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 12th 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/
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Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street
August 26th 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.
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