Lettuce Begin!
First, thank you for supporting our farm. It is only through the continued support of our members that our farm continues to be sustainable and we continue the practice of farming. We welcome back many of you who have been supporting us for most of our 15 years of CSA deliveries as well as welcome many new members this year. It is also important to acknowledge the efforts of the coordinators at all our drop-off locations. Without drop-off locations that are fully supported the CSA concept is lost. We should all participate in the sense of "community" by helping out, sharing recipes and giving support to each other.
We welcome back our sites at Beth Haverim Shir Shalom in Mahwah, Hoboken Midtown on Willow Terrace, Hoboken West on Grand and Jersey City Hamilton Park on 8th Street. A new welcome is in order for The United Synagogue of Hoboken on Park Avenue. We are also pleased to announce that the Food Services at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ have purchased shares to be used directly in the employee cafeteria. They wanted to get more locally grown produce into the diet of their hospital employees. In April, during their Earth Day activities, I spent the day with them to introduce their employees to our farm and shared with them pictures and what seasonal produce we would be delivering.
For those that are new to the concept CSA, it may be a challenge at first in that you are eating seasonally. What is ready to harvest is what is delivered each week. You will be receiving your "just picked" veggies right from the farm. Carolyn Cope who was a coordinator for a number of years in Hoboken and who has since moved to Red Bank, has posted some great tips on her food blog. The article is titled: 10 Secrets for Making the Most of your CSA. The link is here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/10-secrets-tips-for-making-the-most-of-your-csa.html
CSF deliveries are not meant to replace you having to shop, but to supplement your veggie choices each week. The deliveries in the spring will mostly consist of greens (lettuces, chard, Oriental greens). As the weeks progress, there will also be more variety and the deliveries will become heavier. Also along the line, you will meet many interesting vegetables, some of which you may have never tried before. We encourage you to try-it, you'll like it!! In the newsletter each week I include recipes for the items that are being delivered. If you have some recipes you would like to share, we can post them on the blog for others to try.
Community supported farm members soon become connected to each other as the weeks go by. We welcome you all and look forward to working with all of you.
News from the Farm: There have been some changes with our employees this year. Ali our full-timer last year has since moved to California pursuing a career in farming. We welcome Hannah as our full-timer. She apprenticed at Genesis Farm for two years before joining us this spring. Lisa & Jessie have returned this year, again working part-time. New part timers also include Nancy, Allyson, Renee and Erin. We also have been fortunate to have John work part time who has been invaluable on the mechanical end. He was the main force to build the new greenhouse and is keeping our tractors, pumps and equipment operating. They have all been working hard over the last several weeks.
We work between the farm in Wantage and the extra greenhouse in Franklin. The Franklin greenhouse is especially important for our early deliveries. We also work with other local farmers during the season to continue to provide a variety of produce to you each week that we may not be growing or if we have had a crop failure. They all are local and have similar growing practices. A few large fields at Scott's farm are being planted with our tomato, pepper, squash & eggplant transplants. We have already planted potatoes & garlic in our fields there.
From the Fields: Each year presents a new set of challenges and we adapt accordingly to the trial & tribulations of farming. When we were ready to plant in the spring the large tractor that pulls the mechanical transplanter broke so all the planting had to be done by hand. Thank goodness we have an excellent crew, who adapted to our 19th century farming techniques!
Our new field in the back has the following all up & growing: garlic greens, fava beans and new beds ready for tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and herbs to be planted this week. The round field (which was unplantable last year), has dill, spinach, New Zealand spinach and 8 rows of heirloom tomatoes already planted, most of which are up & growing. Our main field has all of the following already planted; eggplant, garlic, peas, zucchini, cucumbers, beets, tomatoes, peppers, sorrel, lettuce, fennel, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatillos, chard, husk cherries, kale and cabbage. There are a few beds left to plant.
At our Franklin greenhouse, we have harvested for this week's delivery greens, and the Texas super sweet onions with edible greens. The onions this year are a lot smaller this year than in years past. The onion sets we received from the grower to plant for this crop were smaller. Many problems go back to last year's conditions (cold & wet). This also affected our seed orders as well. Probably about 1 in 5 varieties that we wanted to order were not available.
The rest of the onions will be harvested & dried over the next few weeks so you will be seeing more onions in your deliveries. We also have rosemary, basil, carrots yet to harvest from Franklin. We plan on replanting the beds with more Oriental greens and some cherry tomatoes.
Weather Report: Unlike last year, which was cool & wet, we have been having dryer & warmer weather. The crew has been out in the fields planting on those 90+ degree days and Farmer Rich & John have spent the last week installing irrigation drip tape. We also installed overhead irrigation in the round field as well as over the fava beans, beets & garlic.
Animal report: So far only a few rabbits & groundhogs have been probing the fence line, no doubt waiting for the crops to get a bit bigger before attempting to break in. The fences were all either replaced or repaired weeks ago and we are confident that they will continue to keep the animals out. The family of terns have again returned. We hear them constantly but have not yet found where they are nesting.
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 at anytime during the season. 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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