Warm Snap !
The past week brought near record highs. For this week temperatures are supposed to trend to a more seasonable range. The autumn leaves are turning early due to the combination of lack of rain & shorter days. The shorter days are also shutting down the warm weather crops, such as the eggplant, tomatoes & pepper plants.
The crew is working the fields on non-harvest days cleaning up in preparation for next year since all the planting has been done. They are taking down the trellises that supported the tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and tomatillos. Next week they should be removing the plastic from the wrapped beds.
We continue to irrigate during the week to keep the October crops ready for the deliveries. We still have tomato plants in the field and are not sure when their production will end. So far we are pleased with the production from the tomato plants this year which is in stark contrast to last year.
We are working on getting a brush-hog attachment for the tractor to get our anticipated new field in order for next year. The brush-hog clears fields by cutting down larger brush and small trees. After, we can plow the field, pick the rocks (which is just a really great job!!) and then plant a cover crop. As this we hope to have done by November. If this is all done before winter then in the early spring we can put up the fences.
What's up & growing:The winter squash, pumpkins & gourds will be coming in more now. We have leeks, turnips, chard, lettuce and radishes to be harvested in October. More onions will be delivered as they are in their curing stage on racks in the greenhouse. The garlic crop was weak this year, mostly due drought conditions. We went up to the Garlic Festival in Saugerties to get more garlic and look for seed stock and pick up new varieties, but there were slim pickings up there as well.
Weather Report: Last week was another dry week with no rain. The forecast for this week looks like rain early in the week, which will be greatly appreciated.
Animal report: There have been no signs of any of the neighborhood ground hogs or rabbits. We do hear the turkeys in the back gobbling away. It looks like they are eating acorns amongst the stand of oak trees. They are making Farmer Rich hungry thinking of Thanksgiving!
TRIP to the FARM-Help Plant Garlic
Sunday October 24th. 11 am - ??
Want to spend a day in the country and help us on the farm?
We are scheduling our next work day at the farm to be a garlic planting day. Help us plant garlic for the 2011 season. It is a great for families, as garlic is very easy to plant. Just a few extra hands and we plant plenty of garlic in just a few hours. If we had to do it ourselves it would take the better part of a week. We first start by "popping" the garlic, which is separating the individual cloves from the bulb, then we plant each clove and finally apply mulch over it. We'll also plan Farmer Sue's famous BBQ lunch to follow!! Just RSVP via e-mail so we can plan on refreshments & lunch.
Fruit Delivery: Tonight's delivery we have some Melrose Apples from Windy Brow Farm. The Melrose,(the official apple of Ohio) looks like a vintage apple, but surprisingly, it only dates back to World War 2. It's a cross between a Jonathan and a Red Delicious. Good in the kitchen since it stays firm with cooking and it doesn't need much sweetener. Windy Brow offers pick your own apples until October 10th this year.
UPCOMING EVENTS
9th Annual Garlic Gathering- Olde Lafayette Village - Lafayette, NJ
• Saturday / Sunday October 2nd & 3rd 11 am - 4 pm
4th Annual Garlic Fest- Hoboken Historical Museum - 1301 Hudson Street
· Sunday October 17th 1 pm - 5 pm
END of SEASON POTLUCK hosted by the Hoboken Midtown group - but all CSA members are welcome - Tentative date is November 6th. More details to come…..
Week of September 27th - 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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