Catalpa Ridge News–Post Hurricane Update November 5th

On the one year anniversary of the Halloween snow storm of 2011, Hurricane Sandy hit our area full force. At the farm we only lost one greenhouse. All the plastic was torn off and the metal framing was bent beyond repair. We consider ourselves very fortunate that was our only loss when so many others lost so much more. Both of our families are coping, and everyone is safe.

Overall this harvest season was better than last year as the deliveries were more abundant this year, though we did lack some variety. The fruit deliveries were tough as well. Working with other local farmers we were able to put together the seasonal fruit share.

This week we were short-handed at the farm as Ali had already scheduled a trip to Costa Rica for the prior week and unable to get home post Hurricane Sandy. Lisa and Renee kept things going and worked extremely hard to put together this weeks harvest.

Thanks to all CSA members for your support this season. If you have any ideas for different veggies you would like to see next year, just send us an e-mail and we will look through our seed catalogs in January as we prepare our large seed order for 2013.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The ginger, carrots, rosemary and hot peppers were all harvested from the Franklin greenhouse. The remaining ginger we have will be dug up this week and saved for seed for next year.

From the Fields: We plan on pulling up the plastic from the row and clean up the fields before winter approaches. We do hope to get a few more rows of garlic planted as well. We also have to pull up the stakes and netting that supported the tomatoes and cucumbers.

Animal report: The great blue heron is still roaming around the fields. No sign of the “usual suspects”; ground hogs, rabbits and deer. Perhaps they are still under cover after the Hurricane!

POTLUCK PARTY - NEW BEGINNINGS!
Valerie from our Hoboken Midtown CSA drop-off has sent along this note for planning a Pot Luck dinner early in 2013:

• “Rather than celebrating the end of the season this year, we will celebrate the beginning of the 2013 season with a Potluck CSA Kickoff early in 2013. The event will be held sometime in late February/early March of the New Year. Having our own Hoboken Farm-to-Fork kickoff in early spring will be a great time to meet up with CSA members after a long winter. Early spring will also be a great time to renew our commitment to locally grown food and of Catalpa Ridge Farm. So, thanks to you all for your continued support and enthusiasm for locally-grown food. Have a wonderful holiday season and stay-tuned for more information about our 2013 CSA Kickoff party.” – Val

Thanks to all CSA members for your continued support. We look forward to 2013!

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 20–Week of October 22nd

Great Work Day @ the Farm

We had great weather for the trip to the farm on Saturday. About 20 people showed up to help out with this project and we really appreciated all the help. Thanks to all who came and participated in our annual October work-day. We started the day by popping the garlic bulbs into individual cloves for planting. We had about 4-5 different groups, each popping a different variety. Once completed all went to the back field to plant, except for Farmer Sue who started cooking lunch for the crew when then returned. After all was done, Farmer Rich gave a quick tour of the farm and the last stop was the pumpkin patch where everyone could choose their favorite pumpkin to bring home.

Popping the Garlic

Planting Garlic

Franklin Greenhouse Report: We will be harvesting rosemary, carrots and the rest of the ginger for next week’s delivery. Our plan is to make sure everything is harvested and the greenhouse is cleaned up as we will be closing down the greenhouse the beginning of November.

From the Fields:  As usual this late in the season, some crop harvests are not enough to harvest to all drop-off sites, therefore we work with what we have to make sure there is equitable distribution across the board. Perhaps one site doesn’t get kale, but we harvest another green for them.

Farmer Matt Faber helped ready the back field for garlic planting on Thursday, just prior to the heavy Friday rain storms that moved through. Without his help we would not have had the back field ready with plastic laid for our Saturday trip to the farm. There was one drawback however, his tractor sunk up to its axle while he was brush-hogging the upper field. He was able to get another tractor to pull it out as our tractor just wasn’t big enough to do the job.
 

The week ahead looks on the dry side so we should be able to finish planting our garlic varieties.

Weather Report:  2 ½” of rain fell on Friday which made for muddy fields. Fortunately the garlic beds were already wrapped in plastic and we put straw down between the rows in an attempt to keep everyone from getting too muddy when they planted on Saturday. The field that we planted the garlic in is probably our best draining field, though one area close to the end of the bed was pretty wet as when Tom made the holes to plant garlic cloves they immediately filled with water. Oh the joys of farming!

Animal report: There are a few deer roaming around the outside of the fence and not bothering us. Farmer Sue did notice the great blue heron taking off from the lower field as Desiree, Renee and Claire were walking back from the garlic field to the picnic area. It took off just in front of them. It was truly bigger than either Renee or Claire as it flew away!

Week of October 22nd - 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

Trip to the Farm–Help Plant Garlic on October 20th

We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to get the beds ready to plant garlic as the weather has been too wet, but we are pleased to report that Farmer Rich and the crew has gotten the Garlic Beds ready to be planted. The trip to the farm scheduled for Saturday is ON! We plan on starting around 11:00 am and have a late lunch (probably around 2:00 pm).

All CSA members are invited to help out planting garlic for the final trip to the farm this year
•    Start Time: 11:00 am on October 20th 
•    Planting Garlic is a great family activity & very easy!!
•    We’ll starting popping the garlic then proceed to the field to plant followed by mulching
•    We’ll break for a late lunch (around 2:00 pm) with Farmer Sue’s famous campfire recipes
•    Please RSVP so that we may plan lunch & refreshments

Catalpa Ridge News - Volume 17 No 19–Week of October 15th

First Freeze of the Harvest Year

The first freeze of the harvest year occurred on Saturday am. We had a low of 26°F. Fortunately, our local weather predicted the freeze warning so the crew was out harvesting everything that would be affected by the freeze. All the peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and other warm season crops were harvested so we didn’t have to worry about losing too much. We went from 26°F on Saturday morning to 70+°F on Sunday afternoon! Looking at past newsletters, it is not unusual to have a freeze this part of October. Actually in 2006 we actually had 4-5 days in a row of freezing temperatures. An extended freeze of this length would harm the cold weather crops so we were fortunate it was only for the one morning.

