Catalpa Ridge News

2012 CSA Season will be here Soon!

2012-01-10T20:36:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year! We wish you all to have a healthy & prosperous 2012. We have a few new projects for the 2012 Harvest Year. Believe it or not, the growing season will start in 6 weeks! Farmer Rich and crew will be starting transplants in the greenhouses and he is working on his seed order (see below if you have any special requests).

In the works for 2012:

Ginger is being planned for planting in the Franklin Greenhouse. We have tried it off & on over the years, but never in any quantity to deliver. Some CSA members have requested it so we are moving ahead and have ordered it and believe we have a good plan for it to succeed.
On the hill above our growing field we are going to attempt a berry patch. We had grapes many, many, many years ago there that the deer proceeded to devour. We are hoping to plant blueberries & elderberries there and will of course build fencing around the area to keep the deer out.
One of our “trading partners”, Northstate Growers which helped save us last year for tomato deliveries, has strawberries planted and we hope to have them in the early season deliveries.
The garlic was planted during the trip to the farm in late fall and the crop looks good as they have sprouted but not growing too much despite the warm weather we have been having. We want them to stay in this state and not grow too much before the real winter arrives.
We have doubled our sunchoke planting (Jersulam artichokes) as we were only able to deliver them just once late in the season. This is one of the more popular unusual items that we deliver.

Seed Order: Farmer Rich is starting to prepare his seed order from a network of seed catalogs we receive during the late winter months. If there is anything special you would like, just drop us an e-mail and we will try to get it. We place most of our seed orders with Seed Savers Exchange, Fedco Seeds, Johnny's Selected Seeds, Jordan Seed, Dixondale Farms(onions) and others.....

We wish to thank those of you who contributed to the gift we received at the end of season pot-luck dinner. It will be used to purchase seeds for the 2012 season.

CSA Outreach: Our CSA membership outreach will start in February/March. We will extend an early bird discount to members who sign up early. We are preparing our budget which will then set the price for the 2012 harvest season. We will also be firming up with the coordinators the drop-off locations and times. Past CSA member will be receiving an e-mail in February as to the specifics for the 2012 season. If you are want to become a member of our CSA, please send us an e-mail and let us know which location you are interested in joining.

We look forward to a bountiful harvest year and hope that it will not be as wet as last year !

Sad News

2011-12-14T11:13:00.002-05:00

My Dad has lost his battle and peacefully passed away with his family at his side. It was a hard four months, but very rewarding in providing the caregiving during this time.
I think the best legacy a parent can leave behind is the success of their children. Success not measured by the amount of money we make, but the way we live our lives and the lessons we learned. Both Mom & Dad taught us life’s lessons; honesty, integrity, respect. They never discouraged, but always encouraged anything we ever wanted to do. If we tried something and failed, it was a lesson learned. Dad was a great teacher, not only during our formative years but later in life as well. In his writings we found these words “I have given them with the aid of their mother, a good direction in life” so we know that he knew he brought us up right. The caretaking we all gave him over these four months is really a tribute to the way we were brought up, to put others first. Just the weekend before he passed away, he looked up at Alison & I and said “you’re good kids”. It was his way of giving us his blessing. Perhaps the long journey during these final few months of Dad’s life were to teach us one more of life’s lessons, that of the meaning of true love. – Farmer Sue
His obituary is posted at: http://www.vanemburghsneider.com/_mgxroot/page_10780.php?id=1001997

Catalpa Ridge News Vol 16 No 20–Week of October 24th

2011-10-24T06:19:00.001-04:00

Last Delivery of the Season

This season was probably the most difficult in our 16 years. We have had some drought years, some wet years, but none so wet as this year. Frankly, we had some doubts that we could make it to the end, but with planning & a great crew we were able to make it. We have the best crew we have ever had and they always went the extra mile to get the deliveries on course each week. Thanks to our crew; Lisa, Ali, Renee & Dory for a job well done this season.

This situation wasn’t unique to us, as other farmers were in similar circumstances, but with our CSA member support we have a sustainable farm despite incredible hardships during the year. 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 2012. Some veggies we had big plans for this season just didn’t materialize in large quantities due to the terrible growing conditions such as our usual staples of chard, kale, heirloom tomatoes, Chinese greens, radishes and beets. For some we had to split deliveries between the CSA drop offs, so your site may have gotten chard one week and another site had to wait another week for it. All in the all, it pretty much evens out by the end of the year. You probably have noted we have had a great Sweet Pepper Year! Perhaps we should tag 2011 as the year of the Sweet Pepper! A great idea if you have a stockpile of sweet peppers in addition to what you are receiving tonight is to clean them up, slice them and then freeze portions in small sandwich bags and use during the winter months.

We plan on working extending the round field for next year during the next few months before the snow comes and the ground freezes. We want to get the new field into production next year. This was planned for this year, but it was just too wet and we had a hard enough time maintaining our regular fields. Work will continue in the early spring on these projects as well as a few other projects we have planned.

Weather Report: Believe it or not another 1” of rain fell at the farm during the week. The temperatures have been on the warm side which has helped greatly with these past three weeks with the deliveries. The crops we had transplanted did grow well during this time and made it into the deliveries.

From the Fields: We had our Garlic Planting Trip to the Farm on Sunday. It was a glorious warm day. Unfortunately there was a poor turnout of CSA members so we were not able to get all the garlic planted as we usually do. Many were scared off by the prediction of cold temperatures but the day was just great! Farmer Sue made up a great campfire barbeque and we appreciated those of you who did come & help.

Animal Report – Unusually quite in animal land, but we don’t have to worry about anyone breaking into the fences now that the season is over.

End of Season Potluck Dinner
Is being planned for November 19^th@ the Hoboken Historical Museum

More details will follow via e-mails - Save the Date!!

Thanks to all CSA members for your continued support.

Week of October 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 16 No 19–Week of October 17th

2011-10-17T20:51:00.001-04:00

Trip to the Farm – Sunday 10/23 & Next Week – Last Delivery of the Season

We did manage to get the garlic beds ready for planting garlic this Sunday. It was too muddy for most of the month, but Farmers Rich, John & Matt were finally able to work in that field and get the beds tilled, fertilized & wrapped and the beds are now ready for planting. We hope that many of you will be able to join us in planting on Sunday. Please see Trip to the Farm below.

Garlic Beds being wrapped for planting

We are making it to the end of the season & what a season it has been! Never have we never had as much rain in one season as this year. We even had an additional ¾” this past week. We appreciate all the support and feedback we have received during this difficult year. The crew has worked very hard the past several weeks to ensure we have deliveries for this week and next and are sure that you all appreciate their efforts.

From the Fields: The season is winding down with just 1 more delivery. The lettuces, sorrel, microgreens, sunchokes, squash, rosemary are all slated for harvest for the final week. This of course is all subject to a heavy frost, snow, hail storm or 4-legged intruders!

Weather Report: It has been unusually warm for this time of year, aside for a few mornings where we had to turn the heat on the greenhouse to warm up before harvesting.

Fruit Report –The pears are from Soons Orchard in Middletown, NY. The Seckel is thought to be a hybrid of Asian and European pears. It is believed to be a truly American pear and named in honor of a Pennsylvania farmer who discovered it around 1820. It is quite different from any European variety, and it happens to be the smallest of all commercially grown pears and sometimes called a sugar pear.

Animal Report – The Annual Wooly Bear Caterpillar is in! This has become an annual part of the newsletter for the past 16 years and for the most part has been pretty accurate. Weather folklore enthusiasts have long assessed that the woolly bear caterpillar is one insect that is supposed to give us some insight as to how severe the winter will be.

It is said that if the middle stripe is narrower than either of the black stripes, the winter will be severe. Conversely, if the center stripe is wide, we’ll have a mild winter. If all the stripes are the same size, we’ll have an average winter. This year, we have observed very thick center stripes on the Wooly Bear caterpillars seen, so perhaps a mild winter is on the horizon. We can only image is all the rain we received this year was snow – we would be buried right now and not able to compose any newsletters.

Trip to the Farm – SCHEDULED for October 23rd

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 23rd· 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

End of Season Potluck Dinner Is being planned for November 19^th@ the Hoboken Historical Museum

More details will follow next week – Save the Date!!

Week of October 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Vol 16 No 18–Week of October 10th

2011-10-10T06:31:00.001-04:00

Summer Returns

We had a week of sunshine and it is amazing how much work can be done when the sun is out. The crew has been cleaning up fields and getting ready for the next two weeks of harvests. It is so nice to be able to really work in better weather! We are not ready to throw in the trowel yet!

The Franklin Greenhouse has been rolled over in a week and a half with Buckwheat microgreens and lemon grass. Sunflower microgreens have also been planted for next week’s delivery. When you have weather patterns like we have had we find creative ways to continue deliveries. Renee has been working very hard in the greenhouse from removing all the beds and re-planting in less than two weeks to have harvests ready for this week.

Franklin Greenhouse filled with greens

We thought that cooler temperatures were around the corner and the greens would be harvested in the cooler temperatures. We were greeted by 80 degree temperatures over the weekend, not typical for October.

From the Fields: We have lettuces and other greens which are coming along quite nicely with the better weather. Three weeks ago we thought it was over, but with a great crew and optimistic outlook it appears we can make it to the end of the season which will be the week of October 24th.

We are getting an area ready for garlic planting – planned for a trip to the farm on October 23rd (see trip to the farm notes). Farmer Rich and John are franticly working on the spot to get it ready, but it is still drying out. We do have other options if this one spot doesn’t dry out by the 23rd.

Garlic field being prepared – still a bit muddy

Weather Report: There were wide swings in temperatures this week with a light frost early in the week to 80 degree temperatures over the weekend. Amazingly very little rain (just ¼”) fell during the week.

Animal Report – The animals continue to be quiet with a few deer peeking through the fence. So far no one has any great desire to break into the fields as apparently there is enough for them to eat on the outside.

Fruit Report –The apples are from Soons Orchard in Middletown, NY. Variety this week is Empire. They are a cross between Red Delicious & McIntosh.

TECH NOTES - We have our OWN Community Toolbar that you can install in your Web Browser! Quick links to all our content: Newsletters, Harvest Identifiers, Facebook, Twitter, search, weather & more. Follow this link and then install http://jerseygrown.ourtoolbar.com/

Trip to the Farm – SCHEDULED for October 23rd

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 23rd· 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 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Vol 16 No 17–Week of October 3rd

2011-10-03T06:16:00.001-04:00

A Hint of Sunshine !

We hate to keep moaning about the weather, but we had another 5 ¾” of rain this past week. There were a few times that the clouds parted and the sun did shine, but not on our harvest days. The crew were in the fields harvesting in the rain on Saturday & Sunday morning.

We had our Olde Lafayette Village Garlic Gathering on Saturday & Sunday and in your delivery you will receive some of the garlic varieties that we had available at the event. Unfortunately Saturday was mostly rainy, but on Sunday the sun came out for the better part of the day. It was great to see a few CSA members who stopped by.

Renee took the photo below at the Franklin Greenhouse of the small brook that developed after the rains this week.

The whole greenhouse was flooded. We have set up the greenhouse with raised beds so all the planted crops were safe but Renee had wet feet!

The upper greenhouse on the farm wasn’t much better, but instead of a small brook had about 4” of mud to walk through.

From the Fields: Field work was limited due to the heavy rain during the week. The crew kept busy cleaning & sorting garlic.

At the Franklin Greenhouse, Renee sowed all the beds with Buckwheat, Sunflowers and MicroGreens as we have little time to left for anything else to grow before the end of the season. They are all up and growing well so we anticipate their harvest being within the next week or two.

Some of the late transplanted crops might produce better than anticipated. The Daikon radishes and lettuces are doing well. The tomatoes are winding down. This week might be the end of the tomatoes, but we may be able to squeeze out another delivery next week. We have a nice stock of onions and winter squash, though we are having storage problems with both. The sunchokes (Jerusalem Artichokes) will be delivered, though small, as the stand was blown down during Hurricane Irene. We usually have watercress, which usually does well in the wet weather, but in typical Catalpa style, the stand did get washed away.

Weather Report: Frost is on the horizon, but at this point there is not much left for the frost to kill. The forecast is for the lows being in the high 30’s with a warming trend during the latter part of the week. We are looking at a window of opportunity to prepare beds for planting garlic later in the month (see Trip to the Farm Planned below).

Animal Report – We haven’t been reporting on any animal damage lately and we have finally figured out why – we think they have all drowned!

The Monarch butterflies and Blue Birds were seen in abundance this past week, perhaps on their migratory routes

Fruit Report –The apples are from Soons Orchard in Middletown, NY.

Trip to the Farm – TENTATIVE date –October 23^rd

· 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 23^rd (tentative date – we’ll keep you posted each week in the newsletter)
· Planting Garlic is a great family activity
· 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 3rd - 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Vol 16 No 16–Week of September 26th

2011-09-26T06:22:00.001-04:00

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.

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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Vol 16–No 15–Week of September 19th

2011-09-20T16:51:00.001-04:00

Rearranging the Deck Chairs…..

As Farmer Rich so aptly put it this week, “It’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” in regard to the conditions at the farm, post Hurricane, post severe rain the following week and the damages that have occurred along the way.

Crop losses still abound (see photo of just one area below).

Showing the impact of just one small area where the severe wet has caused plants to die back and mud to be ever present

On the positive side, the crew has managed to put together a nice delivery with the help of some other neighboring farmers.

On the negative side, the continued severe wet condition is causing problems with plants dying back and delivery quality. We had picked up some lettuce from a neighboring farm for this week’s delivery on Saturday and by Sunday it was undeliverable. This was probably due to it being too wet when harvested. Needless to say we didn’t deliver it.

Meanwhile at the Franklin Greenhouse, (now known as the shuffle board court on the upper deck of the Titanic) had a severe outbreak of aphids. There were none a week and a-half ago. There were so many, almost overnight, the crew had to throw out the bok choi, radishes and mustard greens as they were undeliverable.

Normally we depend on the Franklin Greenhouse to provide the late deliveries when autumn comes, as the plants usually do much better there then in the fields. Looks like this year it is not going to happen as we only have a handful of crops surviving there now. We’ll try to re-seed it with quick crops for the later deliveries.

There are a number of CSAs that have actually stopped delivering for the season due to massive flooding. While we overplant during the season to offset crop losses and also depend on our trading partner network of farmers close to us, the overplanting is helping but the crop losses have exceeded even our worst expectations and the neighboring farmers are either in the same shape as us or worse.

We are fortunate in one respect that the farm is high up on the mountain and we physically don’t get flooded from major rivers or streams. We didn’t have to worry like the farmers in the Hudson Valley, Pine Island and Great Meadows areas who were flooded by rivers and streams that were also contaminated. Our soil structure is very good for the dry times, but not so good for wet. We have never had 24” of rain in 2 ½ weeks in our 16 years. Hopefully it will be another 16 years before a season like this happens again.

From the Fields: We still need to prepare an area for garlic planting. Remember the photo from last week where we showed you the mini grand canyon! We hope things dry out in time for planting garlic in late October. We are ready to go – we have the compost, the garlic and the plastic – we just need a nice dry spot or two! Unfortunately, more rain is in the forecast for Thursday, Friday & Saturday.

Harvested potatoes were water logged and their storage life is about 16 hours. These you can add to the crop loss column.

The crew was able to plant the last of the lettuce transplants and hopefully they will produce before the season is over.

Weather Report: The temperatures are getting cooler and the low temperature so far this week was 39°F. Most of the field tomatoes are already shot, so it really doesn’t matter if we get an early frost! An early frost may kill the peppers. We have had a great pepper year and you probably don’t want any more peppers at this point!

Fruit Report –The Ginger Crisp apples are from Soons Orchard in Middletown, NY.

TECH NOTES - We have our OWN Community Toolbar that you can install in your Web Browser! Quick links to all our content: Newsletters, Harvest Identifiers, Facebook, Twitter, search, weather & more. Follow this link and then install http://jerseygrown.ourtoolbar.com/

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 19th - 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 16–No 14: Week of September 12th

2011-09-12T16:02:00.001-04:00

Deliveries Continue Despite Gloomy Conditions

Last week we reported on the Whirlwind of Disasters post Hurricane Irene. One thing we forgot to mention as part of that whirlwind was that the tractor's hydraulic hose broke while John was tilling a field mid-week. This was the area we planned on planting the garlic, but as you can see from the photo we now have a mini-Grand Canyon in that field. On a positive note, it was a good thing that we didn't get to prepare it as it would have all been washed away. Farmer Rich is still looking for where all the soil went from the wash-out.

Mini Grand Canyon

We had another 9" of rain that fell last week which brings our total for the 2 1/2 weeks to about 24" of rain. Needless to say we do have crop losses in all fields. Most farmers we talk with are all in the same boat!

We will continue to deliver as long a possible. A lot hinges on the newly seeded crops that didn't wash away. They are mostly in the back field which is in better shape than our front fields.

From the Fields: It has been too wet to do much field work. The crew did manage to plant a few hundred lettuce plants this past week. The Franklin Greenhouse is basically in good shape despite the problems we had in the greenhouse post Hurricane. There was some "burning" from some beds drying out as we were without power to get water into the greenhouse for over one week. The plants surprisingly look as though they are coming back!!

The tomato plants have suffered greatly, but we should be able to continue with tomatoes in the delivery for the next several weeks as we do over-plant to off-set crop losses. This year the over-planting has worked out by at least being able to provide a harvest instead of saying that everything is dead.

Weather Report: As noted above, more unwanted rain fell during last week. This week it looks like we have a good forecast with little to no rain to fall. Cooler temperatures and shorter days are on the horizon.

Fruit Report – The apples are from Soons Orchard in Middletown, NY.

