Believe it or Not!!
We have had a very difficult early season and we were under untold stress to get the deliveries in order. First, there was continued rain most of April & May, week after week with little to no sun. This caused the fields to be too muddy and little if anything could be planted. Then our tractor’s clutch went while tilling a field. In order to fix it, the tractor had to be broken in half. Fortunately, John our mechanic was able to get it fixed in record time (within the week). If we had to go the usual route by bringing it to a tractor repair shop, there was a 30 day backlog on fixing tractors! It also would have been impossible to borrow one, as this is the busy planting season. No matter where Farmer Rich went there were broken tractors in fields everywhere over Sussex County. Then Farmer Rich got pneumonia and is still recovering. We have a great crew this year and they all picked up the slack and amazingly the delivery finally came together for this week – believe it or not!
Tractor Before (broken in half)
Tractor After (much happier)
Meet the Crew – Lisa returns for her 3rd year and Ali returned from being away for a year in California. Renee who manages our greenhouse in Franklin is back for her 2nd year and we have a new employee Dory. We can’t forget John, who keeps all our machines running and helps with tilling and wrapping the beds with plastic and was instrumental in setting up the irrigation system. They are all doing an amazing job in getting together the delivery and trying to catch up on the season for future weeks.
Ali 
Lisa 
Dory & Renee 
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 16 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, the United Synagogue of Hoboken on Park Avenue and Jersey City Hamilton Park on 8th Street. We are also pleased to continue for a second year, delivering to the Food Services at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ . They have purchased shares to be used directly in the employee cafeteria at Valley Hospital and their Dorothy B Kraft Center.
A great resource for those of you new to the concept CSA is from one of our former coordinators in Hoboken, Carolyn Cope. 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. We like to grow many interesting veggies, some of which you may have never tried before. We encourage you to try-it, you’ll like it!! We always provide you with recipes and have our Harvest Identified online as well.
The early deliveries in the spring will be lighter and will not have as many types of veggies, as you are eating seasonally. As the weeks progress, there will also be more variety and the deliveries will become heavier. 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: Since we are behind we are eagerly trying to fill up all the beds that were laid last week. This week we planted tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, New Zealand spinach, eggplant & peppers. Hopefully next week we’ll do as well.
From the Fields: Our back field has the following all up & growing: garlic greens, fava beans, garlic, sunchokes and snow peas.
At our Franklin greenhouse, we have harvested for this week’s delivery the Texas super sweet onions with edible greens as well as some micro-greens. Our micro-green project has a few problems, but Farmer Rich is working on it. The onions this year are on the small side as there was little sun while they were growing April/May. They were planted in March and usually are bigger by this time. We have a nice carrot crop in this greenhouse and they probably will be delivered either next week or the week after. More onions were harvested and are drying for future deliveries. We plan on planting more micro-green mix and Oriental greens.
Weather Report: This year has presented a unique set of problems. The early season was non-stop rain and little sun with very cool temperatures. Now we have had little rain and have had to use irrigation on some fields. Though it appears to rain every day, it is not. Almost no rain for the past week.
Week of June 13th - 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.
We have had a very difficult early season and we were under untold stress to get the deliveries in order. First, there was continued rain most of April & May, week after week with little to no sun. This caused the fields to be too muddy and little if anything could be planted. Then our tractor’s clutch went while tilling a field. In order to fix it, the tractor had to be broken in half. Fortunately, John our mechanic was able to get it fixed in record time (within the week). If we had to go the usual route by bringing it to a tractor repair shop, there was a 30 day backlog on fixing tractors! It also would have been impossible to borrow one, as this is the busy planting season. No matter where Farmer Rich went there were broken tractors in fields everywhere over Sussex County. Then Farmer Rich got pneumonia and is still recovering. We have a great crew this year and they all picked up the slack and amazingly the delivery finally came together for this week – believe it or not!
Tractor Before (broken in half)
Tractor After (much happier)
Meet the Crew – Lisa returns for her 3rd year and Ali returned from being away for a year in California. Renee who manages our greenhouse in Franklin is back for her 2nd year and we have a new employee Dory. We can’t forget John, who keeps all our machines running and helps with tilling and wrapping the beds with plastic and was instrumental in setting up the irrigation system. They are all doing an amazing job in getting together the delivery and trying to catch up on the season for future weeks.
Ali
Lisa
Dory & Renee
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 16 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, the United Synagogue of Hoboken on Park Avenue and Jersey City Hamilton Park on 8th Street. We are also pleased to continue for a second year, delivering to the Food Services at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ . They have purchased shares to be used directly in the employee cafeteria at Valley Hospital and their Dorothy B Kraft Center.
A great resource for those of you new to the concept CSA is from one of our former coordinators in Hoboken, Carolyn Cope. 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. We like to grow many interesting veggies, some of which you may have never tried before. We encourage you to try-it, you’ll like it!! We always provide you with recipes and have our Harvest Identified online as well.
The early deliveries in the spring will be lighter and will not have as many types of veggies, as you are eating seasonally. As the weeks progress, there will also be more variety and the deliveries will become heavier. 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: Since we are behind we are eagerly trying to fill up all the beds that were laid last week. This week we planted tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, New Zealand spinach, eggplant & peppers. Hopefully next week we’ll do as well.
From the Fields: Our back field has the following all up & growing: garlic greens, fava beans, garlic, sunchokes and snow peas.
At our Franklin greenhouse, we have harvested for this week’s delivery the Texas super sweet onions with edible greens as well as some micro-greens. Our micro-green project has a few problems, but Farmer Rich is working on it. The onions this year are on the small side as there was little sun while they were growing April/May. They were planted in March and usually are bigger by this time. We have a nice carrot crop in this greenhouse and they probably will be delivered either next week or the week after. More onions were harvested and are drying for future deliveries. We plan on planting more micro-green mix and Oriental greens.
Weather Report: This year has presented a unique set of problems. The early season was non-stop rain and little sun with very cool temperatures. Now we have had little rain and have had to use irrigation on some fields. Though it appears to rain every day, it is not. Almost no rain for the past week.
Week of June 13th - 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.
Tractor Before (broken in half)
Tractor After (much happier)
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