Catalpa Ridge News - Vol 16 No 3 - Week of June 27th

Swamps R Us !

We went from reasonable weather last newsletter to a week of off & on rain. Multiple inches of rain fell and Farmer Rich lost track of the actual amount since it rained so much. At least 2” fell since Thursday. The plants in the fields are responding positively, but the conditions to work in are not the best. We have standing water, puddles, mud and the weeds have gone crazy.  We are starting to worry about plant disease when it gets this wet, such as blight. Also root related problems may occur when it gets this wet.

From the Fields: We seeded broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, collard greens, yard-long beans, chicory, endive, and evergreen stem onions in the greenhouse to be transplanted in the field in about 2 weeks.  We are working on another round of micro-green mix in the Franklin greenhouse. We are also planning on planting some tatsoi and other oriental greens.

The seeded lettuces from last newsletter are almost ready to be planted in the fields. The fields just need to dry out a bit.

We tilled up a section of the large greenhouse where the sunflower micro greens were, but the mud was just too deep to go any further.

The crew finished planting in the round field and all the plants are doing well though somewhat water logged at this point.

The fava bean harvest this week is two weeks earlier than in years past. The harvest yields are off from past years and we feel this is due to a change in our growing method this year. We usually plant them much denser and they have always produced well. This year we planted them as they “should” be planted which is about 6” apart as a field crop. We think we’ll go back to the old way for next season. This area will be replanted with beets, turnips and fava greens.

The cucumber plants are close to needing to be trellised and the zucchini plants are doing well. They just need a few warm days to start “zuking” up! The tomato, peppers and tomatillos are finally “catching”. We were a bit late getting them in and are pleased that they are catching up.

The garlic in the back field has gone from looking perfect to being overtaken by weeds in just six days. We’ll be spending some time this week to get it under control.

We are starting to see some crop losses in the super wet spots. Some tomato & pepper plants have succumbed, but overall everything is looking really good.

Weather Report: Overall a rainy week but we were able to work in the greenhouses on the days we couldn’t get into the fields. It was productive work as we really needed to get these crops seeded for transplanting.  We heard about the “flash flooding” in many areas in Bergen, Passaic & Hudson counties on Thursday.

Animal report: The newly seeded beans are being dug up by a field mouse so they need to be re-seeded. If worse comes to worse we’ll reseed them in Franklin. The field mice are not so much a problem in what they eat, but more that they carry away the seeds and all of a sudden there are plants growing where we didn’t plant them. They like to hide the seeds they carry off. Wish they were hiding piles of gold in our fields instead of beans!  The fawns are watching.

Trip to the Farm – Scheduled for Sunday – July 24^th

Want to help out at the Farm?? We like to schedule at least 2 work-days at the farm during the harvest season where CSA members can come up and help us with some projects. The first work-day is scheduled for July 24^th starting at 11:00 am. Some projects planned will be to help with some mulching & transplanting. More details to come over the next few weeks.

Upcoming Events

• August 28^th – 12^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – 1 pm – 5 pm
• October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)
• October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ 

Week of June 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.

• Recipe Links
• Beth Haverim Shir Shalom Delivery
• Hoboken Midtown Delivery
• Hoboken West Delivery
• Jersey City Hamilton Park Delivery
• United Synagogue of Hoboken