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 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Week of September 12th - 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 16 No 13–Week of September 6th

2011-09-05T16:22:00.001-04:00

Whirlwind of Disasters

Post hurricane Irene brought us a whole whirlwind of disasters to deal with after the hurricane itself. At least 9” of rain fell during the deluge of the hurricane with 5” of rain falling the week before. The upper greenhouse was lost and Farmer Rich and the crew recovered it on Thursday. The Franklin was without power until just this Monday a.m. (the 5^th) so this meant we were without the fans & water. Lack of the fans lead to the temperatures in the greenhouse to exceed what we normally desire and there was no pump to get water onto the crops. Fortunately Jim hooked up a generator on Thursday so Renee was able to water everything to keep it from totally dying. We do have significant crop losses needless to say in the Franklin greenhouse itself.

Meanwhile back at the farm almost nothing is doing well. Our farm is low lying which is great during dry years, but not so great during wet years. There are significant crop losses due to the excessive rains, but all is not loss. Almost all farmers we partner with are all in the same boat, so produce is getting harder to find.


*Post Hurricane Irene – Upper Greenhouse plastic ripped away*	*Greenhouse Recovered on Thursday*

From the Fields: The crew pulled up four rows of plastic on the fields and we tilled the area to get it ready for garlic planting next month. Needless to say it was too wet to proceed. The weeds had gotten out of control so two days were spent weed whacking the remaining fields to promote better crop production on what remains. The crew was able to do some transplanting but the wet conditions are hampering everything.

Forty flats of mixed lettuce were transplanted into cells in the greenhouse. These will then be planted into the field over the next two weeks. The seeded cilantro, dill, mustard and arugula are all doing well for now. We seeded new chard, beets and they are up & growing.

Weather Report: More rain is in the forecast this week which is not needed! The post hurricane week was quite nice all in all with cooler temperatures and nice cool breezes at the farm. Too bad the winds didn’t dry everything out.

Fruit Report – The peaches are from Soons Orchard in Middletown, NY.

Upcoming Events

· October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)

· October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Week of September 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 16 No 12–Week of August 29th

2011-08-30T07:09:00.001-04:00

Hurricane Irene

Needless to say, Hurricane Irene has created havoc all the way up to the farm in Sussex County. We hope that all of our CSA members are safe with minimal damage, but listening to the reports in the area know that there is a great deal of damage and flooding.

We lost our upper greenhouse (the heated greenhouse) due to the high winds which came after the heavy rains. Farmer Rich will get it recovered toward the end of the week. Also two in our crew have had serious damage to their homes and were unable to work on Monday having to clean up at their homes. Everyone is safe and no one got hurt.

I am still staying with my Mom & Dad in Ramsey due to my Dad's illness as we have been without the hospice aides due to the weather so are managing on our own. Things are status quo and we continue to keep my Dad comfortable.

Unfortunately, the Heirloom Tomato Tasting had to be cancelled. We look forward to the Garlic Fest at the Hoboken Historical Museum in October. Fortunately all the garlic was already harvested and drying in the middle greenhouse which did not get damaged. Had it been in the upper greenhouse the whole crop would have been lost and probably scattered out over Sussex County by the high winds.

From the Fields: Ongoing projects with planting and transplanting continued during the week. When the news hit about the impending hurricane, Farmer Rich switched his focus to get a plan together to harvest early as Sunday was going to be a “wash out”. The crew worked diligently all day Friday & Saturday to get the CSA deliveries harvested and separated by delivery site as the forecast keep looking grimmer each passing hour. Monday was a challenge to even get to the farm as many areas were flooded or had downed trees & wires. Once to the farm, Rich took about 1 ½ hours to get to Scotts where the delivery was stored in the cooler. This is normally a 10-15 minute ride. He then had the challenge to start heading south to Bergen County to make the first delivery to Mahwah. Though a challenge he did make is safely, abit late, but safe. Our next challenge is to make it into Hudson County for the Jersey City & Hoboken deliveries. Everyone was e-mailed regarding delivery time changes at Holly’s Midtown dropoff and Jennifer/Kristen’s West drop off.

Weather Report: We had reported last week as week of rain – NOW we got hit with the hurricane which we didn’t need. Excessive rain is causing crop damage.

Fruit Report – The apples (Red Free variety) are from Windy Brow Farm.

Upcoming Events

· October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)

· October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Week of August 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.

CSA Delivery Update for Post-Hurricane Irene

2011-08-29T14:13:00.001-04:00

We do plan on delivering on Tuesday, but the Time-Frame for pickup may change as our area like yours has many road closures due to flooding and/or downed wires & trees.

Needless to say, Hurricane Irene has created havoc all the way up to the farm in Sussex county. Hope that all of our CSA members are safe with minimal damage, but listening to the reports in the area know that there is a great deal of damage and flooding. We lost our upper greenhouse (the heated greenhouse) due to the high winds which came after the heavy rains. Two in our crew have had serious damage to their homes. I am still staying with my Mom & Dad in Ramsey due to my Dad’s illness as we have been without the hospice aides due to the weather so are managing on our own.

The delivery is harvested and ready to go but will probably have to change drop-off & pick-up times at each of our delivery sites. We’ll keep you posted. Look for e-mail updates during the day on Monday and Tuesday a.m.

Stay safe & dry and hopefully our plan for Tuesday delivery will work out.
--Sue

Catalpa Ridge News–Vol 16 No 11–Week of August 22nd

2011-08-22T08:48:00.001-04:00

Abbreviated News this week…

My Dad (Farmer Sue) continues to decline and I apologize for no newsletter last week but know you understand the circumstances. I appreciated the e-mails I received from many of you.

I am staying with my Mom & Dad in Ramsey and we have him on Hospice. At this point, I continue to be the primary care giver and I haven’t been home to see Farmer Rich for over a week but check in with him several times a day. I look forward to seeing him today after the CSA delivery to Mahwah. My sister is recovering from her heart attack and is looking better each day. The “double wammy” of both my Dad & sister was quite a shock, but we are a close family with a lot of love to go around!

Needless to say, Farmer Rich is upset as well as he has being part of my family for over 31 years and truly loves my Dad.

From the Fields: The news of the week from the farm starts out with that we received a lot of rain during the week along with some severe thunderstorms, high winds but fortunately no damaging hail. There were crop losses due to the excess rain but the new plantings are doing well.

The crew transplanted and seeded for the fall crops. The seeded Daikon radishes, turnips, beets, and Chinese greens from last week are all up. A new area where the fava greens were is now tilled up and ready to plant. We plan on planting beets, radishes and broccoli raab in this new area.

The late planting of cucumbers is excellent, which is probably the only positive thing that has happen in the last week and a half. The late planting of zucchini is doing ok despite the crows damaging ¾ of it. They just love to pull the plants up out of the ground to see what is underneath. Fortunately we overplant to off-set some crop losses. Farmer Rich mentioned that the transplanted broccoli is doing well.

The Chinese Cabbage that was transplanted last Monday by the crew has been totally demolished due to the heavy (5”) rain that we have received during the past week.

Weather Report: Rain-Rain-Rain… the heaviest was last Monday. It continued off & on during the week with another heavy storm (a deluge) Sunday night the 21^st. Oh, the joys of farming – ugh!!

Animal report: All quiet except for the crows. Not only did they devastate the zucchini planting, they are eating the husk cherries and picking here and there on the tomatoes.

Fruit Report – The peaches are from Soon’s Orchard in Middletown, NY.

Upcoming Events

· CANCELLED - August 28^th – 12^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – unfortunately due to Sue’s Dad illness, we have to cancel the Tomato Tasting

· October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)

· October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Catalpa Ridge News–Volume 16 No 9 - Week of August 8th

2011-08-08T05:32:00.001-04:00

Blue Ribbons for the Crew

A total of 67 Blue Ribbons were awarded to the entries in the Open Vegetable Show by Ali, Lisa, Renee & Dory. Ali placed 2^nd and Lisa 5^th in the Vegetable show and 4^th & 5^th

respectively for their herb entries. Ali also won Best in Show for the Featured Vegetable Basket (Tomatoes) and Dinosaur Kale and Lisa won Best in Show for her entry of Cisneros Tomatillos.

Overall, the Blue Ribbons won: Ali 30, Lisa 24, Dory 9 and Renee 4.

The fair goes to Sunday the 14^th. If you want to visit go to www.njstatefair.org to see a schedule for the daily events. If you do attend the fair, make sure you stop by the greenhouse to see the Vegetable Show and see the girls’ blue ribbon winners.

From the Fields: The seeded dill, cilantro, fava greens and Chinese mustard from last week are all up and growing. We got behind weed whacking the beds and worked all day Thursday to get them under control. Now we can see the plants. Also, the weeds got way ahead of us in the large greenhouse & round field to a point we were going to write-off the round field, but the crew realized it was our best looking tomato crop so they worked most of the day Saturday to get it cleaned up and back into production. Dora and Renee spent Sunday cleaning up the Chinese greens by thinning the beds, as they were planted a little too close. All the beds in the back field are now planted. Collards, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers and squash were planted as well as Brussels sprouts. All beds were filled for the remainder of the season.

Weather Report: Major rain fell on Saturday night with a total of 3” falling at the farm. It has been warm but not brutal so our work in the fields has been going on later in the day. One a good note, the pond is all filled up which gives us plenty of water for irrigation for the rest of the season if we need it. Another thunderstorm came through on Sunday evening which brought more rain, which was heavy at times.

Animal report: This week was all quiet for animal sightings, probably due in most part to the rain. As we have mentioned in previous newsletters when it gets dry is when we have problems with break-ins. Fortunately we have nothing to report for any animal troubles this week.

Corn Report – we have some great Locally Grown sweet corn (non-GMO) from Ideal Farms. It is a conventionally grown hybrid sweet corn variety. Best eaten TONIGHT as it will be its sweetest!

Fruit Report – The peaches are from Slate Hill again. They enjoy working with us for the fruit. We heard from Jim @ Windy Brow that they will have plums and nectarines available soon.

Upcoming Events

August 28^th – 12^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – 1 pm – 5 pm
October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)
October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Week of August 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Vol 16 No 8–Week of August 1st

2011-07-31T19:53:00.001-04:00

NJ State Fair – Sussex Farm & Horse Show Starts Friday!

The New Jersey State Fair – Sussex Farm & Horse Show starts on Friday, August 5^th and runs to Sunday, August 14^th. We are on the Vegetable Committee for the fair and have exhibited in the past, but now it’s the crews’ turn to exhibit. Last year Hannah & Lisa both exhibited and this year it looks like all four girls will exhibit some veggies & herbs.

The fair is great to visit if you want to see farm animals, crafts, agricultural events, horse shows and lots more. Go online at: www.njstatefair.org to see a schedule so you can see what day you might want to visit. If you do attend the fair, make sure you go by the greenhouse to see the Vegetable Show to see how the girls did on their exhibits. Last year Lisa was the Grand Champion and Hannah placed 3^rd for the vegetable exhibits and they also won a few Best in Shows!

Last week’s Trip to the farm – Harvesting Beans

From the Fields: Where the garlic was harvested, John & Matt laid plastic with irrigation lines for a total of 5 beds. The Crew transplanted a late planting of zucchini & cucumbers into three of the beds. Two beds are awaiting planting as of the end of this week. We hope to get broccoli in at least one of them.

In another field the crew planted cilantro, dill, Chinese mustard & more fava greens. The heavy rain we received on Friday evening may have washed out the dill, but we’ll wait & see.

The beets planted in the back field are doing well, but we got behind on planting more turnips.

Next week we hope to get some conventional sweet corn (non-GMO) from Ideal Farm. We have been eating it ourselves for a while and it is really good!

Weather Report: It was cooler, but not my much over this past week. By 1:00 pm the crew was pretty much shot on most days, but they are starting early so plenty of work is getting done.

We did have two severe thunderstorms go through the area on Monday and then again on Friday. Both brought some much needed rain, as many crops were suffering from lack of water. Even though we are irrigating, we still need that “soaking in” kind of rain. At least 1” fell on both days. Fortunately, we didn’t get the hail or the high winds that came on Friday, but some sections in Sussex County did get hail and there were some reports of a possible tornado. Farmer Rich was predicting “cannon ball” sized hail in tune with the over exaggeration that the local weather was predicting, but the front passed without incident over the farm.

Animal report: As usual when it gets dry the animals make attempts to break through the fences to feast on the crops. This week brought a few ground hogs which were immediately relocated.

They sampled some squash, zucchini, tomatoes probably making a shopping list for the following day but we were able to prevent any further nibbling. The resident rabbit that is inside the fence is eating the weeds and not the crops, which continues to be a bit embarrassing.

Fruit Report – We finally were able to find peaches to deliver. For several years now we have gotten the peaches from Windy Brow Farm, but he advised us that he wouldn’t be able to provide them this year as there is a shortage. Come to find out Diane down the street from us was also having a problem finding peaches from her local orchard, so we know there is definitely a peach shortage going on. We reached out to a few local orchards and one was not able to provide any fruit, but the other one, Slate Hill was. They are just about 15 minutes from the farm and on the way to our large walk-in-cooler @ Scotts, so they immediately go put into the cooler for this delivery. We love to be able to provide local fruit as part of the CSA share over the years, and fortunately have been able to find another orchard this year.

Upcoming Events

August 28^th – 12^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – 1 pm – 5 pm
October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)
October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Week of August 1st - 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Vol 16 No 6–Week of July 25th

2011-07-24T20:04:00.001-04:00

Great Day @ the Farm !

It was great to see so many CSA members come up to the farm & help with a few projects. Though hot, we did get a lot done. A project we were able to do in the shade was to harvest some green beans and that was the project that we started first. The plants were harvested from the fields and then brought over to our picnic area where it was cooler to pick the beans. We then proceeded into the field for some mulching & weeding of the tomato, tomatillo & leek beds. Next was lunch followed by a tour of the farm.

Of course we had a great late lunch with freshly picked salad, cucumbers, campfire pizzas, garlic bread, bruschetta, grilled onions & peppers as well as grilled potatoes & onions. Fresh picked corn on the cob was grilled with the husk on and we also had some homemade salads as well.

Overall a great day at the farm and thanks to all that came up to help & hope that you enjoyed the day. The next trip to the farm will be scheduled in October and will be the garlic planting day!

From the Fields: All of the garlic has been harvested and that field has been mowed & tilled and is now ready for planting of another crop. This field probably will be planted with turnips, radishes & more beets and Oriental greens. A few beds of broccoli & cauliflower are slated to go in as well.

The drip irrigation that John fixed last week has been working great. The only set back this week was when Farmer Rich decided to cut the grass and ran over one of the main pipes which prompted an emergency visit to Tractor Supply. He got some parts to fix the geyser that developed! With our gravity flow system there is now way to turn it off

Field maintenance such as trellising the tomatoes and weeding was performed as any strenuous labor was put on the back burner due to the severe heat. We don’t want to burn out the crew.

Weather Report: It has gotten dry again and we are irrigating all fields. The severe heat during the week prompted super early start times for the crew. This way we could get most of the farm work done early in the morning and send the crew home during the high heat of the day. On consecutive days it was well over 100ºF and we were going through Gatorade and water by the gallons.

Animal report: As it is getting dryer, we have seen our first ground hog prowling outside the fence. As the meadows dry out, they look for “greener” pastures for food and do like to break into the fields for our lush crops. We are vigilantly keeping an eye out to make sure that the fences do not have any breaches to allow them into the fields. The crows are still being pesky and pecking the tomatoes, eggplant, peppers & zucchini. The deer have been absent probably keeping cooler in the woods.

Upcoming Events

· August 28^th – 12^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – 1 pm – 5 pm

· October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)

· October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Ali in the pile of Green Beans

Week of July 25th - 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Vol 16 No 6–Week of July 18th

2011-07-18T04:51:00.001-04:00

Garlic Harvest Begins !

We have started the garlic harvest and about 2/3 is pulled. All of the soft neck varieties have been harvested and are in the greenhouse for drying and curing. We started on the hard neck varieties and hope to finish by the middle of the week. The garlic looks better than in years past, where it was on the small side. We tried something new this year called corn gluten meal (organically approved) as a weed suppressant and it work very well until we received the deluges of rain over the season. Then the crew hand weeded the rows. The corn gluten meal actually does two things, it suppresses new weed growth, then it breaks down into nitrogen to feed the plants and garlic loves nitrogen early in the season.

From the Fields: We seeded six varieties of cucumbers, more zucchini and four varieties of lettuce. We transplanted lettuce which will be ready to be planted in the field in a week or so. The lettuce we had just planted into the field beds is coming really nice despite the super hot weather we have been having. We have a row of husk cherries which are growing great which is a welcome change as the last few years we have tried them they haven’t done well. The tomato plants are coming along rather well despite the losses we had due to the heavy rains from a few weeks ago. The same with the pepper plants and eggplant.

We almost lost control of the small round field on Friday (tomatoes and peppers) due to weeds, but our crew came to the rescue and revived this field. Though it is a bit dry the plants are much happier.

Weather Report: After the heavy rains over a week ago, we are now into a dry period. We are running sprinklers on the beets, fava greens, squash and yard-long beans. Our drip irrigation that we set up in the spring was not working and John came to the rescue to get it back on track. It was tested on Sunday and is working great and we hope that we won’t have any more setbacks.

Animal report: We have a small rabbit in one of our fields and as embarrassing at it sounds it isn’t eating any of the crops! The crows are being pesky in that they like to peck here and there on the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. The groundhogs are interestingly absent over the past few weeks, which is a good thing.

Some sparrows are enjoying flying into the greenhouses and are naturally taking care of the bugs that get caught against the plastic. They all seem to find their way out safely. A dove flew into the Franklin greenhouse while Renee was planting sunflower seeds for more microgreens. They just love sunflower seeds!

Trip to the Farm – Scheduled for Sunday – July 24^thWant 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 24^th 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 22^nd ) 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.

Upcoming Events
· August 28^th – 12^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – 1 pm – 5 pm
· October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)
· October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Week of July 18th - 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.

Catalpa Ridge News–Vol 16 No 5–Week of July 11th

2011-07-10T06:15:00.001-04:00

Severe Weather Skips the Farm !