The Garlic Fest at the Hoboken Historical Museum went well and we had a beautiful day. The museum volunteers did a great job helping us out at the tasting table as well as unloading the van, then loading up after the sale. Thanks to all who helped!

We are starting to deliver the Ginger. If it is not in your delivery this week it will be next week. See our recipe page for ginger culinary hints.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
The scheduled trip to the farm on October 20th, may have to be postponed as the fields are just too wet to prepare the beds for garlic planting. If you were planning on coming up on the 20th, please make sure that you contact us with either your email or phone # so that we may contact you on the status of the garlic planting project.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: Just a few more crops to be harvested over the final weeks of the season from our Franklin greenhouse. We still have ginger, carrots, rosemary, mixed greens and hot peppers left to harvest. Renee has done a great job managing this greenhouse all season.

From the Fields:  The fields are still very wet for us to do much in field prep and only a few fields have the cover crop of rye. We plan on doing some much needed work after the season is over in the fields as well as our greenhouses. We plan on taking down one greenhouse (we are surprised that it hasn’t fallen down already) and rebuild it making it even larger. We have been contemplating putting up a field house to include a walk-in-cooler as well. All these projects depend on how early the winter comes this year and hopefully no Halloween snow storm this year!

Weather Report:  A stunning rainbow greeted Farmer Rich and the crew early on Friday morning. After this week’s freeze it looks like the next few weeks are going to be on the mild side.

Animal report: While Farmer Rich wasn’t paying attention, someone decided to sneak into the fields are eat all the parsley. On a positive side a great blue heron has been patrolling the fields and eating the voles, some frogs and virtually anything that moves. We weren’t able to get a good picture as once we get close enough to snap a picture it takes off, only to return later.

Trip to the Farm – October 20th This may be Postponed **PLEASE make sure we have your contact info if you plan on coming up!
Help Plant Garlic    
•    All CSA members are invited to help out planting garlic for the final trip to the farm this year
•    Start Time: 11:00 am on October 20th 
•    Planting Garlic is a great family activity & very easy!!
•    We’ll starting popping the garlic then proceed to the field to plant followed by mulching
•    We’ll break for a late lunch (around 2:30 pm) with Farmer Sue’s famous campfire recipes
•    Please RSVP so that we may plan lunch & refreshments

Week of October 15th - 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

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 18–Week of October 9, 2012

Garlic Fest Hoboken on Sunday

On Sunday we will be back to Hoboken for the 5th Annual Garlic Festival. We have quite a few nice varieties that will be available for tasting as well as some great dips (Tomato-Garlic, Horseradish-Garlic and hopefully some Roasted Pepper-Garlic). We also will be bringing some garlic vinegar and garlic jelly from farmers who come to our annual Lafayette event. It was great to see some CSA members at the Lafayette Garlic Gathering over the weekend. We actually had two stinkin’ days of fun!

Franklin Greenhouse Report: Today’s delivery of stevia was harvested from the Franklin greenhouse. With the days getting shorter, the plants were getting ready to flower (that is why it is more stretched than in the previous delivery). Drying the stevia leaves will give you a nice quantity of this natural sweetener to use anytime you want a natural sweetener instead of using sugar. Here are some tips from care2:

• “Harvest all of the leaves from the plant and dry them. On a moderately warm fall day, your stevia crop can be quick dried in the full sun in about 12 hours. Just place the plants on a piece of newspaper in an area with good air circulation. A home dehydrator can also be used, although sun drying is the preferred method. I’ve even used the heat of my attic during the summer to speed up the job.
  You can crush the dried leaves by hand using a mortar and pestle or using a coffee grinder. You can use the stevia in this powdered form, adjusting the amount you use to achieve the desired degree of sweetness. Keep in mind that stevia is 30 times more sweet than sugar and a general rule of thumb is 1 generous tablespoon is roughly equivalent to one cup of sugar in terms of the level of sweetness.” Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/how-to-use-fresh-stevia.html#ixzz28guPdeOq

We are winding down operations in this greenhouse, and the ginger is ready to harvest and we should be delivering it next week. We probably will have some samples to taste at the Garlic Fest in Hoboken on Sunday.  Combined with garlic, ginger makes the start of a classic oriental stir-fry. You can even use the fresh ginger to make your own ginger ale and use stevia instead of sugar for all-natural ale!

From the Fields:  It is still wet and muddy so all field work is being delayed. The crew was pretty much in the greenhouse all week cleaning up the garlic for both deliveries and the festivals. We hope to have drier weather by the end of the week so that we may prep the field for the trip to the farm on the 20th. The cover crop of rye looks like a nice blanket of green over the beds.

Fruit Report – The apple variety in your delivery this week is Yellow Delicious. As we have noted in the past, fruit this year is scarce due to a late freeze in the spring. We have seen that some varieties of apples are much larger this year than they have been in the past. The buds that were left on the trees affected by the freeze are producing larger fruit. On the opposite end, some varieties of apples are smaller in size due to the drought.

Weather Report:  It was warm during the week, but the cooler temperatures are coming and there is a chance of frost during the week as the temperatures start dropping into the mid-to-low 30’s. Whether or not we have a frost or a freeze depends on the cloud cover that night.

Animal report: Aside from some chipmunks raiding the apples stored in the greenhouse we haven’t seen any groundhogs or rabbits this week. The squirrels are busy burying nuts and they love to jump over the fence as obviously inside the fence is better for their storage than outside. They go to town burying both hickory and black walnuts. Guess they follow “the grass is greener on the other side” philosophy. We are starting to see more deer tracks throughout the farm.

