Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 18 No 8–July 29, 2013

New Jersey State Fair Starts !

The NJ State Fair – Sussex County Farm & Horse Show starts on Friday. We hope that the crew will be exhibiting again this year in the Open Vegetable Show. The Open Vegetable Show judging is on Saturday at 12 noon so we will have the results for next week’s newsletter. 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.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: We harvested some Oriental Greens and these beds will be rolled over into Broccoli Raab. Renee planted more Bok Choi. The eggplant continues to do well and should be on the horizon for deliveries in a week or so. The rosemary in this week’s delivery comes from a very productive stand. We will probably start more microgreens in a week or so as long as the temperatures stay reasonable.

Newly Seeded:

In the Field: Dill    Dikon Radishes    Golden Ball Turnips    Green Wave Mustard Purple Top Turnips    Cilantro    Arugula

For Transplants: Zucchini    Cucumbers    Escarole    Brocolli Lettuce (4 varieties)    Cauliflower

Planted in Franklin: Bok Choi    Brocooli Raab

From the Fields:   While we have had a lot of zukes and cukes, the plants will be shutting

tilled and planted

down within a week or two. Second planting has been accomplished so fruit from them will be available in late September. We tilled the fields where the fava beans and garlic was planted. We have planted half of this area already with many new veggies – see Up & Growing below. Attempts at recovering the round field have not gone well. It is still too wet despite our dry spell. It is not unusual as a farm down the street appears to have the same problem. We weeded the beet, chard, cucumber, radicchio and Chinese cabbage beds. We had a great day of work on Thursday with a complete full day during the cooler temperatures.

Animal report:  A chipmunk moved into the heated greenhouse on the farm. It is not eating very much. It is a gatherer, gathering up whatever they gather up. A family of groundhogs had moved into the back field under the fava beans. This may be why our fava bean production was down this year. After the fava beans were harvested they decided to move under the rototiller seeking shelter.

Weather report: Finally some rain on Sunday after a week without. About 1 ½” of rain fell at the farm which did interrupt the harvest. We swapped the crew to working in the greenhouse during the heavy rain. Renee started seeding and Michael worked on some of the machines and the sprinkler heads. Ali & Lisa started cleaning some garlic.

Upcoming Events

	NJ State Fair – Sussex County Farm & Horse Show – starts August 2nd. More info: http://www.njstatefair.com/
	Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street August 25th 1-5 pm Farm Fresh Seasonal Produce for sale as well.

July 29th - 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
United Synagogue of Hoboken

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 18 No 7–July 22, 2013

Believe it or Not !

Believe it or not after 5” of rain the week before we received none during this past week. With the superhot temperatures the fields were drying out quickly. Some of the crops were getting stressed as was the crew. We start early, usually by 6:00 am and on some days the crew had to quit by 9:30 am and other days they were able to work through the heat and stop around 1:00 pm. Friday was an extra special bad day with the heat and humidity taking its toll. With Gatorade in hand the crew was only able to start the zucchini harvest.

We were able to perform some long overdue maintenance tasks during the week. Michael and Farmer Rich did some weed waking.

The zukes on the farm are almost ready to shut down, but the plants we planted in Art’s field are doing well. More plants will be ready to plant soon for a fall crop.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: Renee seeded Tora Zorah and Bok Choi in the Franklin Greenhouse. The Chinese greens seem to be doing extra well there. We will have some Tokyo Bekana harvested for next week’s delivery and the bed will be rolled over into Tatsoi. We were very happy with the Tokyo Bekana production as we were able to get three deliveries from the beds that we planted; from baby to adolescent to mature. It made such nice salads with great flavor. Renee staked up the eggplant and she was able to plant some late hot pepper plants as well. We will probably try some microgreens again in a few weeks.

From the Fields: We harvested the lettuce and that bed was transplanted with Fava Greens, New Zealand Spinach and Cilantro. Next week we plan on attacking the back field and replant where the fava beans and peas were harvested. We hope to plant a lot autumn crops. Two out of three beds have been re-tilled and re-planted.

 

 

 

 

Tilling the harvested lettuce bed                         This will be a new bed for Fava Greens

Animal report: Some crows decided to start tasting our tomatoes and the rabbit has not shown up all week. Perhaps the heat has gotten to it as well as us. Upon arriving at the farm early in the morning deer are everywhere, though none have attempted to break into the fields (yet). The thistles are in full bloom which brings the goldfinch (our State Bird).

Weather report: A brutally hot week finally came to an end on Sunday with temperatures dropping into the mid 80’s instead of being in the high 90’s and low 100’s. The threat of severe thunderstorms never seemed to come, at least over the farm. Now at this point we need some rain as we are irrigating the fields.

Upcoming Events
	NJ State Fair – Sussex County Farm & Horse Show – starts August 2nd. More info: http://www.njstatefair.com/
	Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting – Hoboken Historical Museum – 1301 Hudson Street August 25th 1-5 pm Farm Fresh Seasonal Produce for sale as well.

July 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
• United Synagogue of Hoboken

Catalpa Ridge News - Volume 18 No 6 - July 15, 2013

Hot, wet, hot, wet, hot, wet….you get the idea !

The conditions are still trying with the rain and hot temperatures, but overall the harvests are well above past years. The zucchini have really taken off, though you better enjoy them while they are producing well. Some plants are starting to shut down and new plantings will be taking place soon. The peppers and eggplant are starting to come online. We are slated to plant some beans. Also, we have more lettuce on the horizon as they are planted in the shadier areas of the field so they won’t shut down before they get started in this heat. With the wet temperatures we have had a slug problem in some of the fields and have put out more slug traps. The only problem with this is that when it rains the slug traps dissolve. We continue to monitor.