Twice during the week there were severe weather warnings for our area and fortunately we only received rain at the farm. Down the highway, Farmer Diane’s stand was partially blown over and in Franklin there was a big hail storm and another farmer lost most of his tomato plants. This was not too far from our Franklin greenhouse.

We have a few weeks before our tomato crop is ready, so the tomatoes this week are from Hilltop Farms and are greenhouse grown. We have always partnered with other farmers to get additional variety into the weekly deliveries especially when we have set backs or problems.

Farmer Rich has talked to Farmer Jim from Windy Brow Farm and the weekly deliveries of fruit will be starting soon. Last year the fruit was early, but this year is running a bit on the late side. The first delivery of fruit probably will be some delicious peaches. Some of the early fruit that we will be delivering from Windy Brow will include peaches, plums & nectarines.

From the Fields: Plantings in the field this week included two varieties of yard-long beans and fava greens. We also transplanted into the field: lettuce, more kale and eggplant which was a bit behind schedule, but better late than never. In the greenhouse lettuce, endive, chicory were planted for their next round and will be ready to go into the field in a few weeks. We will be seeding more crops this week to keep the crop rotations on schedule.

Weather Report: Due to the heavy rain on Friday evening, the broccoli crop was wiped out. The heavy rains have also affected certain sections of tomatoes. All in all, most of the fields are doing well. It was extra hot during the week so we schedule early-early morning starts so that the crew can leave earlier in the day and still be able to get the work done.

Animal report: The great blue heron has been seen “fishing” in our pond. If it is the same one, it has been around for years and is often seen soaring around the upper fields.

Since it has been so hot, the fawns are probably staying cool in the woods instead of patrolling the fields.

We seldom have break-ins into the fields when the weather is this wet as the wild animals have plenty to eat on the outside of the fences. It is only when we have drought conditions that they try to break in to feast on our lush rows of crops.

Trip to the Farm – Scheduled for Sunday – July 24^thWant 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 24^th 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 22^nd ) 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.

Upcoming Events -

August 28^th – 12^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – 1 pm – 5 pm
October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)
October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Week of July 11th - 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.

Catalpa Ridge News - Vol 16 No 4 - Week of July 4th

2011-07-04T07:32:00.001-04:00

Happy 4th of July !!

Though still behind the farm is progressing well. We tilled up the fava bean field and were ready to plant into that field except on Sunday except for the rain. John is working on repairing our access road that loops around the farm which had gotten too rutted over the winter.

We weed wacked between the beds in the fields and another afternoon of weed wacking is coming this week to keep the weeds under control.

From the Fields: The crew is staking up the tomatoes and husk cherries. In addition to the field planted tomatoes, we have two rows of tomatoes that have been planted into the large greenhouse.

The round field has been very wet and was just coming out of it when it poured again. The plants in this field are suffering and there have been some losses.

The garlic this week is a preview and our main harvest will be coming in a few weeks. This early garlic will not store well as it hasn’t been cured. Use in your cooking as you would garlic, but it won’t have the strong flavors that the cured garlic possesses. We are getting ready two of our upper greenhouses to start drying & curing the garlic after harvest. We have to set up wire racks to lay the garlic on.

The seeded crops from last week’s report are all up and the beans actually were ready to be planted except for the rain on Sunday. We’ll have a heavy schedule for the crew to plant this week. The zukes and cukes are looking good and should be showing up in the deliveries in the next week or two.

In Franklin, the Tatsoi and Oriental greens are up and our micro-green plantings are coming along well. We are happy with our Franklin output as it is providing additional harvest items each week.

The upper greenhouse has transplants ready to go into the fields which include lettuces, broccoli, chicory, evergreen onions, cucumbers, chard, endive and kale.

Weather Report: It was dry most of the week and had to turn on the irrigation. On Sunday the 3^rd it rained all day, well over 1”. We really needed the rain, but not that

much all on one day. As Farmer Rich came home on Sunday evening, there were severe weather alerts for the chance of hail in the area.

Animal report: All has been quite this week, but of course this is subject to change at a moment’s notice. The fences are holding well and the rabbits, groundhogs and deer are all staying outside the fence for now.

Trip to the Farm – Scheduled for Sunday – July 24^thWant 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 24^th 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 22^nd ) 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.

Upcoming Events

August 28^th – 12^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – 1 pm – 5 pm
October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)
October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Week of July 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.

Catalpa Ridge News - Vol 16 No 3 - Week of June 27th

2011-06-27T05:21:00.002-04:00

Swamps R Us !

We went from reasonable weather last newsletter to a week of off & on rain. Multiple inches of rain fell and Farmer Rich lost track of the actual amount since it rained so much. At least 2” fell since Thursday. The plants in the fields are responding positively, but the conditions to work in are not the best. We have standing water, puddles, mud and the weeds have gone crazy. We are starting to worry about plant disease when it gets this wet, such as blight. Also root related problems may occur when it gets this wet.

From the Fields: We seeded broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, collard greens, yard-long beans, chicory, endive, and evergreen stem onions in the greenhouse to be transplanted in the field in about 2 weeks. We are working on another round of micro-green mix in the Franklin greenhouse. We are also planning on planting some tatsoi and other oriental greens.

The seeded lettuces from last newsletter are almost ready to be planted in the fields. The fields just need to dry out a bit.

We tilled up a section of the large greenhouse where the sunflower micro greens were, but the mud was just too deep to go any further.

The crew finished planting in the round field and all the plants are doing well though somewhat water logged at this point.

The fava bean harvest this week is two weeks earlier than in years past. The harvest yields are off from past years and we feel this is due to a change in our growing method this year. We usually plant them much denser and they have always produced well. This year we planted them as they “should” be planted which is about 6” apart as a field crop. We think we’ll go back to the old way for next season. This area will be replanted with beets, turnips and fava greens.

The cucumber plants are close to needing to be trellised and the zucchini plants are doing well. They just need a few warm days to start “zuking” up! The tomato, peppers and tomatillos are finally “catching”. We were a bit late getting them in and are pleased that they are catching up.

The garlic in the back field has gone from looking perfect to being overtaken by weeds in just six days. We’ll be spending some time this week to get it under control.

We are starting to see some crop losses in the super wet spots. Some tomato & pepper plants have succumbed, but overall everything is looking really good.

Weather Report: Overall a rainy week but we were able to work in the greenhouses on the days we couldn’t get into the fields. It was productive work as we really needed to get these crops seeded for transplanting. We heard about the “flash flooding” in many areas in Bergen, Passaic & Hudson counties on Thursday.

Animal report: The newly seeded beans are being dug up by a field mouse so they need to be re-seeded. If worse comes to worse we’ll reseed them in Franklin. The field mice are not so much a problem in what they eat, but more that they carry away the seeds and all of a sudden there are plants growing where we didn’t plant them. They like to hide the seeds they carry off. Wish they were hiding piles of gold in our fields instead of beans! The fawns are watching.

Trip to the Farm – Scheduled for Sunday – July 24^th

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 24^th 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.

Upcoming Events

August 28^th – 12^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting @ the Hoboken Historical Museum – 1 pm – 5 pm

October 1st & 2nd 9th Annual Garlic Gathering @ Olde Lafayette Village 10 am - 4 pm Lafayette, NJ (Routes 94/15)

October 16th 5th Annual Garlic Fest @ the Hoboken Historical Museum 1 pm - 5 pm 1301 Hudson Street – Hoboken, NJ

Week of June 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 - Vol 16 No 2 - Week of June 20th

2011-06-20T06:36:00.001-04:00

News from the Farm: The weather has been reasonably nice and work in the fields is moving along at a great pace. Though, still a bit behind after the wet spring, the beds are getting filled with plants. We have had two full crews working during the week transplanting.

Our only disaster this week was the walk-in-cooler at Scott’s froze on Tuesday & shut down on Wednesday. Luckily it was during the week when we didn’t need it as it was delivery time. Last year when it broke, it was during the weekend and the lettuces had all frozen before the delivery. Fortunately, had it not been fixed in time, the local volunteer firehouse offered their cooler to store our lettuces & escarole in for delivery.

Our Micro-Green project is working out well as we are able to harvest weekly the micro-greens from the Franklin greenhouse. The differences between micro-greens, sprouts and baby greens are:

· Sprouts: first stage of seed development and are consumed shortly after germination and usually are grown in jars with water.

· MicroGreens: 2nd stage of seed development with roots & first leaves called cotyledons

· Baby Greens: grown a week or two longer than micro-greens and they resemble salad greens

Our micro-greens are grown in soil and not at all similar to sprouts. The micro-green mixes we are harvesting may be just one variety one week, or may be a combination of two to six different greens, such as a radish & buckwheat. We are working on a mix of kale, broccoli, kohlrabi & mustard greens for future deliveries.

From the Fields: More herbs were planted as well as hot peppers, sweet peppers and tomatoes. The newly seeded lettuce in the top greenhouse is half-up. It will be awhile until it is ready to transplant.

The round field has been planted with tomatoes & sweet peppers and is about ¾ full at this point. We plan on putting in more pepper plants in this field as well.

In our back field the garlic is looking extra nice, but the fava bean plants are looking a little weaker than usual. We hope the yields will allow everyone to get them.

Our main field is showing a great looking zucchini crop. The plants are thriving and the newly planted tomatoes & peppers are doing well. It has only been a few weeks since the planting started and they have taken hold with few losses.

At our Franklin greenhouse: The carrots this week were harvested from this greenhouse and those beds will now be replaced with micro-greens and salad mixes over the course of the season.

Weather Report: We had a lot of rain this past week which has been good for the crops. The back field did have to be irrigated as it had gotten quite dry. The temperatures have been on the cool side which is just perfect for field work.

Animal report: A few rabbits are in the main field, but as of yet have not decided to eat the crops. The “Tasmanian devil” has returned and is tossing the sunflower patch. For those of you who have been members for awhile may remember our reports from a few years back of getting to the farm and noticing that plants had been tossed during the night shortly after they were planted in the field. There didn’t seem any rhyme or reason, just tossed here & there and we nicknamed the culprit the “Tasmanian devil”. It appears that it is back or perhaps and offspring as taken over tormenting Farmer Rich.

A few fawns are peaking through the fence at the crew probably wondering what’s going on. They are so cute and we hope to get a few pictures of them, but more importantly hope they remain on the outside of fence.

Remember these Resources for your web access to CSA news, recipes and our Harvest Identifier:

· http://catalparidge.blogspot.com

· http://catalparidge-recipes.blogspot.com

· PDF version of newsletters: http://www.jerseygrown.net/CSFNewsletters.htm

· Harvest Identifier: http://www.jerseygrown.net/HarvestIdentifier.htm

· Twitter: http://twitter.com/catalparidge

· Facebook: http://facebook.com/catalparidge

Week of June 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

Volume 16 No 1 - Week of June 13th

2011-06-12T18:37:00.001-04:00

Believe it or Not!!

We have had a very difficult early season and we were under untold stress to get the deliveries in order. First, there was continued rain most of April & May, week after week with little to no sun. This caused the fields to be too muddy and little if anything could be planted. Then our tractor’s clutch went while tilling a field. In order to fix it, the tractor had to be broken in half. Fortunately, John our mechanic was able to get it fixed in record time (within the week). If we had to go the usual route by bringing it to a tractor repair shop, there was a 30 day backlog on fixing tractors! It also would have been impossible to borrow one, as this is the busy planting season. No matter where Farmer Rich went there were broken tractors in fields everywhere over Sussex County. Then Farmer Rich got pneumonia and is still recovering. We have a great crew this year and they all picked up the slack and amazingly the delivery finally came together for this week – believe it or not!

Tractor Before (broken in half)

Tractor After (much happier)

Meet the Crew – Lisa returns for her 3^rd year and Ali returned from being away for a year in California. Renee who manages our greenhouse in Franklin is back for her 2^nd year and we have a new employee Dory. We can’t forget John, who keeps all our machines running and helps with tilling and wrapping the beds with plastic and was instrumental in setting up the irrigation system. They are all doing an amazing job in getting together the delivery and trying to catch up on the season for future weeks.

Ali

Lisa

Dory & Renee

Thank you for supporting our farm. It is only through the continued support of our members that our farm continues to be sustainable and we continue the practice of farming. We welcome back many of you who have been supporting us for most of our 16 years of CSA deliveries as well as welcome many new members this year. It is also important to acknowledge the efforts of the coordinators at all our drop-off locations. Without drop-off locations that are fully supported the CSA concept is lost. We should all participate in the sense of “community” by helping out, sharing recipes and giving support to each other.

We welcome back our sites at Beth Haverim Shir Shalom in Mahwah, Hoboken Midtown on Willow Terrace, Hoboken West on Grand, the United Synagogue of Hoboken on Park Avenue and Jersey City Hamilton Park on 8^th Street. We are also pleased to continue for a second year, delivering to the Food Services at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ . They have purchased shares to be used directly in the employee cafeteria at Valley Hospital and their Dorothy B Kraft Center.

A great resource for those of you new to the concept CSA is from one of our former coordinators in Hoboken, Carolyn Cope. The article is titled: 10 Secrets for Making the Most of your CSA. The link is here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/10-secrets-tips-for-making-the-most-of-your-csa.html. We like to grow many interesting veggies, some of which you may have never tried before. We encourage you to try-it, you’ll like it!! We always provide you with recipes and have our Harvest Identified online as well.

The early deliveries in the spring will be lighter and will not have as many types of veggies, as you are eating seasonally. As the weeks progress, there will also be more variety and the deliveries will become heavier. In the newsletter each week I include recipes for the items that are being delivered. If you have some recipes you would like to share, we can post them on the blog for others to try.

Community supported farm members soon become connected to each other as the weeks go by. We welcome you all and look forward to working with all of you.

News from the Farm: Since we are behind we are eagerly trying to fill up all the beds that were laid last week. This week we planted tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, New Zealand spinach, eggplant & peppers. Hopefully next week we’ll do as well.

From the Fields: Our back field has the following all up & growing: garlic greens, fava beans, garlic, sunchokes and snow peas.
The round field (which was un-plantable last year) has been tilled, fertilized and is ready for: tomatoes and peppers.
Our main field has all of the following already planted; garlic, eggplant, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, cabbage, escarole, kale, kohlrabi, Chinese cabbage, tomatoes, sweet peppers, sorrel, lettuce, tomatillos, chard, and husk cherries, There are a few beds left to plant which we plan on planting basil, Brussels sprouts and mixed herbs. We seeded 700 lettuces in the greenhouse to be transplanted into the fields when spots open up.

At our Franklin greenhouse, we have harvested for this week’s delivery the Texas super sweet onions with edible greens as well as some micro-greens. Our micro-green project has a few problems, but Farmer Rich is working on it. The onions this year are on the small side as there was little sun while they were growing April/May. They were planted in March and usually are bigger by this time. We have a nice carrot crop in this greenhouse and they probably will be delivered either next week or the week after. More onions were harvested and are drying for future deliveries. We plan on planting more micro-green mix and Oriental greens.

Weather Report: This year has presented a unique set of problems. The early season was non-stop rain and little sun with very cool temperatures. Now we have had little rain and have had to use irrigation on some fields. Though it appears to rain every day, it is not. Almost no rain for the past week.

Animal report: The crew spent an entire week during the rainy season shoring up all the fences that even a field mouse couldn’t get through! Low and behold when Farmer Rich was harvesting the lettuce a rabbit was noshing at few yards away. So far the one rabbit is our only break-in. A entire family of deer is outside looking in and so far have not attempted to jump the fence.

Week of June 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

Volume 15 - No 21 - Week of October 25th

2010-10-25T07:32:00.001-04:00

Last Delivery of the Season

The season has come to an end. We hope you were pleased with the seasonal produce and we thank you all for your support of our small farm.

The year was difficult being a drought year, but more manageable than last year which was too wet. Many crops did much better than prior years such as the peppers & eggplant. Conversely some crops did not so well such as broccoli and other brassicas. There were crop failures as well.

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 2011.

We had a great trip to the farm on Sunday and CSA members & families helped plant garlic. It was a nice warm day, with partly sunny skies. We started by "popping" the garlic cloves from the blub, and then went into the back field to plant & mulch. We followed this by Farmer Sue's famous lunch which included: Red Cabbage & Sunchoke Coleslaw, Roasted Blue Potatoes & Onions, Veggie Medley & Rice Bake, Spaghetti Squash, Lasagna, Hot Dogs, Roasted Zucchini, Fresh picked salad & Roasted garlic.

We do hope we have a better garlic year for the 2011 season. Thank you to all who came to help and hope that you enjoyed the day at the farm.

Some news that never made prior newsletters was Farmer Rich helping with starting a garden at The Hoboken Dual Language Charter School on Jefferson. We started some lettuce, rosemary & thyme plants and they seeded some radishes and all was going well for the budding farmers until they received a hail storm. A future project for the school is to have the students make birdhouses and paint them anyway that they want. We would then put up the birdhouses on the farm as you can never have enough birds around to help with insect control. We do plan on assisting them again in the spring. We also are going to the Bethlehem Early Learning Center in Ridgewood to talk with the preschoolers about what grows on the farm.

From the Fields:The fields are all shut down now that the season is over and are being cleaned up for next year. The greenhouse in Franklin has also been fully harvested and will be closed up until March. The greenhouses on the farm are in need of some repair which will keep Farmer Rich busy during the off-season.

Weather Report: Another frost hit the fields on Friday which was the heaviest one to date and it was surely a COLD morning. Fortunately, the greens in the greenhouse were not affected. The weekend was gorgeous and a great way to end the harvest year harvesting on a bright sunny day on Saturday and then Hannah & Lisa finished the harvest before our Trip to the Farm started on Sunday.

Animal report: No problems in animal land this past week. We do hear the geese overhead heading south for the winter and Farmer Rich has seen the robins in flocks as well. Though not as noisy as the geese, they too must be migrating to a warmer climate.