Trip to the Farm – October 20th
Help Plant Garlic    
•    All CSA members are invited to help out planting garlic for the final trip to the farm this year
•    Start Time: 11:00 am on October 20th 
•    Planting Garlic is a great family activity & very easy!!
•    We’ll starting popping the garlic then proceed to the field to plant followed by mulching
•    We’ll break for a late lunch (around 2:30 pm) with Farmer Sue’s famous campfire recipes
•    Please RSVP so that we may plan lunch & refreshments

Upcoming Events
Annual Garlic Fest – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street
October 14^th 1-5 pm

· Garlic Tasting
· Vote for your favorite Garlic!
· Garlic & Farm Fresh Produce for Sale

Week of October 9th - 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 – Delivery location change, refer to your newsletter for info

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 17–Week of October 2nd

Garlic Weekend

This coming weekend will be the 11th Annual Garlic Gathering at Olde Lafayette Village. Make a trip up to Lafayette for two stinkin’ days of fun. This event is then followed by a Garlic Fest on the 14th at the Hoboken Historical Museum. See the upcoming events at the end of the newsletter for addresses & times.

We did go up to the Saugerties this past weekend to pick up a few new varieties of garlic to plant. Also a reminder that the Trip of the Farm is on October 20th and we will be planting the garlic for next year’s harvest. Please RSVP so that we may plan on refreshments and lunch.

We have been tilling up the fields and planted the cover crop of rye and the rye is now up. The crew continues to clean up the fields and plan on plowing up the fields to prepare for next season.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The ginger is almost ready to be harvested. There also is a nice crop of stevia and rosemary yet to be harvested. We also have a nice crop of mixed hot peppers yet to be harvested from the greenhouse. The seeded microgreens are doing well.

From the Fields: The field crops are winding down. The collards, leeks, sunchokes and other cold weather crops will be starting to show up in the next few weeks. This late in the season no new crops are being planted.

Fruit Report – The apple variety in your delivery this week is the Macoun. The Macoun apple is a cross between McIntosh and Jersey Black. It was developed at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station in the late 1920’s. It is one of the larger apples that we have delivered. It is extra sweet apple, very juicy and great for snacking, making sauce or making a nice fruit salad.

Weather Report: We had a few periods of rain this week. The temperatures are cooler of course this time of year, but not unseasonable. The fields are staying a bit on the wet side which may cause some problems, though we are looking for some drier weather this week which will help out. There was a scattered light frost at the beginning of the week. Fortunately no crops were damaged by this frost. Crops that are the most vulnerable this time of year to frost are the peppers, beans, eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes. We still have many semi-hardy crops in the fields that tolerate light frost, such as chard, beets and carrots. Crops that tolerate a hard frost include kale, collards, mustard greens and radishes.

Animal report: Farmer Matt planted a small patch of corn for popcorn for our CSA deliveries. We thought it would be a nice addition for a late season delivery. The bears decided that this popcorn was quite tasty as well as his crop of Silver Queen sweet corn. The bears just love corn and are somewhat comical in that they just lay in the corn field with their arms extended to scoop in all that they can!

Upcoming Events
Garlic Gathering – Olde Lafayette Village – Route 94/15, Lafayette, NJ 11 am – 4 pm
October 6^th & 7^th

Annual Garlic Fest – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street
October 14^th 1-5 pm

Week of October 2nd - 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 – TUESDAY ONLY delivery this week 9:30 am – 6:30 pm
• Hoboken Midtown Delivery
• Hoboken West Delivery
• Jersey City Hamilton Park Delivery
• United Synagogue of Hoboken – Delivery location change, refer to your newsletter for info

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 16–Week of September 24th

Welcome Autumn

The leaves are starting to turn at the farm, rather swiftly at the moment. The warm weather crops have either wound down or are winding down. The girls have been doing some field work by pulling up the plastic on the beds of cucumbers, tomatoes, summer squash as these plants are now done. We are still not sure where the garlic beds are going to go but we will have it all figured out by the time the trip of the farm on October 20th comes around.

As usual, some of the fall crops are gorgeous and some have problems. The escarole and collards are extra nice this year. The Daikon radishes are starting to “radish-up”. Some of the oriental greens are a bit wholly. Some of the leeks are coming back nice. The winter squash and potatoes are doing well and will be in the upcoming deliveries. The onions, garlic and green onions are in nice supply. The tomatoes are winding down and we are going week to week. We have a really nice delivery of tomatoes this week. The sunchokes are bulbing up and we are looking for a much larger crop than last year.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The salad burnet in the delivery was harvested from the Franklin greenhouse. We re-did a bed in the greenhouse and Renee planted some buckwheat for sprouts. With the days getting shorter it takes longer for these types of crops to mature. The arugula is doing nicely, and the carrots while on the sparse side should be in the later deliveries. The stevia and ginger are still doing great.

From the Fields:  The crew continues to perform field work as the beds die back and get them ready for a cover crop over the winter. We spent a good deal of time this week, weed whacking to keep the weeds under control. We are also working on putting together a new field, which will be an extension of the back field. This would require clearing about 1 acre of land and removing some small trees and rocks. This is a pretty ambitious project that may take a back seat as we have to replace the big greenhouse. Replacing the greenhouse will be our first priority. We have been fortunate that this greenhouse has lasted through the last two winters without falling down.

Fruit Report – This week, the grapes are again from Marjorie’s View Vineyard, located in Wantage, not too far from the farm. These are a small white grape, similar to a Cayuga white wine grape.

Weather Report:  We received 4” of rain this past week, with torrential downpours throughout the area. For the early part of this week, they are predicting low temperatures in the mid-30°’s. We probably are good to remain frost-free for about another week. The cool weather crops of course love these colder temperatures and make them more flavorful.

Animal report:   We have one creature who keeps breaking in through the fence, but not eating any vegetables. We think it may be a fox on the prowl for smaller creatures. We will soon be reporting on the Wooly Bear Caterpillars, as they are starting to show up. It is too early to report on them now for their folklore prediction of the upcoming winter.

