoes peppers, eggplant, basil and squash. Meanwhile the kale, collards, Oriental greens, mustards and radishes are all in their prime. If temperatures get much below 25º they too will succumb to the weather. The crops in the hoop houses can take an additional 5º lower due to the extra protection.
We had a great garlic planting day and had over 20 people come up to help us plant garlic for the 2010 season. We got to meet some of our CSA members and their families. Though a cool day when the sun was behind the clouds, it was great when the sun popped out a few minutes here and there. We proceeded to pop, plant & mulch the garlic in less than 2 hours. After planting we had a great lunch and a good-bye to Ali who was leaving for California.
From the Fields: The autumn crops continue to do well. With the cool weather we have bok choi & radishes in the delivery this week. In the weeks to come we will be delivering some different varieties of mustard greens. The replanted lettuce may be a bit small, but we hope to have it for the end of season deliveries. You will start to see some chard, kale, celeriac and celery in the next few weeks.
The cover crop will be oats this year and we also plan to use oats over the planted garlic. The plan is that the oats will sprout & grow to December then will die over the winter and become mulch by the spring. This will help keep the weeds down over the garlic beds.
We are adjusting our work-day now that Ali is gone. Farmer Rich & Lisa worked on the last bunching of herbs & bok choi on Sunday. They are trying to get into a new rhythm for next week, as being one worker down they felt they were just not in the right tempo.
Weather Report: Friday we had another ½" of rain. Fortunately the beds were ready for the garlic planting and most of the beds drained well before Saturday morning. We lined the furrows with hay to keep everyone's knees from getting too muddy as they planted.
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.
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