Fruit Delivery:Tonight's delivery we have some late season apples from Windy Brow Farm. Depending on your delivery site, you will be receiving either Greenings or Melrose apples.

Thanks to all CSA members for your continued support.

End of Season Potluck Dinner

Hosted by the Hoboken Midtown CSA group, but All CSA members are invited. November 6^th @ 7:30 pm

The Yankee Clipper Boat - owned by Victoria & Richard MacKenzie-Childs anchored in the Hudson River off Sinatra Drive, Hoboken

Directions:From the Hoboken Historical Museum (1301 Hudson Street), walk toward the Hudson River, thru Shipyard Park, onto Sinatra Drive sidewalk. Enter and exit through the Iron Gate in the railing to Shipyard dog run Walk through the Shipyard dog run. Close dog run gates behind you and if a dog is present, check with the owner before entering. Step onto Pier and walk to end to go on board. NOTE:Unfortunately, the boat is not child-friendly and not set up for the safety of children under under12. Only Children 12 years and older will be able to attend.

ALSO - NO LIQUOR is ALLOWED on the Yankee Clipper Boat. Please do not bring any wine, beer or liquor the evening of the Pot Luck dinner. Thank you!!!

Please RSVP by October 25^th to Valerie D'Antonio (see your weekly newsletter for contact info)

She will be coordinating three categories of dishes: -appetizers -main dishes -desserts

If possible, please contact her as soon as you can with the dish you will be bringing so that there will be a good variety. It is great to get together at the end of the season and to meet many of you who enjoy the harvests each week that we don't get to see on delivery day. We hope that many of you can make it.

Week of October 25th - 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.

Volume 15 - No 20 - Week of October 18th

2010-10-18T19:54:00.001-04:00

Next Week - Last Delivery of the Season

What a way to lead into the end of the season with a heavy frost & high winds. Fortunately there is only 1 week to go!

The force of the high winds on Saturday caught a small hole in the middle greenhouse and turned the small hole into a huge one, ripping about 1/3 of the plastic off the greenhouse. It was overdue for replacement, so this will prompt us to replace it during the off season.

As we were driving to Hoboken on Sunday morning for the Garlic Fest, the crew called in to report a heavy frost which affected a few of the fields. They were ready to harvest some of the greens, but had to wait until it warmed up as the mustards were almost frozen. The late greens actually like it cold and are considered "cold hardy" plants.

It was great to see many CSA members at the Garlic Fest in Hoboken on Sunday. What a beautiful Sunday afternoon it was and everyone enjoyed the tasting. We also brought some of Shawna's jarred goodies to taste as well and everyone loved her zucchini bread, apple breads, jams, chutneys and especially a red pepper garlic spread.

The garlic in tonight's delivery is Spanish Roja and it perhaps the most popular garlic at our tastings and on Sunday it was as well. It was actually voted the "People's Choice" of garlic at our Olde Lafayette Village tasting 2 weeks ago. We'll have to remember to have a vote for your favorite garlic next year in Hoboken to see which of the varieties people really like!

The Spanish Roja Garlic is a very potent variety to most. It also makes an excellent roaster which will tone down the "fire". If you eat it raw, the flavor is quite sharp and "spicy", so be prepared!!!

What's up & growing:The season is winding down with just 1 more delivery. We harvested the potatoes that were planted by CSA member help during the trip to the farm in July. They will be filtered into the delivery sites next week. The interesting thing about them is that the potato plants never flowered; they just produced the potatoes, unlike spring planted potatoes which do flower. They actually did rather well for being planted so late!

Weather Report: About 1/2" of rain fell during the week, but the high winds were the story of the week. Temperatures are remaining seasonal to warm for this time of year. Actually the first frost of the season was later than last year.

Animal report: A deer broke into the middle field and decided to eat the tips of the remaining tomato plants. Either the same or another deer broke into the field in the same spot about 2 weeks ago. We have since fixed that section of fencing and hope it is secure for next year.

TRIP to the FARM-Help Plant Garlic

Sunday October 24^th^. 11 am - ??

Want to spend a day in the country and help us on the farm? We are scheduling our next work day at the farm to be a garlic planting day. Help us plant garlic for the 2011 season. We picked up some new varieties for other local farmers to plant over the weekend at the Garlic Gathering in Olde Lafayette Village. Some of them include: Porcelain, Romanian Red and German Red

· Who - CSA members, families, friends

· What - Plant Garlic !!

· Where - @ Catalpa Ridge Farm in Wantage

· When - October 24^th, starting at 11 am

· Why - visit the farm to help out

Just RSVP via e-mailso we can send you directions, as well as plan on refreshments & lunch.

Fruit Delivery:Tonight's delivery we have some late season apples from Windy Brow Farm. Depending on your delivery site, you will be receiving either Melrose or Mutsu apples. Melrose, (the official apple of Ohio) looks like a vintage apple, but surprisingly, it only dates back to WWII. It's a cross between a Jonathan and a Red Delicious. Good in the kitchen since it stays firm with cooking and it doesn't need much sweetener. Mutso (also known as Crispin), is a cross between the Golden Delicious & the Indo, and arrived in the USA in the late 1940's. Its generous size & appealing color attract you to what lies within...a crisp, white, juicy flesh, with just a touch of tartness.

Last Delivery of the Season will be: The Week of October 25^th

End of Season Potluck Dinner

Hosted by the Hoboken Midtown CSA group, but All CSA members are invited. November 6^th @ 7:30 pm

The Yankee Clipper Boat - owned by Victoria & Richard MacKenzie-Childs anchored in the Hudson River off Sinatra Drive, Hoboken

ALSO - NO LIQUOR is ALLOWED on the Yankee Clipper Boat. Please do not bring any wine, beer or liquor the evening of the Pot Luck dinner. Thank you!!!

Please RSVP by October 25^th to Valerie D'Antonio (see your weekly newsletter for contact info)

She will be coordinating three categories of dishes: -appetizers -main dishes -desserts

If possible, please contact her as soon as you can with the dish you will be bringing so that there will be a good variety. It is great to get together at the end of the season and to meet many of you who enjoy the harvests each week that we don't get to see on delivery day. We hope that many of you can make it.

Week of October 18th - 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.

Volume 15 - No 19 - Week of October 11th

2010-10-11T06:08:00.001-04:00

Abundant Sunshine !

The weather was gorgeous the later part of the week with a stunning Saturday/Sunday to harvest the deliveries. There was a frost warning on Sunday morning for Sussex County. There was a heavy frost from Franklin (where we have 1 greenhouse) to Farmer Diane's, but fortunately NO frost at the farm!! The warm weather crops are winding down anyway, so it would not have been the end of the world if we did get frosted.

The crew has removed all the stakes from the fields and is diligently working on getting all the plastic up from the beds. Most of the beds where we plan on planting the garlic have been fully harvested, so we need to till it for the October 24^th trip to the farm.

What's up & growing: We have two more weeks for the deliveries, as long as we don't get a freeze or a snowstorm. Lettuce, leeks, red mustard, chard, potatoes, onions, carrots and herbs are all slated to be harvested for the last 2 weeks.

Weather Report: The temperatures have been cooler since the big rain, more like autumn. We need our jackets and gloves in the am then can unlayer in the afternoon. More rain is in the forecast for the middle of the week. Just about 1/2" of rain fell last week. Just enough to keep everything perked up.

Animal report: The Wooly Bear Caterpillar is in!

This has become an annual part of the newsletter for the past 14 years and for the most part has been pretty accurate. Weather folklore enthusiatasts have long assessed that the woolly bear caterpillar is one insect that is supposed to give us some insight as to how severe the winter will be. It is said that if the middle stripe is narrower than either of the black stripes, the winter will be severe. Conversely, if the center stripe is wide, we'll have a mild winter. If all the stripes are the same size, we'll have an average winter. This year, 3 out of 3 Wooly Bear caterpillars seen have wild center stripes, so perhaps a mild winter?

TRIP to the FARM-Help Plant Garlic

Sunday October 24^th^. 11 am - ??

Who - CSA members, families, friends
What - Plant Garlic !!
Where - @ Catalpa Ridge Farm in Wantage
When - October 24^th, starting at 11 am
Why - visit the farm to help out

Just RSVP via e-mailso we can send you directions, as well as plan on refreshments & lunch.

Fruit Delivery:Tonight's delivery we have some late season apples from Windy Brow Farm. Depending on your delivery site, you will be receiving either Jonathan, Empire or Fortune Apples. The Jonathan was first discovered in Ulster County, NY in the early 1800's. Its popularity has grown due to its use in several well-known crosses (Jonagold, Jonamac, Jonalicious). It has a somewhat spicy tang, crisp, juicy flesh under a thin skin. It is great for fresh eating and making applesauce. The Fortune is a product of Cornell's Agriculture Department and was first introduced in 1996. This apple is a hybrid cross between a Schoharie Spy and the Empire. It is great for fresh eating, applesauce or pie. Stores well too!

Last Delivery of the Season will be: The Week of October 25^th

End of Season Potluck Dinner

Hosted by the Hoboken Midtown CSA group, but All CSA members are invited. November 6^th @ 7:30 pm

The Yankee Clipper Boat - owned by Victoria & Richard MacKenzie-Childs anchored in the Hudson River off Sinatra Drive, Hoboken

She will be coordinating three categories of dishes: appetizers main dishes desserts

4^th Annual Garlic Fest- Hoboken Historical Museum - 1301 Hudson Street

· Sunday October 17th 1-5 pm

Week of October 11th - 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.

Volume 15 - No 18 - Week of October 4th

2010-10-04T06:45:00.001-04:00

October Rain !

We have been reporting all season about our struggle with drought conditions, which has occurred in past seasons as well. It has been dry with spurts of rain now & then but on Friday we made up for it all in one day! We received over 7" of rain on Friday alone and had received another ½" earlier in the week. It certainly is no fun working the rain, but duty calls!

The temperature definitely dropped on Sunday morning a low of about 42⁰. The record high for Sussex County for October 1^st was 87⁰ in 1919 and the record low was 24⁰ in 1899. I wonder what type of seasons those farmers had!

The crew continues to work on cleaning up the fields on non-harvest days. They are starting to remove the plastic from the wrapped beds.

It was great to meet some CSA members who traveled up to Olde Lafayette Village this past weekend to the Garlic Gathering.

What's up & growing:The hot weather, summer crops are "limping" along. We are trying to squeeze out another week's harvest or two out of them as long as we don't get a frost. This includes the eggplant, tomatoes and peppers. The rain, though a bit much, certainly perked up the mustards, Daikon, chard and kale. Everything that needed water was very thankful. The late potatoes are still in the field and we be digging them for the delivery first chance we get. They definitely will be in one of the final week's harvest.

Weather Report: As reported, over 7" of rain fell on Friday. This week's forecast is for more rain as well through Thursday. We hope that we don't get into a rainy trend as more work is yet to be done with 3 weeks to go for the season. Fortunately, the area where we plan on planting the garlic is one of the driest parts of the field. Last year we struggled to get the beds ready due to a wet trend.

Animal report: Everything is quiet with no problems. We are waiting to give our report on the Annual Wooly Bear Caterpillars, but have yet to see one. I don't know if they were washed away! The folklore about the Wooly Bear Caterpillars predicting the upcoming winter will be forthcoming.

TRIP to the FARM-Help Plant Garlic - Sunday October 24^th^. 11 am - ??

Who - CSA members, families, friends
What - Plant Garlic!!
Where - @ Catalpa Ridge Farm in Wantage
When - October 24^th, starting at 11 am
Why - visit the farm to help out

Just RSVP via e-mailso we can send you directions, as well as plan on refreshments & lunch.

Fruit Delivery:Tonight's delivery we have some Mutsu Apples from Windy Brow Farm. Mutso (also known as Crispin), is a cross between the Golden Delicious & the Indo, and arrived in the USA in the late 1940's. Its generous size & appealing color attract you to what lies within...a crisp, white, juicy flesh, with just a touch of tartness. Windy Brow offers pick your own apples until October 10^th this year or when Mother Nature decides.

UPCOMING EVENTS

4^th Annual Garlic Fest- Hoboken Historical Museum - 1301 Hudson Street

· Sunday October 17^th 1 pm - 5 pm

The END of SEASON POTLUCK is coming up. It is hosted by the Hoboken Midtown group - but all CSA members are welcome - Tentative date is November 6^th. More details to come…..

Week of October 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.

Volume 15 - No 17 - Week of September 27th

2010-09-27T06:59:00.001-04:00

Warm Snap !

The past week brought near record highs. For this week temperatures are supposed to trend to a more seasonable range. The autumn leaves are turning early due to the combination of lack of rain & shorter days. The shorter days are also shutting down the warm weather crops, such as the eggplant, tomatoes & pepper plants.

The crew is working the fields on non-harvest days cleaning up in preparation for next year since all the planting has been done. They are taking down the trellises that supported the tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and tomatillos. Next week they should be removing the plastic from the wrapped beds.

We continue to irrigate during the week to keep the October crops ready for the deliveries. We still have tomato plants in the field and are not sure when their production will end. So far we are pleased with the production from the tomato plants this year which is in stark contrast to last year.

We are working on getting a brush-hog attachment for the tractor to get our anticipated new field in order for next year. The brush-hog clears fields by cutting down larger brush and small trees. After, we can plow the field, pick the rocks (which is just a really great job!!) and then plant a cover crop. As this we hope to have done by November. If this is all done before winter then in the early spring we can put up the fences.

What's up & growing:The winter squash, pumpkins & gourds will be coming in more now. We have leeks, turnips, chard, lettuce and radishes to be harvested in October. More onions will be delivered as they are in their curing stage on racks in the greenhouse. The garlic crop was weak this year, mostly due drought conditions. We went up to the Garlic Festival in Saugerties to get more garlic and look for seed stock and pick up new varieties, but there were slim pickings up there as well.

Weather Report: Last week was another dry week with no rain. The forecast for this week looks like rain early in the week, which will be greatly appreciated.

Animal report: There have been no signs of any of the neighborhood ground hogs or rabbits. We do hear the turkeys in the back gobbling away. It looks like they are eating acorns amongst the stand of oak trees. They are making Farmer Rich hungry thinking of Thanksgiving!

TRIP to the FARM-Help Plant Garlic

Sunday October 24^th^. 11 am - ??

Want to spend a day in the country and help us on the farm? We are scheduling our next work day at the farm to be a garlic planting day. Help us plant garlic for the 2011 season. It is a great for families, as garlic is very easy to plant. Just a few extra hands and we plant plenty of garlic in just a few hours. If we had to do it ourselves it would take the better part of a week. We first start by "popping" the garlic, which is separating the individual cloves from the bulb, then we plant each clove and finally apply mulch over it. We'll also plan Farmer Sue's famous BBQ lunch to follow!! Just RSVP via e-mail so we can plan on refreshments & lunch.

Fruit Delivery: Tonight's delivery we have some Melrose Apples from Windy Brow Farm. The Melrose,(the official apple of Ohio) looks like a vintage apple, but surprisingly, it only dates back to World War 2. It's a cross between a Jonathan and a Red Delicious. Good in the kitchen since it stays firm with cooking and it doesn't need much sweetener. Windy Brow offers pick your own apples until October 10th this year.

UPCOMING EVENTS

9^th Annual Garlic Gathering- Olde Lafayette Village - Lafayette, NJ
• Saturday / Sunday October 2^nd & 3^rd 11 am - 4 pm

4^th Annual Garlic Fest- Hoboken Historical Museum - 1301 Hudson Street

· Sunday October 17^th 1 pm - 5 pm

END of SEASON POTLUCK hosted by the Hoboken Midtown group - but all CSA members are welcome - Tentative date is November 6^th. More details to come…..

Week of September 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.

Volume 15 - No 16 - Week of September 20th

2010-09-20T05:18:00.001-04:00

Dry conditions continue !

The drought continues for another week which makes our job harder to keep up with irrigating and trying to offset crop losses. We did receive ¼" of rain and fortunately did not receive the hail storm that many farmers in the area did. It all occurred last week during the severe weather that impacted the NYC area the most. We haven't seen much publicity regarding the drought conditions, but in driving in Wanaque recently by the Monksville Reservoir, I noticed that there was practically no water in it!! It is a huge reservoir and I have never seen it as low as it was on Saturday.

The fruit trees are suffering as well. In talking with Jim @ Windy Brow it appears that the pear trees suffered greatly during the drought & didn't produce at all. This means no pears this season L. He also mentioned that the apple harvest will be winding up next week, which is way ahead of normal. He will however, be able to provide apples for our CSA deliveries until the end of the season.

The "Harvest Moon" appears on Thursday the 23rd. The full moon that appears closest to the autumnal equinox is known as the harvest moon. Though folklore has the harvest moon as gathering up the crops for the season, we have our harvests going to the end of October, though it may be a struggle.

What's up & growing:We are just planting for the end of the harvest season to help off-set some crop losses. Some arugula was planted in the greenhouse this week. In the fields the recently planted lettuce & arugula are doing well. The red mustard plants were thinned and are in tonight's delivery, which will make the remaining plants get bigger when grown to maturity. The next crop is expected to be harvested in October.

We are going to be preparing and area for garlic planting in October. Currently there are daikon radishes, turnips and cilantro in that field and as they are harvested we'll be getting that area ready. We hope to schedule another work-day at the farm for Sunday October 24th and our project will be planting garlic. More info will be forthcoming in upcoming newsletters.

Weather Report: There is a just a chance of some thunderstorms this week on Wednesday and Friday, but nothing of any consequence to help with the continued drought conditions. Temperatures will remain comfortable in the high 70's and low 80's which makes it nice to work in the fields.

Animal report: No major problems in the fields this past week. There were a few deer grazing in an area we plan to have a new field for next year. Hopefully they won't get too used to it! Also the toads abound in the greenhouse, which is a good thing as they like to feast on insects!