Trip to the Farm – October 20th
Help Plant Garlic    
•    All CSA members are invited to help out planting garlic for the final trip to the farm this year
•    Start Time: 11:00 am on October 20th 
•    Planting Garlic is a great family activity & very easy!!
•    We’ll starting popping the garlic then proceed to the field to plant followed by mulching
•    We’ll break for a late lunch (around 2:30 pm) with Farmer Sue’s famous campfire recipes
•    Please RSVP so that we may plan lunch & refreshments

Upcoming Events
Garlic Gathering – Olde Lafayette Village – Route 94/15, Lafayette, NJ 11 am – 4 pm
October 6^th & 7^th

Annual Garlic Fest – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street
October 14^th 1-5 pm

Week of September 24th - 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 – Delivery location change, refer to your newsletter for info

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 15–Week of September 17th

First day of autumn starts Saturday!

Shorter days & cooler nights abound as we transition to the autumn. Our start time at the farm is moved to 7:00 am instead of 6:00. Now we have the usual problem during this time of year, we have to pull out the falling leaves from the greens. The first day of Autumn starts on Saturday.

John has tilled up some areas to plant rye grass as a cover crop for the winter. It is too late to plant anything in these areas so we thought it best to start the cover crop early.

This week we did a lot of week whacking to get some control of the beds. This hopefully will improve some production. The tomatoes plants are still producing, though winding down. The fall crops that were seeded are coming in nicely. There may be some leeks in the upcoming deliveries by the end of the month, though the whole crop was a disaster.  The sunchokes are in full flower and they will be ready for delivery in a few weeks.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: Everything continues to do well in Franklin. The arugula looks like it will be a nice harvest. We probably will be planting some buckwheat for sprouts for deliveries toward the beginning of October. We were hoping to deliver the salad burnet but we have cilantro in this week’s delivery as it was readier for harvest.

From the Fields: The crew has been pulling the plastic off the fields for the crops that are now over. The seeded greens that Michael had completed before going back to school are really doing well and are starting to show up in the deliveries. As the plastic is pulled up we are tilling up the beds and planting the cover crop for the winter months. The cover crop protects the soil over the winter and then is tilled into the soil in the spring thus adding nutrients early in the season. Cover crops of choice are usually rye or oats for this late in the season. We are using rye this year, as Farmer Matt has rye seed from his farm as we truly like to keep everything as local as possible.

Fruit Report – As we have noted in the past, it has been difficult to get fruit this year due to the late freeze in the spring. We have been able to partner up with a local farmer for grapes, Marjorie’s View Vineyard. Grapes bloom in June so they were not affected by that freeze that destroyed the plums, apples and peaches. We have two to three deliveries of grapes lined up with them. Also for apples, Farmer Matt has some extra apples for future deliveries.

Trip to the Farm – October 20th
Help Plant Garlic    
•    All CSA members are invited to help out planting garlic for the final trip to the farm this year
•    Start Time: 11:00 am on October 20th 
•    Planting Garlic is a great family activity & very easy!!
•    We’ll starting popping the garlic then proceed to the field to plant followed by mulching
•    We’ll break for a late lunch (around 2:30 pm) with Farmer Sue’s famous campfire recipes
•    Please RSVP so that we may plan lunch & refreshments

Weather Report: Despite the heavy rains earlier, we are back on the dry side. We did receive about ¼” of rain the other day but we found ourselves having to run our irrigation for the back field.

Animal report: There are hawks over the farm and roosting in the trees on watch for small animals to swoop upon.

Upcoming Events
Garlic Gathering – Olde Lafayette Village – Route 94/15, Lafayette, NJ 11 am – 4 pm October 6^th & 7^th

Annual Garlic Fest – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street October 14^th 1-5 pm

Week of September 17th - 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 – NO DELIVERY THIS WEEK due to Rosh Hashanah
• Hoboken Midtown Delivery
• Hoboken West Delivery
• Jersey City Hamilton Park Delivery
• United Synagogue of Hoboken – Delivery location change, refer to your newsletter for info

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 14–Week of September 10th

Finally some Rain !

Last week we were moaning of how dry it has been, and then we get 4” of rain mid-week which was a welcome event. The only problem with the onslaught of rain was the tomatoes on the vine in the main field decided to explode with happiness in receiving some rain. Needless to say, we have salsa in the field and were struggling to find undamaged tomatoes for the delivery.

We cleaned up a few beds by pulling up the plastic and re-tilling them. The plan was to see some crops for late deliveries but the rain has postponed that due to the muddiness.

We plan on taking down one of our older greenhouses and have to come up with a plan to replace it over the off-season. This one is our largest greenhouse in the back field. We are hoping to replace it with a high wall, high tunnel. It will be similar to our newest greenhouse, though it will be bigger. We plan on making it 96’ x 32’. This will enable us to try some off-season production without heat in both early spring and end of season. We also plan on putting heat in a second greenhouse which will enable starting more transplants.

This was our 2009/2010 construction of a high side/high tunnel greenhouse. We hope to put up a similar type though larger in the middle field.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: There was sporadic germination of the carrots, but it looks like there will be enough for the deliveries. The basil for tonight’s delivery is from the Franklin greenhouse. The salad burnet is coming along nice and should appear for next week’s delivery. We have been making a few different herb dressings with the salad burnet, as it has a great light cucumber flavor. The arugula is up and doing well.

From the Fields: The newly seeded plantings are all doing well. Some of the beds are getting closed down as the last crops are harvested from them. It looks like our broccoli and cauliflower crops are a total failure. On a positive note, it appears we will have a bumper crop of sunchokes (Jerusalem Artichokes) for the fall deliveries. The onions, kale and chard all look great. We did have a late planting of zucchini and the plants are doing well as are the winter squash.

We will be planning a trip to the farm in October to plant garlic. This is always a fun day and we get a lot of garlic planted in just a few hours. Last year many members came to help and we hope that this year many of you will be able to participate. Our tentative date is: October 20^th More details will follow in the newsletter over the next few weeks.

