Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 21 No 15–September 20, 2016

 

Harvest Moon !

 

News from the Fields & Farm: 

The Harvest Moon came on the 16^th. It is followed by the Hunter's Moon, the Beaver Moon and the Cold Moon to round out the year. We had a super cool morning on the 16^th, and 17^th – about 42◦. Then the days warmed up with the morning temps around 70◦ on Sunday. The Autumn Equinox is on the 22^nd and the days will then become shorter. We have already seen some of the trees starting to change color.

 

The crew is starting to map out where the garlic beds will be for planting in October. We plan on preparing a number of beds for both hard and soft neck garlic varieties to be planted mid to late October. We do like to rotate the beds each year to avoid problems with a combination of nutrients and soil borne diseases.

 

We will attempt to replant the greenhouse on the farm with more salad greens.

 

Lucille Fryer Peppers in the field:

 

Franklin Greenhouse Report: We are still harvesting from the greenhouse; tomatoes, chard, hot peppers

and the eggplant plants have shut down. With only 5 more weeks after this week we will not be replanting into this greenhouse but will continue weekly harvests.

 

Weather report: We managed to get some rain this past week; probably about 1/2'”. We generally remain in drought conditions along with the rest of northern NJ. The northern NJ district reservoirs are only about 60% full. This is about 10% below the 1962-2010 average for the same time period. This year we had the 9^th driest August since records were kept back to 1895 as noted on the Rutgers chart below:

 

We did have a brief rainstorm on Sunday just as the crew was finishing the delivery.