Fruit Delivery: Tonight's delivery we have some Greenings Apples from Windy Brow Farm. The first orchard in Massachusetts was planted around 1625 by a clergyman named William Blaxton who owned a farm on Beacon Hill in Boston. He later moved to Pawtucket, Rhode Island and planted the first Rhode Island orchard in 1635. Blaxton is credited for having grown the first named apple in America. This variety is sometimes referred to as Rhode Island Greening.

UPCOMING EVENTS

9^th Annual Garlic Gathering- Olde Lafayette Village - Lafayette, NJ

• Saturday / Sunday October 2^nd & 3^rd
11 am - 4 pm

4^th Annual Garlic Fest- Hoboken Historical Museum - 1301 Hudson Street

· Sunday October 17^th 1 pm - 5 pm

END of SEASON POTLUCK hosted by the Hoboken Midtown group - but all CSA members are welcome - Tentative date is November 6^th. More details to come…..

Week of September 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.

Volume 15 - No 15 - Week of September 13th

2010-09-13T04:43:00.000-04:00

Splash of Rain !

Sunday brought a splash of rain. Something is better than nothing, but we are still in drought conditions. NJ State DEP issued their 2nd Drought Watch this summer, the first being on August 5th and the second on September 8th. The drought conditions impact us as well as the hot weather all spring & summer. The press release posted on their website http://www.njdrought.org/ has the following statement: "According to State Climatologist David Robinson of Rutgers University, New Jersey is experiencing its warmest summer (June-August) on record since weather data has been kept starting in 1895. This followed the warmest spring on record. Every month since March has ranked in the top 10 of all time for heat, with August ranked 10th, July ranked 2nd and June as the first hottest month in the past 105 years."

Each year we hope for the perfect season, and it never seems to come. Last year was too cold & wet and this year is too hot & dry. We adapt, though it is often a struggle. Even the plants have what is called "stress" during a season like we have had. Most evident was the tomatoes which experienced extra heat stress which led to decreased production.

What's up & growing:We hope to seed some mustard & arugula in some open beds for the late October deliveries. It may be a little late but we should get something. As beds are opening up in the back field, we will prepare the beds for planting garlic. The winter squash crop looks good but the squash are small, due to the lack of water during their growing season. The crew picked quite a few this past week and will harvest more during the rest of the week. The tomatoes are slowing up, but there are still more to be harvested. The peppers and eggplant should last for another week or two, depending on the weather.

With the cooler temperatures the cherry tomato plants in our Franklin greenhouse are finally setting fruit. They have been non-producers all summer with the high temperatures. We hope they will produce for late October delivery and are protected from any frost that may take place since the plants are in the greenhouse.

On a negative side we lost most of our turnips and red meat radishes to pests. Two planting of radishes and one planting of mustard bolted with the hot temperatures. Powdery mildew wiped out the cucumber plants, almost overnight.

Weather Report: As reported earlier, just a splash of rain fell on Sunday and no further rain is in the forecast for the rest of this week. The mornings have been chilly and warm In the afternoon which makes for pleasant working in the fields. This week we were in the high 40's. Farmer Rich has been spending a lot of time moving hoses to irrigate the fields. Basically the fields are dead-dry!

Animal report: With the dry conditions, pressure from animals increases. They look for ways to break through the fence to get into the fields. One groundhog devoured the lettuce crop last week and another one just loved the yellow peach tomatoes! A trellis of tomatoes fell over because it was too heavy which left a banquet table full of tomatoes for the voles to feast on. Next year we will have to make stronger trellises.

Fruit Delivery: Tonight's delivery we have some great Cox Orange Pippin Apples from Windy Brow Farm. It is considered to be one of the best dessert apples ever! The variety originated in England and was introduced in 1825.

Week of September 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.

UPCOMING EVENTS

9^th Annual Garlic Gathering- Olde Lafayette Village - Lafayette, NJ

• Saturday / Sunday October 2^nd & 3^rd
11 am - 4 pm

4^th Annual Garlic Fest- Hoboken Historical Museum - 1301 Hudson Street

· Sunday October 17^th 1 pm - 5 pm

Volume 15 - No 14 - Week of September 6th

2010-09-06T21:10:00.001-04:00

Low of 43 ⁰F !

We had temperature fluctuations of between 93⁰F early last week to a low of 43⁰F early in the morning this week. The crew had to harvest with gloves & sweatshirts on for a change.

Needless to say the hot weather crops have either shut down production or are "toast" now that temperatures have dipped that low.

Believe it or not the potatoes we planted late are producing. Farmer Rich checked out the potatoes that were planted the end of July when CSA members came up to the farm for a workday, and they will be ready to harvest soon!! Theoretically potatoes need to be planted early in the spring for the best production, but the ones we planted in July were stored in the cooler and either had to be planted or thrown out, so plant we did! The plants started showing their flowers a few weeks ago, which meant they were starting to produce potatoes. Once the tops of the plants start to die back, that is the signal to start the harvest. Harvesting of them will begin soon, they will be small, but we will get some potatoes from our CSA member work day!!

The hay on the upper end of our farm was finally cut by Farmer Adam and it is baled and stacked by the field that we plan on planting garlic in October. We will be planning a trip to the farm to plant garlic and will post the date in the upcoming newsletters. It is a great project to help with and an easy project to bring up the kids as well. What would take us two weeks to do, we can do in just a few hours with CSA member help.

We are always planning on the next year and we have a plan for a new back field which we hope to get started in a week or two.

What's up & growing:The planned crops for October are coming in early. The Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi should be ready to harvest soon and the additional planting of greens (other than the lettuce - see below) are doing well in the cooler weather.

Meanwhile at our Franklin greenhouse the hot peppers, eggplant & turnips are doing better than those at the farm in the field. This is of course due to the warmer temperatures in the greenhouse and being about 10-12 miles south of the farm where the low was perhaps in the low 50's instead of the low 40's.

Weather Report: Rain is still needed as the spurt that we received was good just for the short term. The forecast for the week predicts perhaps a shower on Wednesday and seasonal temperatures all week. Farmer Rich is irrigating all sections that he can. Some sections of the field aren't set up for irrigation so we have to hope to get some more rain.

Animal report: The deer that jumped the fence decided to munch only a few things and a groundhog broke in and decided to devour the lettuce. The new planting of lettuce was completely wiped out by the groundhog so not only are our October crops coming in early; the planned lettuce isn't left to harvest. After the deer snacked on a few things it laid down in the shade & took a nap!

Fruit Delivery: Tonight's delivery we have some great Molly's Delicious Apples from Windy Brow Farm. This variety was introduced in 1966 by the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.

Week of September 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.

UPCOMING EVENTS

9^th Annual Garlic Gathering- Olde Lafayette Village - Lafayette, NJ

• Saturday / Sunday October 2^nd & 3^rd
11 am - 4 pm

• 4^th Annual Garlic Fest- Hoboken Historical Museum - 1301 Hudson Street

Sunday October 17^th 1 pm - 5 pm

Volume 15 - No 13 - Week of August 30th

2010-08-30T08:12:00.001-04:00

A Great Day in Hoboken!

It was great to meet many CSA members at the Annual Tomato Tasting on Sunday and we want to thank the Hoboken Historical Museum for hosting the event as well as their network of volunteers who worked throughout the day from set-up to take-down. We were able to round up tomatoes from about 5 different farmers and about 15-20 different varieties were available to taste.

As you know we have been struggling with drought conditions all summer and last Monday reported it was great to finally get a nice soaking-in rain. Unfortunately the rain continued for a few more days after which impacted the tomatoes in the field. What happens is that it has been so dry, that when the 4" of rain fell during the week any tomatoes on the vine basically "exploded". Not exploded-exploded, but they split and are not deliverable. We also had trouble from our farmer network in rounding up tomatoes for the tasting as during the heat wave that we had 4-5 weeks ago the blossoms drop-off the plants so fruit will not set.

What's up & growing: Our last seeding of arugula, lettuces, white icicle radishes and red mustard got a big boost from the rain. They kind of came back from the dead! The eggplant & peppers remain consistent producers and believe it or not the late planting of potatoes in July with CSA member help during the trip to the farm are doing great!

At Franklin greenhouse the Japanese turnips should be ready to harvest in a week or two. The hot peppers and herbs are doing extremely well. Unfortunately the cherry tomatoes are just not setting fruit. We had planned on having more cherry tomatoes this year, but as with farming the best laid plans sometimes go awry. At this point, Farmer Rich is going to tear out the cherry tomato plants if they don't produce soon! Word has gone out to them, so we'll see if they cooperate this week.

Weather Report: We are in for a HOT week this week, but fortunately the evening and early morning temperatures are cool.

Animal report : We had a breech in the fence line, so a deer was able to get in. Fortunately it just nibbles on a few different plants so there were no major losses. A rafter of turkeys greeted us on Saturday morning at the Franklin greenhouse. They were enjoying the early morning dew and didn't like Sometime Farmer Sue sneaking up on them to take a few pictures.

Fruit Delivery: Tonight's delivery we have some great Nectarines from Windy Brow Farm.

UPCOMING EVENTS

9^th Annual Garlic Gathering - Olde Lafayette Village - Lafayette, NJ

• Saturday / Sunday October 2^nd & 3^rd
11 am - 4 pm

4^th Annual Garlic Fest - Hoboken Historical Museum - 1301 Hudson Street

• Sunday October 17^th 1 pm - 5 pm

Week of August 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.

Volume 15 - No 12 - Week of August 23rd

2010-08-23T05:32:00.001-04:00

Soaking In Rain!

As we write the newsletter on Sunday after dinner, we have received about an inch of rain today. It was a great soaking in rain as it fell off & on all day long. The pond didn't fill up, which is a concern, but the crops are much happier today! It has been the third time this year that we have been low on our irrigation water. We were only watering critical areas so some of cucumber and squash fields were suffering, but now they should bounce back.

We irrigated the Brussels sprouts, eggplant and tomato plants with the drip irrigation tape. The soil they are in is sandier so even after a rainy day they needed water.

The rain did hamper harvesting some greens for delivery.

Farmer Rich, John & Gary worked on an interesting project this week. Rich was contacted about a month ago by The Delaware Water Gap National Park Service in Montague to fertilize perhaps the oldest orchard in the National Park Service in the United States. It was truly an interesting project as we have always been interested in heirloom varieties and to be able to work on a project that included some of the oldest fruit trees in the United States was something he couldn't pass up. It has been estimated that some of the trees in the park are over 200 years old. This area of the Park is known as the Roberts Farm Orchard. According to the National Park Service they are reestablishing and maintaining historic fruit trees throughout the NPS. A spokesperson states that "It represents an historic milestone in the preservation of the cultural heritage of the United States." Other historic orchards have had pruning & maintenance project as well, the most recent being at the historic orchards in Gettysburg National Military Park and the adjacent Eisenhower National Historic Site; additional pruning is also planned for trees at Adams National Historic Park.

A recent article about the "Living History" project in the National Park Service notes the following:

· Coordination and funding for preservation of the historic orchards as come from the Service's Frederick Law Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation in Brookline, Massachusetts. The Center's staff notes,

· "The National Park Service is one of the principal stewards of historic orchards in the United States. Many of these orchards date from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries and reflect important social trends of the country such as the migration and settlement patterns of immigrants, the development of commercial agriculture, and the growth of rural and urban economies."

· "Many of the orchards at national parks have direct associations with important people or events that shaped the history of our country, such as the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. Additionally, historic orchards in national parks often contain rare or unusual fruit varieties that may be the only surviving examples of their type." (reference www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2010/02/living-history-project-delaware-water-gap-national-recreation-area-required-some-very-sharp-instrume5428)

So our participation in just one small segment of the project took place on Thursday afternoon. Farmer Rich, John & Gary brought up the tractor & spreader and Fertrell supplied the organic fertilizer. Unfortunately, the orchard is in the process of being rejuvenated so there are no apples to deliver now, but we hope in the future that they will have some available.

What's up & growing:We are having a great pepper & egplant year this year, probably the best ever. The seeded crops for October are probably are going to come in early. They consist of turnips, sen posai, dill, cilantro, tendergreen mustard, Dicon radishes and French Breakfast radishes. Newly seeded crops include, red mustard, arugula, lettuce and white icicle radishes. With this rain they should really start cruising along.

The cherry tomatoes in the Franklin greenhouse are not setting fruit. Farmer Rich spent Sunday morning investigating and fertilizing them in the hopes that fruit will be set soon. The plants themselves look great.

We have been delivering basil on an ongoing basis, but there seems to be a shortage of basil among other farmers due to a blight condition.

Weather Report: The week was dry, but much need rain finally arrived on Sunday. The forecast for this week looks like more rain early in the week and about average temperatures.

Animal report: The two fawns visited the plum tree again. We haven't seen them in weeks. They were looking for some plums to eat, but all the plums from the tree had already dropped. We hope they won't want to jump the fence to check out the crops in the field.

Fruit Delivery: Tonight starts some great apple varieties from Windy Brow Farm. The variety this week is the Red Free Apple.

11th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting - Hoboken Historical Museum

• Sunday August 29th 1 pm - 5 pm at the Hoboken Historical Museum

• 1301 Hudson Street

We'll have many varieties of tomatoes for tasting as well as farm fresh produce for sale from local farmers. Also dips, pestos, salsas will be made from farm fresh produce. We hope to see many CSA members there!

Week of August 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.

Volume 15 - No 11 - Week of August 16th

2010-08-16T06:20:00.001-04:00

Just Enough Rain !!

We had received about ½" of rain on Thursday and more rain is falling on Sunday as I write this newsletter. It should be just enough to keep us going for awhile! The pond is dropping rapidly, down about 12" and we hope for more rain during the week.

We are harvesting a lot of tomatoes and it is a far better year this year than last. So far all three planting of tomatoes are doing well.

We have been keeping up with our field maintenance so the weeds are under control and the beds are probably the best that they have been in years. The greenhouses, which house the hot peppers, chard, and oriental greens are doing well and they will be rolled over soon.

We are curing the garlic, onions & shallots and more will be coming in the deliveries over the next few weeks.

What's up & growing:

The lettuce is almost ready to be transplanted into the fields and we have one more planting of zucchini. We also have some pickles ready to go. The greens in the back fields, which incluce turnips, tendergreen mustard, French breakfast radishes, and Sen Posai are going balistic.

The newly seeded arugula, red mustard and white icicle radishes are growing ok, but they need more water.

The winter squash in our fields up at Scott's are doing incredible so far. We have acorn, butternut, hikori, delicatta and perhaps a few more varieties growing at this point. Not only are they going to be great tasting, but winter squash are so beatiful & colorful!

The carrots in the Franklin greenhouse have not improved since our last report. We may end up pulling them and replacing them with something else.

Weather Report: As reported earlier, just enough rain has fallen to keep us going for now, but we really need more consistent rainfall. The beginning of week was hot again, but the second half of the week was pleasant with low humidity which really helped our harvest mornings. The shorter days mean it takes longer for the veggies to mature, though we are planting varieties that like the shorter days and lower temperatures for the fall harvests.

Animal report: Hannah found a baby groundhog feasting on the parsley. It took one look at Farmer Rich and ran and hasn't been back since.

Fruit Delivery: The variety this week we have again the Starfire Peach. These peaches from Windy Brow Farm are a nice scarlet orange-red and one of the tastiest peaches they have!

11^th Annual Heirloom Tomato Tasting - Hoboken Historical Museum

Sunday August 29^th 1 pm - 5 pm at the Hoboken Historical Museum 1301 Hudson Street

We'll have many varieties of tomatoes for tasting as well as farm fresh produce for sale from local farmers. Also dips, pestos, salsas will be made from farm fresh produce.

Lisa & Hannah's Blue Ribbon Entries on Exhibit at the Sussex County Farm & Horse Show

Week of August 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.

Volume 15 - No 10 - Week of August 9th

2010-08-09T08:48:00.001-04:00

Sweep!

Lisa & Hannah placed in the top 5 at the Open Vegetable Show at the NJ State Fair - Sussex County Farm & Horse Show. Lisa was the overall Grand Champion in the vegetable show with 18 blue ribbons and Hannah was 3^rd with 13 blue ribbons. Hannah as 2^nd overall in the herb category with 11 blue ribbons and Lisa 4th with 10 blue ribbons. Renee who runs our Franklin greenhouse earned a number of blue ribbons as well. She won 4 in the herb category and 2 in the vegetable category.

They also had a number of Best in Show ribbons as well:

• Hard Neck Garlic - German White - Hannah

• Soft Neck Garlic - Ozark - Lisa

• Dill - Lisa

• Flat Leaf Parsley - Lisa

• Par-Cel - Lisa

• Texas Super Sweet Onions - Lisa

• Ivory Peppers - Lisa

What's up & growing:

Last Monday, Hannah seeded our last planting of zucchini, pickles and lettuce and they are up & growing and should be transplanted in the field in a week or two. Also we direct seeded arugula, lettuce, white icicle radishes and red mustard which are doing well as long as we continue to get water on them. They should be in deliveries in September. The thinning of greens in tonight's delivery are doing very well and the remaining plants should be harvested over the next few weeks.

The carrots continue to be slow in growing, we don't know exactly why, but probably mostly due to the drier weather.

The garlic is not curing & storing well. Use as soon as possible as there may be some bad cloves within a bulb. Take out the good cloves and you can store them in the freezer for future use.

Farmer Rich is researching why this is a problem this year. Currently is affecting on the NY White variety and we hope that it won't affect the other varieties we grow.

Weather Report: Another dry week and we have to continue to irrigate. The plan is to water the newly seeded crops which are just coming up by hand until we can establish some irrigation to those areas. The pond is starting to drop again. Fortunately it is not as bad it was earlier in the season, but it is dropping fast enough to be a concern. So far we are doing well, all things considered. The heat is not as hot as it was in July and we continue to work full days, starting early in the mornings.

Animal report: Aside from a few rabbits cruising around the "outside" of the fence for a change, it is quiet in animal land for now. We haven't seen the twin fawns for a while now, probably because the plum tree stopped dropping its fruit.