Weather Report: Lots and lots of rain fell during the week. We still have warm days for the time being, but those days are numbered as the cooler weather will start arriving. The night temperatures are low and our early morning start times have us in gloves & jackets.

Animal report: We were visited by a porcupine this week. They don’t eat any veggies but prefer to eat trees. This was a scarce sighting and normally they are not around. There is still a decent sized “crop” of rabbits who greet Farmer Rich in the mornings.

Upcoming Events
Garlic Gathering – Olde Lafayette Village – Route 94/15, Lafayette, NJ 11 am – 4 pm October 6^th & 7^th

Annual Garlic Fest – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street October 14^th 1-5 pm

Week of September 10th - 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

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 13–Week of September 4th

Dry – Dry – Dry

Very little rain has fallen, which is creating dry conditions in the fields. It is almost like they became too dry overnight. We are trying to run water from our irrigation system, but all fields cannot be covered. The pond is in good shape as it filled up during the last storms, but is still down about 6”from its normal high. The water flow is a bit on the slow side, but at least we are getting some water to the fields. Hopefully the rain coming from the remnants of Hurricane Isaac will fall on the farm later in the week.

Michael’s last day was on Saturday as he has to go back to school. He is looking forward to working full-time next season and we hope he will fill in now and then on weekends until the end of this season.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: Renee seeded arugula and tendergreen mustard this week. Her planting of microgreens is doing well and we anticipate harvesting them as baby greens. The seeded carrots seem to be sporadic in their germination, but we should be able to get at least one harvest before the end of the season. We have some nice basil and salad burnet which will be delivered over the next few weeks. We are getting close to the end of seeding new crops in the greenhouse.

From the Fields: The tomatoes are suffering due to the lack of rain, but we are in good shape for the next few weeks. As fields are harvested and not replaced by new crops as the season is winding down, we are planning on where to plant the garlic crop in October. We will be planning a trip to the farm, probably the third weekend of October. Our late planting of zucchini might just work as the weather has been warm enough for them to take hold. A new basil planting in both upper greenhouses and some in the field is really doing well. Everyone loves a lot of basil!

The delivery of blue potatoes is just harvested so are “new”potatoes with very thin skins. Please use them as soon as possible as they will not store. They are on the “dirty” side as we didn’t want to wash them or the skins would fall off.

Weather Report: With the lack of rain, we are spending time overhead watering and at this time are picking and choosing which crops to save. The priority at this point is the fall greens, radishes, turnips and keeping the tomatoes on target for delivery. Some areas of the fields are better than others and the choice of what to save is based on the shape they are in. On a positive note, rain is in the forecast for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Animal report: While we were gone for deliveries last week, a groundhog decided to move into the center of the lower field. He has been munching on lettuce, tomatoes and some weeds. At this time, it has been relocated outside the field in the hopes it will not return.

Upcoming Events

Garlic Gathering – Olde Lafayette Village – Route 94/15, Lafayette, NJ 11 am – 4 pm October 6^th & 7^th

Annual Garlic Fest – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street October 14^th 1-5 pm

Week of September 4th - 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

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 12–Week of August 27th

Midway through the Season!

This week was on the dry side and we did have to start irrigating some fields. The crew spent a lot of time harvesting, both for the CSA and the Hoboken Tomato Tasting. One of our Heirloom tomato fields is at its peak of production, but more will be coming from other fields. About the only field work accomplished this week was to tie up and trellis some cucumbers, beans and tomatoes so that we can get in with the weed whacker and to clean up between the rows to give the produce more room to breathe.

In between field work and harvesting, the crew has been cleaning garlic. With the tomato tasting event we have to pull the crew during a few days prior to get ready for the event, but during this week we make it a priority to catch up.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The seeded carrots are coming along nicely. This crop of carrots will be normal “orange” carrots. We do hope you liked the rainbow carrots we delivered earlier in the season. The areas of the greenhouse that have been harvested have been replanted for fall delivery. This includes New Zealand spinach and arugula.

From the Fields: The newly seeded crops are all up and growing. Michael weeded the first planting of beets, Oriental greens, cilantro, turnips, radishes and Daikon radishes. These will be showing up in the deliveries soon. The next planting of dill, white globe radishes, maruba, sen posi, prizehead lettuce and beets have all germinated. They do need a nice rain, but all in all are doing well. The later planting of tomatoes is looking good for a late harvest as well as tomatillos. Our late planting of zucchini is on track for deliveries soon. The Oriental cucumber planting unfortunately collapsed. The plants just died back overnight. They were gorgeous one day and the next day the plants were wilted.

The chicory is doing well and some thinnings will be harvested. When we perform thinning it allows the remaining plants to grow to full size.

Our crop of Jerusalem Artichokes (otherwise known as sunchokes) are really doing well. They are always on the docket for October delivery. We should have twice as month as last year so we hope to deliver them twice this year. Our broccoli patch is not doing well, but we’ll remain optimistic.

Weather Report: It continues to be very dry. We had to run water in the back field which has the sandier soil. We will have to run water on the newly seeded patches if it doesn’t rain soon. The temperatures are now cooler and the crew one morning during harvest actually had to wear gloves! The days are getting shorter, and our start time of 6:00 am has to be move to 6:30 as it is still dark at the farm. We are thinking of getting the crew some miner lamp helmets!!!

Animal report: We noticed a break-in right at the front gate and we don’t know exactly what creature is invading the field. Since there is clover right inside that gate, Farmer Rich is thinking it may be a skunk. More reason we should get those Miners Lamp helmets for our early morning opening of the gates at the farm!!!! During lunch time one day, a small bear decided to stroll past our picnic area looking for additional snacks, since it had visited the night before and dumped out the wrappers from lunch.

Upcoming Events

Garlic Gathering – Olde Lafayette Village – Route 94/15, Lafayette, NJ 11 am – 4 pm October 6th & 7th Annual Garlic Fest – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street October 14th 1-5 pm

Week of August 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

Catalpa Ridge News Volume 17 No 11–Week of August 20th

Hoboken Tomato Tasting !

