Another Soaker
We were greeted by more rain on Friday/Saturday, in which at least another 2 ½” of rain fell at the farm. Apparently everything that couldn’t take the excess rain is dead and we fortunately have some crops that are still surviving these conditions. We are still holding our heads above water (though barely) and the harvest this week was good and it looks like next week will be good as well.
We drove up to Saugerties for the Garlic Festival on Saturday and on the drive up passed through Pine Island (the Black Dirt area) and saw the piles of water logged onions that were caught in the latest rains from last month. Their fields were totally devastated and we could see that many fields by the road were actually small lakes during the heavy rains. They had substantial losses of onions, squash and pumpkins. We also spoke with farmers at the Garlic Fest who were as far north as Schoharie County, NY. They all had devastation to their fields and are in similar position as us for CSA deliveries.
It is touch and go but we will strive to stretch the deliveries as long a possible. We have received many supportive e-mails from our CSA members, which are indeed appreciated. It is always nice to hear from you!
We always try to approach our predicaments with good humor and our “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” header last week brought an equally good humor & supportive response from Martha in Mahwah:
· “I feel compelled to remind you that you are an organic farm, not Shoprite. Those of us who purchase a share of your farm understand that we purchase the risk as well as the rewards. We feel bad for you and the crew, and the losing battle you are fighting. There weren’t enough life boats on the Titanic so we hope you secure space in one of them. We would also recommend locust insurance as there is little else left to befall your farm. We would also recommend throwing in the towel while you are still sane. Food is renewable and will grow again next year, and we will be there to buy another share.”
We fortunately have secured our spot on a lifeboat even with life preservers! We are looking into locust insurance too and probably won’t have to worry about a dust bowl this year!
From the Fields: We still are looking for an area for garlic planting in October. We are working on plan 14 which includes clearing an area in the back, about 3 rows at this point. We did have garlic there last year and do not like to plant it again in the same spot, but at this point we want to get it into the ground and worry about crop rotation another time. We do have a new area ready to go, and if things dry out we will be able to plant there.
We plan on planting buckwheat microgreens in the Franklin greenhouse this week.
Beds in the fields are slated to be cleaned up. We plan on spreading some compost & fertilizer to rejuvenate the fields for next year as long as we have a window of dry weather to work.
The crew will be cleaning garlic and can work in the greenhouse to keep dry.
Weather Report: Shorter days means the crops grow slower. We did have a spurt of warmer temperatures over the last several days and it looks like it will continue during the week. More precipitation is on the horizon, but fortunately the predictions include terms like “chance of thunderstorms” and “chance of rain” which is a welcome change.
Fruit Report –The apples are from Soons Orchard in Middletown, NY.
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Upcoming Events
· October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)
· CANCELLED - October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – Hoboken, NJ
Week of September 26th - 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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