Catalpa Ridge News: Volume 15 - No 14

Low of 43 ⁰F !

We had temperature fluctuations of between 93⁰F early last week to a low of 43⁰F early in the morning this week. The crew had to harvest with gloves & sweatshirts on for a change.

Needless to say the hot weather crops have either shut down production or are "toast" now that temperatures have dipped that low.

Believe it or not the potatoes we planted late are producing. Farmer Rich checked out the potatoes that were planted the end of July when CSA members came up to the farm for a workday, and they will be ready to harvest soon!! Theoretically potatoes need to be planted early in the spring for the best production, but the ones we planted in July were stored in the cooler and either had to be planted or thrown out, so plant we did! The plants started showing their flowers a few weeks ago, which meant they were starting to produce potatoes. Once the tops of the plants start to die back, that is the signal to start the harvest. Harvesting of them will begin soon, they will be small, but we will get some potatoes from our CSA member work day!!

The hay on the upper end of our farm was finally cut by Farmer Adam and it is baled and stacked by the field that we plan on planting garlic in October. We will be planning a trip to the farm to plant garlic and will post the date in the upcoming newsletters. It is a great project to help with and an easy project to bring up the kids as well. What would take us two weeks to do, we can do in just a few hours with CSA member help.

We are always planning on the next year and we have a plan for a new back field which we hope to get started in a week or two.

What's up & growing:The planned crops for October are coming in early. The Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi should be ready to harvest soon and the additional planting of greens (other than the lettuce - see below) are doing well in the cooler weather.

Eggplant in Franklin2.jpg Meanwhile at our Franklin greenhouse the hot peppers, eggplant & turnips are doing better than those at the farm in the field. This is of course due to the warmer temperatures in the greenhouse and being about 10-12 miles south of the farm where the low was perhaps in the low 50's instead of the low 40's.

Weather Report: Rain is still needed as the spurt that we received was good just for the short term. The forecast for the week predicts perhaps a shower on Wednesday and seasonal temperatures all week. Farmer Rich is irrigating all sections that he can. Some sections of the field aren't set up for irrigation so we have to hope to get some more rain.

Animal report: The deer that jumped the fence decided to munch only a few things and a groundhog broke in and decided to devour the lettuce. The new planting of lettuce was completely wiped out by the groundhog so not only are our October crops coming in early; the planned lettuce isn't left to harvest. After the deer snacked on a few things it laid down in the shade & took a nap!

Fruit Delivery: Tonight's delivery we have some great Molly's Delicious Apples from Windy Brow Farm. This variety was introduced in 1966 by the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.

Week of September 6th - 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.