Sunday, August 26th, will be the Annual Tomato Tasting in Hoboken at the Hoboken Historical Museum between 1-5 pm. It is always a great event where we bring many different varieties of tomatoes for tasting as well as farm fresh produce, dips, salsa & pesto for sale. We hope to meet many members there as we have in the past. The address is 1301 Hudson Street and we are set up in the walkway. It is a fundraiser for the Hoboken Historical Museum.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The microgreens have to be replanted as the germination was very sporadic. We will be replacing them with another planting of microgreens and some arugula. The ginger crop is really looking great, and that will be harvested around the end of the season. The Oriental greens had their share of problems and we hope the problems are under control. Renee seeded some carrots for the end of the season harvests and they are coming up well. She has also started zucchini transplants in the greenhouse for planting in the fields at the farm, probably a bit late, but we hope they will do well.

From the Fields:  This week we worked on the round field and got caught up on weeding. In this field we have tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and a new variety of tomato, Indigo Rose.  All the plants are doing well and have come along great with the weather cooperating the past few weeks. We are a bit behind on weeding the other fields, but this week with good weather should catch up on it.

Michael seeded more radishes, Oriental greens, lettuce, beets and dill this past week. They are all actually up and growing as we write this news. The crew transplanted more cucumbers and zucchini so their production will start soon as zukes produce within 45 days. We transplanted some broccoli as our original planting just did not produce. We hope the newest crop will come in by the end of the season. Four rows of broccoli were lost from our original planting which is probably due to the weird weather patterns we had where it was hot, then got too cold, then got too hot again. The cauliflower has been decimated by the animals.

The crew has been busy harvesting the tomatoes and keeping on top of them as during a dry period, followed by rain, the heirloom tomatoes will often crack. We want continue this practice so that the quality of the heirlooms we harvest remains high. The small red tomatoes in this week’s delivery are the variety known as Siberian, which is a tasty small round red tomato. Most of Saturday was spent sorting the tomatoes to cull out the damaged ones and make sure each delivery sites gets a nice variety as well.

Weather Report:  There have been a bunch of locally severe storms over the past week, some with small hail. Fortunately, no severe damage occurred at the farm.We did receive about 1 ½” of rain over the past week, spread out over the week. This really helped the newly seeded crops and we haven’t had to irrigate the fields. This late in the season we are pleased that our pond is filled up again. It was down over 2 feet during the dry periods and during that time Farmer Rich was worried about lack of water. Mother Nature has rebounded for us, though most of the mid-west is still in a severe drought condition.

Animal report:  The rabbits and groundhogs had a run on the fields this week. Crops they consumed were lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli and the cauliflower. Farmer Rich found the breach in the fence where the groundhogs are getting in and fixed it. The rabbits on the other hand are more elusive as they apparently are just living inside the fence and continue to reproduce.

Upcoming Events
Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street
August 26^th 1-5 pm

 

 

Week of August 20th - 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

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 10–Week of August 13th

Time for Heirlooms!

Tomato Tuesday – The harvest of the heirlooms continued this week. Japanese Truffles, Brandywine, Vintage Wine, Striped German, Yellow Brandywine, and Carolina Gold are some of the varieties that will be mixed into the delivery of heirloom tomatoes this week. More to come as the plants are doing well.

Lisa Exhibiting her Brown Swiss dairy cow	John exhibiting his Jersey dairy cow

News from NJ State Fair - John placed second in his division for exhibiting his Jersey dairy cow and Lisa placed first for exhibiting her Brown Swiss.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The microgreens planted last week weren’t ready for delivery this week but hopefully will make next week’s delivery. The husk cherries should start to make the deliveries. A large planting of basil was started, as you can never have enough basil. Up and growing are the China Rose radishes, but the Oriental Greens aren’t doing well.

From the Fields: The recent rain has helped the field crops immensely. The recently seeded beets, Daikon radishes, turnips, mustard, cilantro and Cherry Belle radishes are among the crops that have benefited from the rain. The sorrel in the back field should be harvested for delivery next week or the week after. We planted 2000 leeks in March, but they appear to be a crop failure which is a disappointment. The problem with them has been the wild weather. We had planted them early, and then it got cold so they probably thought that it was winter, then it got warm again and they started to flower, which isn’t good. We did pull the flower buds off in the hopes that we would get some leeks but that doesn’t appear to have worked.

Our plantings of tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers continue to produce well, both the original and secondary plantings. We lost another planting of lettuce but the subsequent planting is coming along well. Needless to say the kale keeps cranking along and the eggplants are coming in. The newest planting of chard is almost ready for harvest.

After the harvest on Sunday morning, the crew was ready to perform some field work, especially some weeding. The recent rain not only helped the field crops, but also accelerated the weeds. We needed to take the veggie beds back from them so that the veggies don’t have to compete for water and nutrients.

Weather Report: About 1” of rain fell during the past week. There was a threat of hail last weekend but fortunately no hail fell over the farm. If it did hail there would have been no kale this week! There have been scattered thunderstorms throughout the area. When they move over the farm the crew holes up in the greenhouse and cleans garlic until the storms pass.

As we get ready to watch the meteor showers we are reminded that this month there are 2 full moons, one was on the 1^st of August and the second will be on the 31^st. This is a once in a “blue moon” event occurring approximately every 2 ½ years and is known as a Blue Moon.

Animal report: The fences continue to keep the animals on the outside with only minor problems occurring inside the fence, namely the rabbits. The sparrows, our “air-force”, are in control of the insects, the most natural way for our bug control.

Upcoming Events
Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street
August 26^th 1-5 pm

Week of August 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.

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

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 9–Week of August 6th

Blue Ribbons !