Fruit Delivery: The variety this week we have again the Starfire Peach. These peaches from Windy Brow Farm are a nice scarlet orange-red and taste great. This is the first year we have delivered this variety from them. We like to get the peaches on the "hard" side for better transportation and less bruising. They should ripen up in a few days.

NJ State Fair - Sussex County Farm & Horse Show - The NJ State Fair in Augusta, NJ runs to August 15th. For more information you can go online to www.njstatefair.org to see what events are scheduled for each day. If you go, stop by the greenhouse to see Lisa, Hannah & Renee's blue ribbon entries!

Week of August 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.

Volume 15 - No 9 - Week of August 2nd

2010-08-01T20:01:00.001-04:00

Cooler Temps!

We are glad to see July over, as it sure was hot and humid! The average temperature for July was over 7ºF hotter than last year's average and the rainfall was an average of 3" less than last year. Overall, great for many of the crops that love the hot weather, such as the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, but not so good for the lettuces, arugula and tender greens.

We had some intermittent showers occurring off and on during the week. The sun doesn't come up at the farm until after 5:30 am, so Farmer Rich is getting an extra ½ hour sleep! The early morning harvests are nice & cool and even Farmer Rich has to put on a flannel shirt!

The potatoes were harvested this week at our fields up at Scott's Farm. The potatoes will be mixed between Red Norland, Katadin and Russet. The potato harvest did not yield as much as it should have, mostly due to the dry weather. Estimates are about ½ of what we should have been able to harvest, but we do have plenty of potatoes for the rest of the season.

The leeks & squash that were weeded & mulched by the CSA members who came up to the farm are much happier. The mulch is helping keep the moisture in the soil.

For those of you getting the arugula in your delivery - you may notice some insect holes. What happens is that they bite into the young plant and then the leaf grows and the hole becomes larger. The Arugula tastes REALLY GOOD aside from the cosmetic problem.

What's up & growing:

On July 21^st we planted Cilantro, Dill, Sen Posai, Turnips, Tendergreen Mustard, Dicon Radish, and French Breakfast Radishes in the back field and they are growing great. You should start seeing thinnings in upcoming salad mixes.

The July 14^th planting of carrots are finally growing! Carrots do take a long time to germinate.

We divided the chives plants, to plant long rows as well as planted some basil.

The eggplant crop is growing very well and each week one or two delivery sites are receiving them on an alternating basis until we have enough for all the sites. The eggplant varieties we have been harvesting consist of Rosa Bianca, Florida High Bush, Ping Tong Long, Black Beauty and Orient Express. We are also encouraged by the production of our sweet peppers plants. We have some great colored varieties, such as ivory, black, chocolate, purple, golden, fryers & some standard greens.

Weather Report: Very little rain fell during the week, most of which came on the 25^th during the trip to the farm. There have been some storm fronts moving through the area but have been more of a hit-or-miss at the farm.

Animal report: The rabbits have multiplied, but are not creating a problem. We haven't seen the two fawns this past week either. We have our "natural" pest controllers working in the greenhouse. They are small toads who just love to eat insects!! In the early morning hours at the farm we see a number of bats swirling around and when they go to sleep the birds then wake up! Nature isn't it wonderful!

Fruit Delivery

The variety this week is the Starfire Peach. These peaches from Windy Brow Farm are a nice scarlet orange-red and taste great. This is the first year we have delivered this variety from them. We like to get the peaches on the "hard" side for better transportation and less bruising. They should ripen up in a few days.

NJ State Fair - Sussex County Farm & Horse Show

The NJ State Fair in Augusta, NJ starts on Friday and runs to August 15^th. Hannah & Lisa are looking forward to entering a few exhibits in the Open Vegetable Show which will be judged on Saturday. For more information you can go online to www.njstatefair.orgto see what events are scheduled for each day.

Week of August 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.

Volume 15 - No 8 - Week of July 26th

2010-07-26T06:42:00.000-04:00

Great Day @ the Farm!

We had a full-crew and then some come up to the farm on Sunday. It was record attendance for a trip-to-the-farm, outside of our October Garlic planting trips. All our CSA delivery sites (Mahwah, Hoboken, Jersey City and On-Farm Pickup) were well represented with members & their families and friends helping out with a few projects. Even some former CSA members from New York City came up to help as well. We gave a tour of the farm to start out the day and then took to the fields to work on weeding & mulching the leek & zucchini beds with one crew and the other crew planted some potatoes. Thanks to all who came up to the farm - we like the help & really enjoy the "community" in our community supported farm. We were a really "close" knit group huddling under that tent!

Though, late in the season to plant potatoes, they should be ready by October. They are a short-season variety and we are taking a chance that they grow in time, but better to try then not try at all. The reason they didn't get in earlier, was the box from last year's harvest was left in Scott's cooler. They "grew" (the potato eyes grew about 18") while in the cooler and Farmer Rich thought it best to try to get them in the ground. We didn't want to plant them in the spring (which is the normal time) as we were worried that perhaps they may have carried the late blight that was prevalent last year. But at the point of rediscovering them in the cooler, they were in good shape we had no fear of them having any sign of late blight. The day was a bit hampered by an afternoon rain storm, but at least we were able to get some work in, have a nice lunch and then huddled under the tent to keep dry!

What's up & growing: The back field is getting enough water so the Cilantro, Sen Posai, Turnips, Tendergreen Mustard, Dicon Radish, and French Breakfast Radishes are all up and growing well. Last week's plantings of carrots and Redmeat Radishes are also doing well and the newly transplanted winter squash have taken off and are growing great both on the farm and in the fields at Scott's. The potatoes in Scott's should be harvested this week and we hope to get them into the delivery next week.

Planted this past week:
More Brussels Sprouts
Lettuce (which didn't take well due to the heat)
Kale
It was TOO!! Hot to plant anything else

Weather Report: It was another super HOT week and the humidity level was high as well. Rain fell on Friday and then again on Sunday, both of which were much needed. These intervals of rain have helped immensely. There was a threat of severe weather on Friday night with a chance of "golf-ball" sized hail, and the chance of a tornado, but fortunately neither passed over the farm. We did hear there were quite a few reports of severe weather in the Passaic & Bergen county areas with a number of trees down.

Animal report: Fortunately all was quiet this week in the fields, with just a few voles tasting the eggplant, sweet peppers and beets. Luckily the pesky rabbits have been around for the past two weeks. Farmer Rich and John saw two fawns on Saturday under our one plum tree. They were enjoying the plums that had dropped to the ground. We had hoped they would come out on Sunday during the trip to the farm for all to see, but the rain must have kept them undercover or perhaps they ate too many plums and were resting with stomach aches!

Fruit Delivery: The variety this week is Shiro which is another Japanese variety. They are a nice yellow plum.

Week of July 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.

Volume 15 - No 7 - Week of July 19th

2010-07-19T06:30:00.001-04:00

Trip to the Farm Sunday!

The first work-day at the farm for the season is scheduled for Sunday, July 25^th. We plan on a few projects for those that are coming up. The main projects will be to weed & mulch the leek bed and hopefully mulch between the beds of peppers and tomatoes. We hope that Farmer Adam will arrive this week to cut the hay in time for Sunday. We can always come up with other projects as well.

Due to the excess heat this past week, we had to change up our schedule a bit. On harvest days, we start about 5 am, as the sun isn't quite up and it is the best time to harvest to prevent wilting. Once harvested, we can get the produce into the cooler. By 11 am, we are a little "burned out" and work on smaller projects and try to keep cool and well hydrated.

What's up & growing:The tomatoes, eggplant and peppers continue to do well. The zucchini have slowed down just following the dry period we had. The herbs are doing well and the last planting of peppers that was "borderline" have bounced back. The winter squash are in. We should have some new potatoes within the next week or two. Hannah's cut salad mix is coming back for another harvest soon. The newly seeded lettuce is doing well, but the oriental greens are having problems. The Brussels sprouts are almost ready to harvest. We removed the plastic over our lower greenhouse, mostly due to the excess temperatures, in an attempt to save the husk cherries & tomatoes that were planted in it. We hope they will recover and will keep you posted.
Planted this past week:

Rainbow Carrots

Cilantro

Golden Ball Turnips

Dill

Sen Posi

Tendergreen Mustard

French Breakfast Radishes

Dicon Radishes

Redmeat Radishes

We plan on seeding this week:

Kale

Collard Greens

Lettuce

Last planting of Zucchini

Chinese Cabbage

Weather Report: It was super HOT again this week, and the temperatures are running about 7-9º higher than normal. The humidity level was up as well which severely hampers our farm activities. It is just too hot to maintain long hours in the fields. Friday the 16^th was perhaps the worst day of the year, even worse than our 100ºF+ on July 7^th. There was a trace of rain on Friday night and the 4" of rain last week helped immensely. The pond went from being low to filling up again. The days are getting shorter now which means we need less water. Irrigation continues as the rains have been spotty at best.

Animal report: Continued break-ins are attempted, especially during the drier periods. The baby rabbits break in but were not much of a problem this week. Fortunately the ground hogs are staying away. The voles, "in-season vegetarians", like to munch at ground level. Their favorites are carrots & beets and actually destroyed the last beet crop, which left us just with the greens.

Trip to the Farm - planned for Sunday July 25^th

Start time will be 11 am. In addition to some "work-time" we'll give you a tour of the farm. We like to work a little, have some lunch and enjoy a day in the country! Please RVSP if you plan to attend so that we can plan on refreshments and provide you directions.

Fruit Delivery

This week is the first delivery of Plums from Windy Brow Farm. The variety this week is Redheart which is a Japanese variety. The main varieties of plums are European, Japanese, Cherry plums and cross-hybrids.

Week of July 19th - 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.

Volume 15 - No 6 - Week of July 12th

2010-07-12T12:35:00.001-04:00

Finally Some Rain!

Farmer Rich gave me a call on Friday that it finally rained at the farm after weeks of little to no precipitation. It only rained about ½" but everything fluffed up. Then on Saturday the much needed soaking-in rain came. We received about 2 ½" of rain on Saturday morning alone. Fortunately, we were able to work in the greenhouses harvesting greens, as the rain kept up for quite a few hours.

Our plan for the week if it hadn't rained was to seed in cells and transplant into plastic. This would enable us to conserve water by utilizing the drip irrigation. Cilantro, dill, radishes, beets, turnips all produce better in an open field situation and if it hadn't rained we would have to have postponed them for who knows how long. Fortunately the rain came and we are on track for our normal schedule.

John tilled the back field and the harvested garlic beds once the rains came. Prior, it was way too dry to attempt any plantings. Another tilling of the garlic beds is needed prior to planting, but the conditions are much better now.

The heavy rains filled the pond back up. It was getting very low and we were getting worried about running out of water. We are a bit ahead of schedule for "rolling" over our fields. They key is getting the plantings in on time and for a while there we were nervous about the drought conditions affecting our schedule and the future harvests.

What's up & growing: Now that it rained all the plants are much happier. The tomatoes, peppers, eggplant are all looking great. The New Zealand spinach should be harvested soon. Our cherry tomato fields are showing lots of blossoms and hopefully this means lots of tomatoes. The spring broccoli plants are not doing well and we will be reseeding them this week and hope to have decent crop for the fall. All of the squash plants are producing. We have mixed varieties such as zucchini, yellow and crookneck squash coming along and the trombocino should be harvested soon. We plan on another planting of red cabbage soon.

Fruit Delivery Flaming Fury Peaches are delivered again this week from Windy Brow Farm as the plums were not ready yet. Farmer Jim hopes that the plum harvest will be on schedule for next week. We usually have Shiro and Red Heart plums in the July deliveries.

Weather Report: The hot, hot temperatures finally dropped when a cool front brought in the rain over the weekend. We don't know what is going to happen next, as the record temperatures may have affected the plants long term. We did notice that the lettuce was starting to get bitter and the broccoli & cauliflower suffered during the extreme temperatures. It appears more seasonable temperatures are on target for this week. We hope that optimum conditions will last for more than just a day or two.

Animal report: As the drought conditions had continued early in the week, the animals seem to get more rambunctious. We have noticed that over the years, the drier it is they become more interested in the crops behind the fences as they are not finding succulent growth in their "outside the fence" living quarters. A new crop of baby rabbits appeared and they are enjoying the clover in between some of the beds and they really like the kohlrabi leaves. There may have been a bear that visited the back field, but did not enter the field. Two areas of fence were pushed down. Nothing was damaged except the fence. A similar problem occurred last year in the same area so apparently it is not looking to eat any veggies, but interested in just seeing what is going on. The beet patch has been invaded by voles, who have been feasting. This of course ruins the beets, but the beet greens are still good.

Trip to the Farm- planned for Sunday July 25th Start time will be 11 am. Projects for the work day will include helping with mulching and some general field work. We'll give you a tour of the farm, work a little, have some lunch and enjoy a day in the country! Please RVSP if you plan to attend so that we can plan on refreshments and provide you directions.

Week of July 12th - 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.

Volume 15 - No 5 - Week of July 5th

2010-07-05T04:28:00.001-04:00

Drought Conditions!

We hope you all had a wonderful 4^th of July and celebrated being Food Patriots! We have the Red (the beets), the White (the onions) and the Blue will be coming soon (blue potatoes). Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and one of our founding fathers, considered himself a man of the land. He was one of America's early agronomists and is credited as introducing Brussels sprouts, eggplant, cauliflower & broccoli to America. He is quoted as saying that "those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God...." He promoted crop rotation, use of fertilizer and contour plowing. He wrote: "No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth and no culture comparable to that of the garden."

No rain fell during the past week and there is no rain in the forecast for this week. We are spending a lot of time keeping the crops watered. We need to move the hoses and overhead sprinklers on a daily basis between our different fields. The drip irrigation system is working well, but the drip irrigation is installed only on the wrapped beds. We depend on the overhead sprinklers for all the other beds & fields. We hope to install some more sprinklers soon so we don't have to keep moving them.

The US Drought Monitor has the northeast listed as D-0 - Abnormally dry for 24% of the area. The area they illustrate does show all of NJ and southern NY and eastern PA to be included in this 24%. Their scale goes from none to D-4 which is an exceptional drought condition. They also have listed that we have a deficit of 1.3" of precipitation over the last 30 days which is 66% of normal precip for Sussex County.

Weather plays such an important role in agriculture. We love to look at historical data to see how each season relates to the past. Last year, the month of June yielded 7.93" of rain and this year only 2.40" fell for the whole month. The record high for the 4^th of July was recorded as 100ºF in 1966 and the record low as 41ºF in 1986. (source: Location: Sussex 2NE, NJ http://www.weather.gov/climate/xmacis.php?wfo=phi )

Crop Report

planted this week:

Zucchini

Herbs
Cucumbers

Peppers

Oriental greens

Lettuce

Kale

What's up & growing:

The fava bean field that was harvested is being readied for planting this week. The garlic harvest continues, though the bulbs are on the small side. So far the tomato plants are looking good as we continue to irrigate the fields. The eggplant and peppers are in great shape too, whereas the broccoli is suffering. It apparently it is not liking the hot-hot weather.

Weather Report: As noted, there has been a total lack of rain over the past week and in general over the last month as well. The ground is parched & cracked. John was tilling up the back field and created a "dust bowl". When he got off the tractor he was covered in dust. We have to run water to get the soil workable and ready to plant this week. It looks like the Mohave Desert back there! We do have a good system of overhead sprinklers for that area. We ran water on the drip line for two days straight and the soil is still bone dry.

Animal report: We have a dill loving critter and the rabbit continues to munch on the kohlrabi leaves. The "pests" have arrived! The cabbage worms are eating the Brussels sprouts and the potato beetles are eating the eggplant. The squash beetles are eyeing out the squash. Since we do not spray anything to keep them away, we have been hand picking them off of the plants so they are somewhat under control. We also depend on our "air-force". The birds will swoop down and enjoy the cabbage worms and there are other beneficial insects that help out too!

Fruit Deliveries Start The fruit we deliver is from Windy Brow Farm located on Route 519 in Fredon Township, just south of Newton, NJ, and we have been delivering their fruit for about 7 years now. Usually, the fruit deliveries start towards the end of July, but the peaches were ready early this year! This week's harvest is Flaming Fury Peaches.

Week of July 5th - 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.

Volume 15 - No 4 - Week of June 28th

2010-06-28T04:25:00.002-04:00

Fava Knows Best!

No veggie & a movie this week, but how about a 50's TV show - Fava Knows Best? It may be a week late for Father's Day, but the fava beans this year are ready earlier than in years past. They usually are delivered the first week of July, but were ready to harvest so harvest we did. This year's fava have a better yield and also are in better shape in that they didn't get the black spots which is often seen on the outer pod. It actually took about 2 1/2 days to harvest the fava beans. Not only are they labor intensive to harvest, you need to take additional time to prepare them yourself (see special fava bean tips in the Harvest Identifier & Recipe pages)

PS - don't forget you can have your fava beans with a nice chianti!!!

The pond is down about 6-7" due to lack of rain, which is in total contrast to last year when we were complaining of it being too wet. Saturday went from being dry to being VERY dry. We are irrigating all fields and some of the beds are being hand watered as well. While we were hand watering we notice how the soil dried out immediately as we watered. As the plants get bigger we are mulching with hay or straw and that helps immensely to keep the moisture in. We actually will be using the fava plants that we just harvested as mulch for the cucumber plants. We normally will chop them and plow them into the soil for the next rotation of crops which may include turnips, dicon radishes and mustards. Since we are almost out of hay until the next delivery, we'll use the plants to shade the soil, increase moisture retention and even add some nutrients such as nitrogen to the soil as they break down and we plow them in during the crop rotations.

The garlic harvest has started, and some garlic is small due to lack of water and some weeding up in certain areas that we never got the plastic laid down. Once all the garlic is harvested, these beds will be rolled over to our fall crops.