Michael started this week which was perfect timing as the fava bean harvest had to be completed. Michael, Ali and Lisa worked in the rain on Saturday to complete the harvest. We are pleased overall with the production as they were planted about 1 month late because of the heavy rains in the spring. With the rain during harvest, you may notice some discoloration of the outer pods but the beans are still good. In the same field the pea plants have shut down completely. This field will be totally replanted for fall crops. We usually follow the fava bean beds with turnips, radishes and Chinese greens. The fava beans fix nitrogen in the soil which is essential for the turnips, radishes and Chinese greens to flourish.

Animal report: We still have a rabbit in the field and the groundhog has decided to leave the premises. When Lisa arrived at the farm on Sunday at 6:00 am and got out of her SUV she noticed that there was a live small bird trapped in her grill. It was green with an orange beak and not a species that anyone had seen before. We tried to free it, but there was no way to get it out. To the rescue were Matt and John who arrived and proceeded to entirely remove the grill so that the bird could fly to safety.

Weather report: During the week about 1” of rain fell on top of what were already too wet fields. This is causing some crop causalities. In addition, we had to work over the weekend in the excess heat, though starting early in the day does help. At least we had a nice Thursday and Friday for working in the cooler, less humid temperatures.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The Tokyo Bekana was harvested from the Franklin Greenhouse opening up two new beds for planting. We will be planting Red Bok Choi and Torah Zorah in these beds. We will probably be harvesting some baby celery next week for delivery. Some Sen Posi has been harvested and has started in the deliveries, though not to all locations on the same week. All of these Oriental greens seem to really like the conditions in the greenhouse. We are staggering the harvest to the different locations. We do have an extra nice planting of oriental eggplant and these will supplement our plantings in the field.

From the Fields: The wet weather has played havoc with the garlic so on some garlic bulbs this has caused the outer skins to be incomplete. Tonight’s delivery will contain those garlics which are perfectly good to use within the week, but not good to store for the long term. While they don’t look supermarket fresh they will have great fresh garlic flavor. We are holding the better garlics that have the intact skins for curing in the greenhouse for later deliveries. It is during the curing process that the intense flavors develop. The crew finished the garlic harvest on Sunday afternoon with the last of the Elephant garlic the last of the garlic to be pulled. This variety happens to be in good shape.

Reminders –the sites that have an open delivery -  remember to bring your own bags to the delivery to cut down on our use of plastic!

July 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
• United Synagogue of Hoboken

Catalpa Ridge News - Volume 18 No 5 – July 8, 2013

Hot Harvest – Hopefully Cooler Delivery !

We had another grueling few days in the fields with super-hot temperatures during the harvest on Saturday and Sunday. Ali & Lisa have been working really hard starting early in the morning and getting most of the harvest done by noon. It is really too hot to work in the fields after noon-time. John came up to do some field work and brush-hog some of the sections that need replanting. On his agenda was to pull up the plastic where the garlic was, but the heat of the day got to him within 20 minutes. When we brush-hog, we have a special mower on the back of the tractor that chops up left over plant material, weeds, and anything overgrown so it is prepared for rototilling. It gets its name as the attachment is used a lot to clean up brush areas and overgrown fields. We purchased our own brush-hog this year mostly to try to claim back the upper fields to put back into hay production. Currently it has been too wet to work on the upper fields but it is on the agenda.

The Garlic Harvest has begun! We started harvesting the softneck garlic on Sunday and the bulk of the hardneck garlic will be next. For softneck garlic, we harvested Ozark and Italian Purple. We harvested Calabria, Music and German Extra Hardy for the start of the hardneck garlic harvest. Eventually you’ll taste the differences in flavors over the course of the season. The garlic bulbs seem smaller than last years. In checking with some other area farmers, they are finding the same. This may be due to excessive wetness that has been the norm in the area.

Franklin Greenhouse Report: The radishes in Franklin and at the farm at not doing well and may become a crop failure. We seeded more Oriental greens and they are all up. The Tokyo Bekana will produce another harvest next week. We seeded Sen Posi and that should be ready in another two weeks. The ginger after a very slow start is starting to take off. It is really looking great, though the yield with this variety may not be as good as last year. We are also trying Mango Ginger, but it just doesn’t seem to be taking off. We like to try to grow new things and are not sure exactly what the problem is with the Mango Ginger. It may want to actually be in the southern hemisphere!

From the Fields: The zucchini harvest has started as you will see in your deliveries. They should be very productive over the next several weeks. The field cucumbers are coming along well and will be showing up soon. We have about six different varieties of cucumbers from Lemon Cukes to standard green. We lost a bed of escarole due to the wet conditions. We have some beds ready for replanting this week. Michael starts on Thursday and that will be a great project for him to undertake. We also have a huge harvest of Fava Beans slated to harvest this week. The peas look like they are over due to the excessive heat. In your delivery this week are carrots from the field. We did seed some rainbow carrots but they did not germinate. We hope to try seeding them again. They were a big hit last year.

Animal report: We have at least two creatures that have broken into the lower field. One is probably a ground hog and the other is a rabbit. We have not figured out where they are getting in or where they are hiding. Currently they are enjoying on some veggies in the field. On a more comical note, Farmer Rich put a piece of Blueberry cake on top of a table in the greenhouse and a chipmunk was struggling to get to it. He should have taken a few pictures or better yet a video.

Weather report: During the week about 5” of rain fell. Believe it or not some fields may require water soon. It has been extra hot at the farm as it has been at our CSA delivery sites in Mahwah, Franklin and Hoboken. This also creates an extra strain on the deliveries. We are getting the produce into the walk-in-cooler at Scott’s as soon as possible to keep it chilled down for delivery. We do hope the weather will break mid-week so more work can be done.

July 8th- 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
• United Synagogue of Hoboken