The crew did rather well at the NJ State Fair in the Open Vegetable Show:

• Lisa – 23 Blue Ribbons
• Renee – 11 Blue Ribbons with 1 Best in Show for Curly Leaf Parsley
• Michael – 10 Blue Ribbons with 1 Best in Show for Beans

The NJ State Fair continues to Sunday, August 12^th and we eagerly are looking forward to see how Lisa and John do exhibiting their dairy cows.

We have peaches this week from Soon Orchards. As we have passed along in prior newsletters, local fruit is scarce this year due to the freeze that we had in the area in the late spring which destroyed the buds on the trees.

We have started to harvest the Heirloom tomatoes so you will start to see many of the different varieties that we grow in your deliveries. This week some of the varieties we harvested are Striped German, Green Zebra, Black Krim and Black Brandywine. Far more flavorful than the standard round red tomatoes, they do have a shorter shelf life as they have thinner skins. Make a great looking multicolored tomato salad with the yellows, greens and deep purples!

Franklin Greenhouse Report: This week, Renee planted microgreens in the Franklin Greenhouse. Some of the varieties she has started include brassica mixes, radishes, tendergreen mustard and Oriental greens. They should be in the deliveries over the next few weeks. We have found them great just for salad, on top of pizza and made chicken Milanese. She seed carrots for the fall deliveries this week as well. The ginger continues to do well. It is a slow grower taking eight to ten months to grow to harvest time so it should be ready just before the end of our harvest year. We are harvesting at least 1 to 2 items per week from the Franklin Greenhouse and in tonight’s deliver is the Rosemary.

From the Fields: The dill, beets, turnips, radishes, Daikon, and Torazorah seeded over the past few weeks are all up and growing. They were thinned this week to improve the plant’s production. The newest planting of zucchini in the back field is doing well. The crew direct seeded zucchini and cucumbers last week in the field and it appears that a squirrel or two is fond of the seeds that they planted. Most of them were eaten in the course of the week. Since we are not a big fan of direct seeding anyway, Renee had already started zucchini and cucumber transplants for us to plant into the fields for the later deliveries.

This week, we tilled up a few areas to plant more fall crops such as more fava greens and Oriental greens. Additional plantings of lettuce, escarole & chicory are all in. There will be thinnings of these plantings in upcoming deliveries for salad mixes. The tomatoes, eggplant and peppers are all doing great in our newly renovated round field. As you will note, the Kale keeps cranking along and I am vigorously coming up with new ideas for recipes.

Weather Report: As we compose this newsletter, we are receiving much needed rain, though in the form of a thunderstorm with a threat of hail as a cool front moves through. During the week it was extremely dry and hot, and it was best to have early quitting times most every day. Sunday morning was probably the worst and after the harvest & breaking down the deliveries for each site, the crew was burned out.

Animal report: We still have some rabbits in the field, though not doing much damage. The veggie that they like the best this week are the tomatoes. Just as the tomatoes are ready to harvest, the rabbits get up early in the morning and decide to have a tasting. Fortunately we have an abundance of tomato plants so there are plenty for both them & you.

Upcoming Events

NJ State Fair – Sussex County Farm & Horse Show – continues to August 12th . More info: http://www.njstatefair.com/

Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street
August 26^th 1-5 pm

Week of August 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.

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

Catalpa Ridge News Volume 17 No 8–Week of July 30, 2012

NJ State Fair Starts !

The NJ State Fair – Sussex County Farm & Horse Show starts on Friday. The crew will be exhibiting again this year in the Open Vegetable Show. Ali, Lisa, Dory, Renee and Michael all plan on entering exhibits are we hope for many blue ribbons. Lisa and our Mr Fix It, John, also plan on exhibiting their dairy cows. Lisa has a Brown Swiss and John has a Jersey and we eagerly anticipate seeing them in the ring. As of this writing the calves are getting a haircut and shampoo so they will look great during their debut at the fair.

The Open Vegetable Show judging is on Saturday at 12 noon so we will have the results for next week’s newsletter. We hope that all of the crew members are in contention for the top 5 placements. If you visit the fairgrounds, stop by the greenhouse and you will be able to see the veggie exhibits. The fair has many wonderful events from livestock shows, outdoor entertainment, tractor pulls, 4-H exhibits, creative arts, photography, wine tasting and of course their famous Horse Show. It makes a great day out. More information can be found at: http://www.newjerseystatefair.org.

The harvest year this year is less stressful than last, where were had too wet conditions. Each week’s harvest is far larger than last year’s as well as more variety. The fruit this year is on the scarce side due to the freeze we had in the late spring. The freeze destroyed the buds which produce the fruit. We are working with the farmers that have provided fruit in the past they will do all they can to try to supply us with fruit.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: Renee has been rolling over some beds. There were a few crop failures with the Oriental greens in the greenhouse. Carrots will be a new crop to go into these beds. The salad burnet that is in tonight’s delivery was harvested from the Franklin greenhouse. The herbs that we have planted there are all doing well. This includes: rosemary, sage, ginger, China Rose radishes, husk cherries, hot peppers, basil, and greens.

From the Fields:

The crops that Michael seeded are all up. We have a new section in the field to seed this week. Radishes, turnips, beets and Oriental greens are slated for this project. The kale keeps cranking along. There are lots & lots of kale this year. Last year we didn’t have any. I have added a link in the recipe section to 6 ways to Love Kale!! The transplanted squash from three weeks ago is almost ready to harvest in about 10-14 days. The yard-long beans are doing well as is the lettuce planting. We have a new chard variety that is growing a bit on the slow side and probably won’t be ready for harvest for another two weeks. The fava greens have been enjoying the recent rain.

One of the Kale Beds

Weather Report: We received at least 1” of rain over the past week. Fortunately this rain is not only helping the crops but has also filled the pond back up. Farmer Rich gets nervous when the pond drops, which it did over the past several weeks. The pond was down almost 12” at one point. Saturday, a front moved through which brought hail to the area. At the farm, Farmer Rich watched as the hail stones fell but most actually melted just before impact. There is some minor hail damage to some crops but fortunately none were lost.