The Franklin greenhouse has almost been totally rolled over with new plantings as outlined below in our Crop report. Tonight's carrot harvest actually came from the Franklin greenhouse. We also have Rosemary again as the rosemary crop went ballistic! We reduced the bed by half and it will be replaced by sage & thyme (sorry no parsley in this bed - ha-ha!). Renee who lives close to Franklin is really managing that greenhouse well. She has been transplanting, weeding, watering and helping with the harvest. In the meantime our on-farm personnel, Hannah, Lisa and Nancy, are starting super early in the am to get most of the work done prior to the heat of the mid-day sun. They are all hard workers and we are fortunate to have such a great crew.

Crop Report

planted this week:

cherry tomatoes

sage

parsley

anise hysoop

celery

thyme

What's up & growing:

The tomato plants are performing well - much better than last year. The eggplant & peppers are cruising along as well and the Brussels sprouts have doubled in size since last week. We have an intruder (see Animal report below) whom seems to be enjoying the Brussels sprouts & Kohlrabi. We haven't had good luck in the past with Brussels sprouts so this rabbit may be a long-time resident who is enjoying trying a new crop instead of the same-ole-same-ole.

We are trying to get zucchini into all the delivery sites over the past few weeks, as there just were never enough to deliver all at once. Hopefully their production will increase and we can deliver more.

The winter squash and next planting of zucchini are both up and should be planted in the field during the week. The next planting of lettuce and kale will be undertaken this week as well. Also planned are seeding turnips. Hokuri & golden ball are the two varieties of turnips that we plan on seeding.

Weather Report: Only about 1/8" of rain fell during the week - but we have been through this before in the last 15 years. Even though it rained a little bit the writing is on the wall that we are either in or close to drought conditions. I have even noticed in my driving down Route 23 where I pass 2 reservoirs that their levels are getting quite low. We usually report drought conditions about 1 month ahead of the government!!! This is all subject to change, but if it doesn't rain a decent amount soon, drought conditions will definitely be here. The rains when they come seem to get less and less, even though it may seem we are getting a decent rain we actually are not.

Animal report: Our intruder (probably a rabbit) has been enjoying the Brussels Sprouts and Kohlrabi or should I say KohlRabbit. Looking back at past newsletters, we had a similar intruder enjoying the kohlrabi a few years back. Usually the ground hogs aren't are selective in their munching, they just eat everything in their path so we are quite sure it is a rabbit.

CSA Member offers Bicycle Delivery Service for CSA shares in Hoboken & Jersey City

A fellow CSA member in Hoboken, Jorge Szymanski, is offering to deliver your CSA shares to your home via his bicycle delivery service. Please click here for more information.

Fava Beans: To use the fava beans you'll have to shell and skin them first. The easiest way to skin them is to blanch them in boiling water for a few minutes, then slit the skin with a knife or your thumb nail, and squeeze gently to slip the bean out.
Refer to our previous blogs for more info:
http://catalparidge-recipes.blogspot.com/2008/07/recipes-of-week-july-7th.html
http://catalparidge-recipes.blogspot.com/2006/07/recipes-week-of-july-3rd.html

Week of June 28th - 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.

Volume 15 - No 3 - Week of June 21st

2010-06-21T06:10:00.001-04:00

Dryer than you think!

It is actually dryer that you think at the farm, at least dryer than Farmer Rich thought. We did have about ¾" of rain last week, which was very welcome. We do continue to have to irrigate the fields and are trying to catch up to keep everything watered.

The week seemed to go quickly as every day was filled with projects (as usual) and not too much turmoil! Monday is a pick & pack day to have all the delivery sites harvest ready to load on the van and then head south to deliver to Mahwah late Monday afternoon. Tuesday is delivery day to Hoboken & Jersey City. Wednesday we have a full-crew and replanting (see crop reports below) of areas that were harvested as well as weeding and veggie maintenance are the prime directives of the day. Thursday, Farmer Rich is by himself and he makes the rounds to assess what will be ready to harvest for the next delivery and to line up projects for the crew for Friday. More field maintenance is done as well such as tilling up beds to get them ready for planting. On Friday our full crew is back and we continue to plant in the fields, weed, mulching and trellis the tomatoes & cucumbers and anything else that may present itself. On Saturdays & Sundays, we start to harvest the delivery at 5:00 am (thank goodness we have a good crew who doesn't mind starting super early) to get it in the cooler before the hot sun of the day. This is all done prior to 9:00 am. The rest of a Saturday & Sunday is spent sorting, bunching, bagging and getting the delivery ready. In between all of this we have to get to our Franklin greenhouse where a lot of the first few weeks of deliveries have been harvested.

Crop Report - we like to keep you posted on the variety of crops that are either already growing or have been planted or seeded.
Planted, transplanted or seeded this week:

Arugula

Sunflower sprouts

Squash both Winter & Summer varieties

Lettuce

Replanted salad mix

Hot Peppers

Tomatoes

Eggplant

Cherry Tomatoes

Basil

Cucumbers

What's Up & Growing:

The newly seeded arugula, lettuce & salad mixes are doing well. The beets and sweet basil are up as well and the Brussels sprouts have "popped". This is when they are almost doubled in size within the week. This is true of many other crops as well, such as the tomatoes, broccoli, eggplant, squash, kohlrabi and herbs. The fava beans look like they may be ready early this year.

Crop losses this week included the cauliflower. They "buttoned up" too early, so they are size of about a ½ Dollar. These plants will be removed this week and the bed replanted with celery & squash. The sorrel is not doing as well as years past, but there are some of the better leaves in the salad mix being delivered this week. We lost some Walla Walla onion and radishes.

Weather Report: Thunderstorms are on the horizon for the early part of the week. Since we need the rain we'll probably not get it, while a neighboring farmer that just cut his hay and doesn't need it probably will get it!

Animal report : No break-ins and the fences are doing their job. Farmer Rich thinks he has seen an Eastern Meadowlark just outside the new greenhouse. By the time he gets the camera it is gone. We hope to catch it during the week.

Summer Arrives: Summer arrives onJune 21, 2010 at 7:28 am EDT (the summer solstice) The term "solstice" comes from the Latin words "sol" (sun) and "sistere" (to stand still). At the solstice, the angle between the Sun's rays and the plane of the Earth's equator (called declination) appears to stand still. This phenomenon is most noticeable at the Arctic Circle where the Sun hugs the horizon for a continuous 24 hours, thus the term "Land of the Midnight Sun."- The Farmers' Almanac

Radishes this week: Most of the 'hot' taste is in the skin. Peel them for a milder flavor.
Radish Cooking Tips The process of cooking radishes tames the harshness. To enhance the red coloring of a radish while cooking, add a bit of lemon juice to the cooking liquid.
Boil: Bring water to a boil, carefully drop in whole or sliced radishes. Simmer radishes until they become just tender, from 10 to 30 minutes depending on the type of radish.
Steam: Steam whole radishes in steamer for 5 to 15 minutes, depending on desired tenderness.
Roast: Preheat oven to 425º F. Toss sliced radishes with olive oil, and favorite seasonings. Spread radishes onto baking sheet or roasting pan.Roast for 30-45 minutes, until tender and browning. http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--827/all-about-radishes.asp

Week of June 21st - 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.

Volume 15 - No 2 - Week of June 14th

2010-06-13T19:46:00.001-04:00

Moulin Rhubarb!

Periodically throughout the season we'll feature our Veggies & a Movie.
This week the feature is Moulin Rhubarb!

The only delivery of Rhubarb for the season will be this week's harvest. Rhubarb is one of the earliest spring crops and many either love it or hate it. For those who haven't been introduced to rhubarb we suggest "try it, you'll like it" and look through the recipes for one that will suit your tastes. There is an annual Rhubarb Festival in Minnesota (sorry we missed it on the 5th), but is sure sounds like that have a great time. Go to this link for some great recipes (and more recipes will be posted too) http://www.rhubarbfestival.org/recipes.php

We can get into the fruit or vegetable controversy for Rhubarb and if we do then we have to include tomatoes too. Rhubarb is traditionally classified as a vegetable; however, in the United States a New York court decided in 1947 that since it was used in the United States as a fruit it was to be called a fruit. The outcome of this decision was a reduction in taxes paid. The Supreme Court got involved in the classification of the tomato; "Botanically, a tomato is a fruit. However, it is typically served as part of a salad or main course of a meal, rather than at dessert, therefore it is considered a vegetable for most culinary purposes. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the controversy on May 10, 1893 by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert (Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304))." So we have Rhubarb which is a vegetable, now used as a fruit and tomatoes which are a fruit used as a vegetable! Wow - and everybody thinks farming is so straight forward!

Don't forget to check out the Harvest Identifier each week. Many members wrote notes that they didn't know what was what in the delivery, but we post the link to the Harvest Identifier within the weekly newsletter that you receive as well as post it on the blog & website. In addition you can download a PDF copy of this newsletter and the Harvest Identifier if you prefer the more traditional "paper" copy. The Harvest Identifier includes photos, tips & additional recipes. Just more resources that we hope you will find helpful. Also, if you have a recipe you want to share, please send me an e-mail and I will include it for other members.

Crop Report - we like to keep you posted on the variety of crops that are either already growing or have been planted or seeded.
Planted, transplanted or seeded this week:

Basil
Cherry Tomatoes
Hot Peppers

Beets Brussels Sprouts
Tomatoes
Lettuce

Herbs (basil, par-cel, cutting celery, parsley)

What's Up & Growing:

Zucchini
Carrots
Oriental Greens
Radishes

Cauliflower
Kohlrabi Tomatoes
Fava Beans
New Zealand Spinach

Dill
Fennel
Cabbage Spinach
Peppers
Eggplant

Broccoli
Peas
Beets
Squash

So far we have some minor crop losses. The peas in the back field needed to be replanted, so an early crop of peas is not on the horizon.

Weather Report: To date, the season has been on the dry side, but we finally received some much needed rain this past week. About 1" fell during the week over a few days, which was much better than getting it all at once. The temperatures have been hot but not unbearable. The harvests begin very early in the morning before the heat increases so that we can get the lettuces and greens into the cooler.

Animal report: We had a bear on the farm watching Lisa & Hannah planting in the back field. We guess it was taking inventory of what they were planting to see if it wants to break in later in the season for some treats! All in all, there have been minimal problems with the animals so far. The fences are doing their job, except for the family of rabbits which are inside the fence. So far they didn't find the carrots!

Interesting Notes for the week: We are on a farming e-mail list for Sussex County Farmers and this week received a link to an interesting video for an idea in helping to clean up the Gulf's Oil Spill. The header was "never underestimate a farmer's ingenuity" A simple, "green" way to get the oil out of the water - probably way too simple for BP or the government to figure out. Anyway, if you want to view it, click here: http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/. Sure makes sense!

Rhubarb
Not everyone's favorite, as some people love it and some just don't want to even try it due to its tartness or as I like to say "zippiness". Make a sauce for meats or
fish, combine with fruits for pies, even make pancakes! See recipes on the blog or page 2 of the PDF copy of the newsletter.

Week of June 14th - 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.

Volume 15 - No 1 - Week of June 7th

2010-06-06T21:15:00.001-04:00

Lettuce Begin!

First, thank you for supporting our farm. It is only through the continued support of our members that our farm continues to be sustainable and we continue the practice of farming. We welcome back many of you who have been supporting us for most of our 15 years of CSA deliveries as well as welcome many new members this year. It is also important to acknowledge the efforts of the coordinators at all our drop-off locations. Without drop-off locations that are fully supported the CSA concept is lost. We should all participate in the sense of "community" by helping out, sharing recipes and giving support to each other.

We welcome back our sites at Beth Haverim Shir Shalom in Mahwah, Hoboken Midtown on Willow Terrace, Hoboken West on Grand and Jersey City Hamilton Park on 8th Street. A new welcome is in order for The United Synagogue of Hoboken on Park Avenue. We are also pleased to announce that the Food Services at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ have purchased shares to be used directly in the employee cafeteria. They wanted to get more locally grown produce into the diet of their hospital employees. In April, during their Earth Day activities, I spent the day with them to introduce their employees to our farm and shared with them pictures and what seasonal produce we would be delivering.

For those that are new to the concept CSA, it may be a challenge at first in that you are eating seasonally. What is ready to harvest is what is delivered each week. You will be receiving your "just picked" veggies right from the farm. Carolyn Cope who was a coordinator for a number of years in Hoboken and who has since moved to Red Bank, has posted some great tips on her food blog. The article is titled: 10 Secrets for Making the Most of your CSA. The link is here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/10-secrets-tips-for-making-the-most-of-your-csa.html

CSF deliveries are not meant to replace you having to shop, but to supplement your veggie choices each week. The deliveries in the spring will mostly consist of greens (lettuces, chard, Oriental greens). As the weeks progress, there will also be more variety and the deliveries will become heavier. Also along the line, you will meet many interesting vegetables, some of which you may have never tried before. We encourage you to try-it, you'll like it!! In the newsletter each week I include recipes for the items that are being delivered. If you have some recipes you would like to share, we can post them on the blog for others to try.

Community supported farm members soon become connected to each other as the weeks go by. We welcome you all and look forward to working with all of you.

News from the Farm: There have been some changes with our employees this year. Ali our full-timer last year has since moved to California pursuing a career in farming. We welcome Hannah as our full-timer. She apprenticed at Genesis Farm for two years before joining us this spring. Lisa & Jessie have returned this year, again working part-time. New part timers also include Nancy, Allyson, Renee and Erin. We also have been fortunate to have John work part time who has been invaluable on the mechanical end. He was the main force to build the new greenhouse and is keeping our tractors, pumps and equipment operating. They have all been working hard over the last several weeks.

We work between the farm in Wantage and the extra greenhouse in Franklin. The Franklin greenhouse is especially important for our early deliveries. We also work with other local farmers during the season to continue to provide a variety of produce to you each week that we may not be growing or if we have had a crop failure. They all are local and have similar growing practices. A few large fields at Scott's farm are being planted with our tomato, pepper, squash & eggplant transplants. We have already planted potatoes & garlic in our fields there.

From the Fields: Each year presents a new set of challenges and we adapt accordingly to the trial & tribulations of farming. When we were ready to plant in the spring the large tractor that pulls the mechanical transplanter broke so all the planting had to be done by hand. Thank goodness we have an excellent crew, who adapted to our 19th century farming techniques!

Our new field in the back has the following all up & growing: garlic greens, fava beans and new beds ready for tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and herbs to be planted this week. The round field (which was unplantable last year), has dill, spinach, New Zealand spinach and 8 rows of heirloom tomatoes already planted, most of which are up & growing. Our main field has all of the following already planted; eggplant, garlic, peas, zucchini, cucumbers, beets, tomatoes, peppers, sorrel, lettuce, fennel, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatillos, chard, husk cherries, kale and cabbage. There are a few beds left to plant.

At our Franklin greenhouse, we have harvested for this week's delivery greens, and the Texas super sweet onions with edible greens. The onions this year are a lot smaller this year than in years past. The onion sets we received from the grower to plant for this crop were smaller. Many problems go back to last year's conditions (cold & wet). This also affected our seed orders as well. Probably about 1 in 5 varieties that we wanted to order were not available.

The rest of the onions will be harvested & dried over the next few weeks so you will be seeing more onions in your deliveries. We also have rosemary, basil, carrots yet to harvest from Franklin. We plan on replanting the beds with more Oriental greens and some cherry tomatoes.

Weather Report: Unlike last year, which was cool & wet, we have been having dryer & warmer weather. The crew has been out in the fields planting on those 90+ degree days and Farmer Rich & John have spent the last week installing irrigation drip tape. We also installed overhead irrigation in the round field as well as over the fava beans, beets & garlic.

Animal report: So far only a few rabbits & groundhogs have been probing the fence line, no doubt waiting for the crops to get a bit bigger before attempting to break in. The fences were all either replaced or repaired weeks ago and we are confident that they will continue to keep the animals out. The family of terns have again returned. We hear them constantly but have not yet found where they are nesting.

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.

CSA deliveries - Starting the Week of June 7th

2010-06-02T14:19:00.003-04:00

The harvest season is finally here!!! The CSA deliveries will be starting the week of June 7th. All CSA members who have signed up be on the look out for an e-mail from us over the next day or two outlining the delivery schedules for each drop-off location. We'll also be putting together the newsletter, recipes & pick-of-the-week to e-mail everyone on Monday. Thank you for supporting our farm and we look forward to a bountiful season! Sue & Farmer Rich

New Greenhouse is done!

2010-04-14T19:46:00.001-04:00

The new greenhouse is finished and we are filling it up with transplants. This greenhouse measures 17 'x 48' and after the transplant sales we will be building beds to grow greens, tomatoes, peppers & more. This is our 5th greenhouse and they really allow for diversification in growing. During rainy weather, we can work in the greenhouses (Farmer Rich hates getting wet!). Last year, our crew missed no work days due to rain, when it was the rainiest season ever.

Happy April 1st

2010-04-01T18:02:00.000-04:00

4-1-2010 - We went on a cruise around Manhattan - APRIL FOOLS!!!

A new employee, Alison, started work today. She worked with Farmer Rich in the Franklin greenhouse and they transplanted lots of basil. Another new employee will be starting next week. Her name is Hannah and she was an apprentice at Genesis Farm. Our crew is coming together really well. Lisa who worked with us last year is now our Farm Operations Leader. Erin, Michele & Jessie are coming onboard on a part-time basis.

Planting in the Fields started

2010-03-21T07:55:00.001-04:00

Farmer Rich & Lisa planted fava and garlic for garlic greens on Saturday. Planned for today are planting peas and some more fava beans the fields. Also some greenhouse work will include transplanting tomato seedlings by Lisa and Erin.

Happy National AG Day!

2010-03-20T22:15:00.001-04:00

Happy National AG Day!

Farmer Rich & Lisa planted in the fields today and John tilled up the back field with the tractor. It is starting to look like a farm again now that all the snow has melted and spring is finally here! Sometime Farmer Sue is in the process of updating the website.

