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Friday, January 01, 2010

Happy New Year

chardinthe snow.jpgHappy New Year! We wish you all to have a healthy & prosperous 2010. As we gear up for 2010, we have accomplished quite a bit during the post-harvest 2009 season. The warmer late autumn weather allowed for a great amount of work to be done at the farm . It was great to be able to do some maintenance and clean up, as this allows for more productive time to be spent in the early spring in the greenhouses.



New greenhouse under constructionNewGreenhouse2009.jpg

A new 17' x 48' greenhouse is under construction at the farm. It will be used for transplant production in the spring and then planting tomatoes for CSA deliveries. Farmer Rich & friends were able to get the footings in as well as the metal framing. They had a dilemma in how to get the footings in place, but John & Gary came up with utilizing a jack hammer to make the holes for the footings. With cold weather & frozen ground this project is on temporary hold at this time, but we hope for warmer winter temperatures to eventually come. Then the greenhouse ends can be framed and the doors hung.

Our large 100' greenhouse is under repair. The baseboard is being replaced and some of the poles as well. It was long overdue (this is our oldest greenhouse). We removed the plastic for the winter, so the greenhouse wouldn't collapse with heavy snow.

Upcoming Conventions:

We are planning on going to the NJ Vegetable Growers Convention January 12-14 in Atlantic City as well as the NOFA-NJ Convention on January 30th @ Rutgers Douglass Campus Center in New Brunswick. Both conventions enable us to network with other farmers, gain new ideas and share our experiences with others.

New Field:

Farmer Rich started to map out a new 50' x 150' field. We actually started construction late autumn. Field preparation included cleaning up the brush and picking rocks. It will be tilled in the spring for planting (hopefully). Its location has afternoon shade, so it would be great for planting greens to shield them from the scorching mid-summer sun.

Seed Order:

Farmer Rich is starting to prepare his seed order from a network of seed catalogs we receive during the late winter months. If there is anything special you would like, just drop us an e-mailand we will try to get it. We place most of our seed orders with Seed Savers Exchange, Fedco Seeds, Johnny's Selected Seeds, Jordan Seed, Dixondale Farms(onions) and others.....

We wish to thank those of you who contributed to the gift certificate we received at the end of season pot-luck dinner. It will be used to purchase seeds for the 2010 season.

CSA Outreach:

Our CSA membership outreach will start in February/March. We will extend an early bird discount to members who sign up early. We are preparing our budget which will then set the price for the 2010 harvest season. We will also be firming up with the coordinators the drop-off locations and times. Anticipate receiving an e-mail late February as to the specifics for the 2010 season.

We look forward to a bountiful 2010!

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