Animal report: The voles seem to have a full run of the farm, they tunnel through the fields and will often take a bite out the leaves of all different crops. Farmer Rich and the crew noted a fawn just outside the new field. The fawn isn’t big enough to jump the fences yet!

Upcoming Events
	NJ State Fair – Sussex County Farm & Horse Show – starts August 3rd. More info: http://www.njstatefair.com/
	Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street August 26th 1-5 pm

Week of July 30th - 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

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 7 – Week of July 23rd

Reprieve from the Hot Weather

The weather finally broke at the end of the week and we were able to get an incredible amount of work done. Some all important field work was accomplished. Weeding, staking the tomatoes and cucumbers and transplanting into the back field were all accomplished on Thursday. Zucchini, beans and various greens were all planted for deliveries in the fall. On Friday, the greenhouses were cleaned up and straightened out as it was raining most of the day. Though a mundane task it was one that had to be done.

Sunday morning, the crew started early and finished harvesting for the delivery. Lisa and Ali sorted the harvest for each delivery site as they do every week. Michael and Farmer Rich worked in the field seeding new crops. Though it seems they are planting late for some of the crops, it really works out well as any earlier it was just too dry and the crops would have been lost. With the current rain, the soil is perfect to accept the new seeds and there is more rain in the forecast. Planted on Sunday was: Dill, Early Wonder Beets, Dikon Radishes, Golden Ball Turnips, Torazorah, Cilantro and Cherry Bell Radishes.

Michael Preparing the Bed for Seeding

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Franklin Greenhouse Report: Replanting is on schedule in the Franklin greenhouse. Some thoughts are to plant carrots again in the beds, as the first crop did very well. The husk cherries, which were slow to start, should start to show up in the deliveries soon. The ginger crop is coming along, though small. Newly seeded China Rose radishes are up & growing. The Hot Pepper crop is also doing well. We made a special planting of Orange King tomatoes in the greenhouse that we are actually saving for seed for next year. There are only 2 sources of this very scarce seed that we have been able to find, so we’ll save our own seed for this variety.

From the Fields: We planted some favas for fava greens. The eggplant, tomatoes and peppers in the round field are doing well and the harvest from that field should be starting in the next several weeks. We have been having some problems with the main field. When it was first planted it was too wet, and recently it has been too dry. This recent rain has perked everything up and it looks like it will produce rather well in a few weeks.

Weather Report: It was a super HOT week until we finally received some relief on Thursday. Some severe thunderstorms moved through the area on Wednesday night and a few farms in the area were hit with hail, which totally destroyed some of their crops. We were lucky that no severe hail fell on our farm, though some small hail did fall and hit the chard crop (which you will notice). We finally receive some rain this week. A good “soaking-in” rain fell on Friday for most of the day. This really perked up the field crops. Over 2” of rain fell during the Thursday & Friday storms.

Animal report: With the dry conditions, the animals have been on patrol seeking out greener pastures. The fencing is doing its job by keeping them out and we hope none decide to burrow in. The rabbits continue to bump into each other, as there are so many of them! Very comical to see and we only wish we had a video camera on them in the field. The small animals seem to have taken over from the larger animals, which is more of a nuisance. The chipmunks sneak into the greenhouse and take a taste of a tomato now and then. Interestingly, we haven’t had the chipmunks around for years.

Week of July 23rd - 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

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 17 No 6 – Week of July 16th

The best crew just got better!

We have the best crew working at the farm for the last several years and our crew just got better with the addition of Michael. Michael has been coming up to the farm along with his younger brother, and his Mom and Dad, to help with projects since he was probably about 4 ½ years old. Michael wants to pursue a career in agriculture and is looking into college programs once he graduates high school. We always told him that once he was legal to work and could drive, he would have a job at Catalpa Ridge and that time has come! Michael fit right in with the crew on his first week on the job.

Michael and Kevin in 1999 helping at the farm

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The ginger is coming along nicely and far better than in prior years. It will be slated for an October harvest. Oriental greens are doing well after they were thinned out. Unfortunately some that were harvested last week never made it to the delivery sites due to the excessive heat. Renee transplanted some more basil in addition to the basil planted at the farm. Renee also seeded more lettuce that will be planted at the farm.

From the Fields: The dry weather is slowing the crops. We continue to irrigate the fields but the crops really need the “soaking in” kind of rain. Our work hours are way down as it is impossible to work when it is so hot. The crew is starting early, and has to end the workday early well before 12 noon. The pond is dropping daily, due to the lack of rain. The round field is finally fully planted and all the crops are doing really well. That particular field is usually too wet, so little irrigation is needed. All the former garlic beds were wrapped with plastic on Saturday and the irrigation set up. They are ready for a new planting which will include Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, zucchini, oriental greens, yard-long beans, and lettuce.

Weather Report: Lack of rain and hot temperatures loomed over the farm for another week. The Forest Service in the area has posted a High Fire Danger warning for Sussex County. No drought conditions have been reported on the droughtmonitor website in our area, though about 28% of NJ is in an “abnormally dry” condition.

Animal report: The rabbits were the most comical animals this week. A few baby rabbits were running in the field and bumped into each other. Then one of them decided to chase after the other probably because it was mad! A white cat at the Franklin greenhouse decided to climb into Renee’s car and eat half of her sandwich. With drought conditions the animals are getting closer and closer to wanting to break into the fields to eat. We have been fortunate the first several weeks of the season not to have a severe problem with the animals. Just a few minor annoyances so far this season and we hope it will stay that way.

Trip to the Farm Scheduled for Saturday – July 21^st

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 21^st 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. Please RSVP (by July 19^th) so we can plan on lunch, refreshments & get you directions. Give us your contact # via phone or e-mail just in case the weather is iffy (it can be a whole different world at the farm) so we can give you a call if it will be a rainy day.

Week of July 16th - 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