Today happens to be National Ag Day and their website outlines that every American should:

understand how food, fiber and renewable resource products are produced
value the essential role of agriculture in maintaining a strong economy
appreciate the role agriculture plays in providing safe, abundant and affordable products
acknowledge and consider career opportunities in the agriculture, food, fiber and renewable resource industries
Agriculture provides almost everything we eat, use and wear on a daily basis, and is increasingly contributing to fuel and other bioproducts
Each year, members of the agricultural industry gathertogether to promote American agriculture

CSA programs fit right in!

CSA signup forms have been sent to all members from last year and we are working on a new location in Hoboken to open up some membership slots for new members. Check the website for updates.

Almost 3' of Snow

2010-02-28T15:55:00.001-05:00

This past Northeaster dropped almost 3 feet of snow on the farm. Needless to say, Farmer Rich can't get into the lower greenhouse as the plow was only able to get about 1/3 of the way down the roadway! Yes - there is a greenhouse buried under the snow, just compare with the second photo to see the ribs of the greenhouse without much snow. . Looks like the fences will need some repair too!

Farmer Rich is planning on starting plants in the heated greenhouses the first week of March and we hope that spring weather will be approaching soon.

Here is a similar view taken back in January after a minor snow fall.

We are getting ready to send out the CSA signup forms soon. Just firming up details with all the coordinators, so look for more info soon.

Keep well & warm!

Sue & Farmer Rich

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T12:35:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year! We wish you all to have a healthy & prosperous 2010. As we gear up for 2010, we have accomplished quite a bit during the post-harvest 2009 season. The warmer late autumn weather allowed for a great amount of work to be done at the farm . It was great to be able to do some maintenance and clean up, as this allows for more productive time to be spent in the early spring in the greenhouses.

New greenhouse under construction

A new 17' x 48' greenhouse is under construction at the farm. It will be used for transplant production in the spring and then planting tomatoes for CSA deliveries. Farmer Rich & friends were able to get the footings in as well as the metal framing. They had a dilemma in how to get the footings in place, but John & Gary came up with utilizing a jack hammer to make the holes for the footings. With cold weather & frozen ground this project is on temporary hold at this time, but we hope for warmer winter temperatures to eventually come. Then the greenhouse ends can be framed and the doors hung.

Our large 100' greenhouse is under repair. The baseboard is being replaced and some of the poles as well. It was long overdue (this is our oldest greenhouse). We removed the plastic for the winter, so the greenhouse wouldn't collapse with heavy snow.

Upcoming Conventions:

We are planning on going to the NJ Vegetable Growers Convention January 12-14 in Atlantic City as well as the NOFA-NJ Convention on January 30^th @ Rutgers Douglass Campus Center in New Brunswick. Both conventions enable us to network with other farmers, gain new ideas and share our experiences with others.

New Field:

Farmer Rich started to map out a new 50' x 150' field. We actually started construction late autumn. Field preparation included cleaning up the brush and picking rocks. It will be tilled in the spring for planting (hopefully). Its location has afternoon shade, so it would be great for planting greens to shield them from the scorching mid-summer sun.

Seed Order:

Farmer Rich is starting to prepare his seed order from a network of seed catalogs we receive during the late winter months. If there is anything special you would like, just drop us an e-mailand we will try to get it. We place most of our seed orders with Seed Savers Exchange, Fedco Seeds, Johnny's Selected Seeds, Jordan Seed, Dixondale Farms(onions) and others.....

We wish to thank those of you who contributed to the gift certificate we received at the end of season pot-luck dinner. It will be used to purchase seeds for the 2010 season.

CSA Outreach:

Our CSA membership outreach will start in February/March. We will extend an early bird discount to members who sign up early. We are preparing our budget which will then set the price for the 2010 harvest season. We will also be firming up with the coordinators the drop-off locations and times. Anticipate receiving an e-mail late February as to the specifics for the 2010 season.

We look forward to a bountiful 2010!

Volume 14 No 22 - Week of November 2nd

2009-11-02T06:35:00.001-05:00

Last Delivery of the Season

At least the season is ending on a sunny day and they are predicting sun all week. What a change from the harvest season this year, as you know in reading the newsletter we had perhaps the worst year of weather ever, with rain, rain & more rain practically each week.

We always hope for the perfect season, but it never seems to come. Each year presents a set or two of new challenges and this one was no different. Some years it is too dry and we report about drought, but this year was a year of excessive rain and cooler than normal temperatures. This did impact our deliveries, but we worked hard to provide a good variety each week.

Our plans for the off-season include working in the fields (weather permitting). This will include pulling up the plastic from the beds, repairing fences and moving the lower greenhouse to a new location. The back field is in good shape with its fencing so we only need to remove the plastic and irrigation strips. General clean-up of our greenhouses to prepare them for spring transplants is in the works as well.

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 2010.

From the Fields: The weekend crew of Lisa & Erin prepared a new area for planting more garlic. The next round of garlic planting should be accomplished this week. The Franklin greenhouse has been totally cleaned out & will be readied for the spring.

Weather Report: Believe it or not, more rain fell at the farm last week. Rich keeps a rain gauge and between last week's & this week's delivery about 6" of rain did fall. Though we had warmer temperatures, the rain hampered work in the fields. Most of the greens were in the greenhouses so harvesting was easier this week.

Last Delivery of the Season

Thanks to all CSA members for your continued support. We hope you enjoyed the variety offered throughout this difficult season. Every year presents new challenges and this year was no different.

End of Season Potluck Dinner All CSA members are invited to the end of season potluck dinner to be held in Hoboken on November 7th starting @ 7:30 pm Hoboken Historical Museum 1301 Hudson Street - Hoboken please refer to the details in your weekly newsletter copy.

Volume 14 No 21 - Week of October 26th

2009-10-26T07:14:00.001-04:00

The Week of the Ugly Vegetables

As Farmer Rich was giving me the list of veggies in the delivery, it reminded me of a headline I put together years ago for a weekly delivery of greens "The Week of the Bitter Greens". Now, in this delivery we had sunchokes & celeriac, so it seemed a perfect fit "The Week of the Ugly Vegetables"!

Sunchokes, are native to North America and Native Americans called them "sun roots". They are in the sunflower family and are also referred to as Jerusalem artichokes. They have a potato like texture but contain no starch and their carbohydrates are not converted to sugar so they are a perfect potato substitute for diabetics. They have a slight sweet, nutlike flavor and may be eaten raw or cooked like potatoes.

We had a large patch of sunchokes years ago, but it died back and just this season started to come back. We hope to reestablish the sunchoke patch for next year so that we may delivery more of these native roots.

Celeriac - www.celeriac.comdescribes it as "An elusive root vegetable, burdened by an ugly, gnarly, disorderly, somewhat frightening appearance, and underutilized due to general uncertainty over its real potential. Yet, once one goes beyond the unglamorous shell, challenges of cleaning and peeling it, it is serendipity: an extraordinary flavor, almost non-existent calories and a rich nutritious texture are the rewards." Like the sunchoke you can use them raw or cooked. It has a celery flavor and there are recipes for soups, casseroles, gratins and the hollow stalk is sometimes cut to straw length for serving tomato-based drinks such as Bloody Marys!

We had a full crew working on Sunday to harvest & bunch up the greens for delivery this week. Lisa, Erin & Jessie worked 5 straight hours harvesting & bunching the chard, kale, sorrel & parsley. We were a bunch of bunchers!

From the Fields: The greenhouses are starting to be cleaned up as the season winds down to prepare for next year. Any plant debris is removed as well as fixing and repairing the structures. The field plastic is being removed from the beds and we plan on taking down the small greenhouse & moving it up top to better improve productivity. This allows for larger growing area in the lower field where we can manage it better with the tractor. The heated greenhouse will be reconfigured to start transplants in March.

Weather Report: Warmer weather finally arrived this week, after the unseasonably cold weather on the 17^th & 18^th. Saturday brought another 2" of rain, which seems to fit with the rest of the season.

Last deliveries of the Season for our Hoboken & Jersey City Sites - Thank you for your support.

One more delivery to Mahwah @ Beth Haverim Shir Shalom : November 2nd / 3rd (to make up for missed week during Yom Kippur)

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. 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.

Volume 14 No 20 - Week of October 19th

2009-10-19T06:57:00.001-04:00

COLD, snowy, rainy, ugly

It was a super cold weekend for October and we didn't enjoy harvesting in the snow on Saturday. We also were loading the van for the Garlic Festival on Sunday and we had a combination of snow, sleet & rain most of the day. It just seems appropriate for the final weeks of the season to continue with more precipitation!!! Not our best season needless to say, as the cool temperatures and rain just seemed to continue from June through October. We think one week of summer actually did sneak in there somewhere!!

Sunday, we had Lisa and a new part-time worker Erin; harvest the greens as Farmer Rich & I headed to Hoboken for the annual Garlic Festival. I am still trying to thaw out!! A cold, rainy morning turned into just a cold, windy day and we were pleased at the turnout at the festival on such an ugly day. We also got to meet many CSA members, which we always enjoy. In addition to garlic varieties, we brought 15 varieties of apples from Windy Brow Farm for people to sample. Many are heritage varieties and seldom seen at the grocery stores. Also, Shawna a neighboring farmer, made up a great selection of season jarred goodies and her Cinnamon Apples with raisins, jams, jellies and chutney's were a big hit.

Monday morning the weather report has a low in Sussex County of 26ºF, so Farmer Rich is anticipating icicles hanging from the field greens when he gets to the farm.

From the Fields: Provided they all don't freeze and we are able to harvest in the fields during the week, we have a really nice variety for next week's delivery. A combination of radishes, celeriac, and many greens should be on the docket. The long range forecast has next weekend similar to this one, but at least not as cold. The crew will start the harvest early and get bunches into the cooler.

Weather Report: On Friday, we received 3" of snow at the farm though Farmer Rich didn't get to see it. Friday morning's first stop was to our Franklin greenhouse to harvest the rosemary. By the time he got up to the farm, the snow had mostly melted, but some pockets were still evident. This weather is definitely hampering the delivery.

We usually post our Annual Wooly Bear Caterpillar report in this issue, but apparently it is too cold for the wooly bear's to be out! The last one we saw had a wide center brown stripe which predicts a milder winter - but of course that remains to be seen.

Animal Report: The two farm cats continue to roam around at the farm. They were checking us out as we loaded the van on Saturday, probably wondering why we were out in such a cold, rainy day.

SCHEDULED LAST DELIVERIES OF THE SEASON:

Hoboken & Jersey City dropoffs - October 27th
Franklin - October 28th
On-Farm Pickup - October 30/31
Mahwah @ Beth Haverim Shir Shalom - November 2/3(due to skipped week during Yom Kippur)

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. 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.

Volume 14 No 19 - Week of October 12th

2009-10-12T06:24:00.001-04:00

Jack Frost is Knocking!

For the last two nights we have been receiving "freeze" and/or frost warnings in Sussex County. Saturday morning we had our crew harvest all the peppers & other tender crops to prevent any damage if the freeze did indeed come. Fortunately at the farm, we did not receive the predicted freeze or even a frost. Some surrounding areas did. Farmer Rich's hypothesis is that the dew point was at 34º, so all the moisture came out of the air & fell on the plants, then the temperature proceeded to drop to 31º, which he noticed while going to the Franklin greenhouse. When water starts to freeze it lets off heat, so we were able to avert the freeze. The principle is similar to when the Florida citrus growers turn on sprinklers when a freeze warning is issued.
What happens with a freeze is that not all crops are destroyed, only the warm weather crops such as tomatoes peppers, eggplant, basil and squash. Meanwhile the kale, collards, Oriental greens, mustards and radishes are all in their prime. If temperatures get much below 25º they too will succumb to the weather. The crops in the hoop houses can take an additional 5º lower due to the extra protection.

We had a great garlic planting day and had over 20 people come up to help us plant garlic for the 2010 season. We got to meet some of our CSA members and their families. Though a cool day when the sun was behind the clouds, it was great when the sun popped out a few minutes here and there. We proceeded to pop, plant & mulch the garlic in less than 2 hours. After planting we had a great lunch and a good-bye to Ali who was leaving for California.

From the Fields: The autumn crops continue to do well. With the cool weather we have bok choi & radishes in the delivery this week. In the weeks to come we will be delivering some different varieties of mustard greens. The replanted lettuce may be a bit small, but we hope to have it for the end of season deliveries. You will start to see some chard, kale, celeriac and celery in the next few weeks.

The cover crop will be oats this year and we also plan to use oats over the planted garlic. The plan is that the oats will sprout & grow to December then will die over the winter and become mulch by the spring. This will help keep the weeds down over the garlic beds.

We are adjusting our work-day now that Ali is gone. Farmer Rich & Lisa worked on the last bunching of herbs & bok choi on Sunday. They are trying to get into a new rhythm for next week, as being one worker down they felt they were just not in the right tempo.

Weather Report: Friday we had another ½" of rain. Fortunately the beds were ready for the garlic planting and most of the beds drained well before Saturday morning. We lined the furrows with hay to keep everyone's knees from getting too muddy as they planted.

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. 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.

Volume 14 No 18 - Week of October 5th

2009-10-05T10:59:00.001-04:00

Work Day at the Farm - Saturday!

We have scheduled the work-day at the farm on Saturday and in preparation in getting the beds ready for garlic planting we encountered a series of disasters. First the plastic laying machine (which wraps the beds) broke down. Once fixed, the beds just didn't seem to wrap properly, probably they being a bit too wet. Then we ran out of drip tape which is laid under the plastic to irrigate when needed during the season. We do however anticipate having the beds ready to go for Saturday!

This past week, Ali joined Rich on the Tuesday delivery run to Hoboken & Jersey City and was able to meet Carolyn, Kristen & Lynn at three of the drop-off sites. It was good experience for her, as it showed her how the CSA distribution system works.

WORK DAY @ the FARM: October 10th 11 am - ??
Want to spend a day in the country and help us on the farm? We are scheduling our next work day at the farm to be a garlic planting day. Help us plant garlic for the 2010 season. It is a great for families, as garlic is very easy to plant. Just a few extra hands and we plant plenty of garlic in just a few hours. If we had to do it ourselves it would take the better part of a week. We first start by "popping" the garlic, which is separating the individual cloves from the bulb, then we plant each clove and finally apply mulch over it. We also plan on having a good-bye lunch for our Farm Operations Leader, Ali, who will be leaving for California. She will be sorely missed. Lisa & Jessie will be working the rest of the season. Please RSVP so that we may plan on lunch and send you directions.

From the Fields: The cold weather crops are really doing well in the field. The radishes, kale, Oriental greens (red & green mustard, Tokyo Bekana), turnips, Shanghai Cabbage. The potatoes should be in the next delivery and you will be receiving winter squash over the next few weeks as well. The winter squash varieties will be mixed week to week with acorn, delicata, butternut, spaghetti, and carnival. Most all the squash and potatoes have already been harvested.

We have basil, rosemary, cucumbers (which are on their last leg), more Oriental greens, arugula and more Shanghai cabbage growing well in the Franklin Greenhouse. We anticipate shutting down the Franklin greenhouse once everything is harvested at the end of the season. It was great to have the greenhouses this year, as the cold, wet weather really impacted the field crops.

HERB of the WEEK: Stevia - We have tried growing stevia in the past for many years and each year was not successful. This year, at least we have some that survived so can give you a sample of this interesting herb. Territorial Seed describes it as: "the Sweet Herb of Paraguay, Stevia is probably the sweetest plant in the world. It contains steviaside, which is 300 times sweeter than sugar without the calories! Add a fresh bruised leaf to iced tea, or harvest the leaves, dry, and grind to a powder for use in drinks and cooking. This vigorous tender perennial is used in many parts of the world in place of artificial sweeteners." It is best to start by tasting just a leaf to test its sweetness then you can adapt how you will use it.

Weather Report: It was a cool week followed by warmer temperatures over the week. Fortunately no frost was in the forecast. The lowest temperature for the week was 36º F.

Animal Report: A few weeks ago we mentioned we had a "farm cat" sneaking into the fields. Well now there are two!

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. 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.

Volumne 14 No 17 - Week of September 28th

2009-09-28T05:25:00.001-04:00

The Empire Strikes Back!

Our Veggies & a Movie is back but this month it is fruit & a movie. You will be getting Empire Apples this week. They are a cross between Red Delicious & McIntosh. What better way to celebrate Apple Month with an Apple & a movie!! (PS it was also Johnny Appleseed Day on the 26th).

Farmer Rich & I went up to Saugerties, NY to their annual Garlic Festival to seek new varieties of garlic to plant. We can only hope the 2010 growing season is better than this year, as our garlic had to be harvested early due to the excessive wetness. This caused it to be on the small side.

The leaves are starting to turn, so within the next few weeks the autumn colors will be at their peak. It may even be during our Work Day at the farm!

WORK DAY @ the FARM: October 10th 11 am - 2/3pm
Want to spend a day in the country and help us on the farm? We are scheduling our next work day at the farm to be a garlic planting day. Help us plant garlic for the 2010 season. It is a great for families, as garlic is very easy to plant. Just a few extra hands and we plant plenty of garlic in just a few hours. If we had to do it ourselves it would take the better part of a week. We first start by "popping" the garlic, which is separating the individual cloves from the bulb, then we plant each clove and finally apply mulch over it. We also plan on having a good-bye lunch for our Farm Operations Leader, Ali, who will be leaving for California. She will be sorely missed and we hope she returns for the 2010 season. For the remaining weeks of the season we will still have Lisa & Jessie working. They all have been a GREAT crew this year. Please RSVP so we can plan on lunch & refreshments and send you directions.

From the Fields: The fall crops continue to do very well and the greens deliveries over the past few weeks are thinnings from our very productive beds. The Oriental greens, radishes and turnips and are cruising right along. It is nice to finally report that some crops are doing well. The sweet peppers continue to produce and probably will do well until we get a freeze. The eggplant continues to bear fruit and is in this week's delivery and should be in next week's delivery as well. Our tomato plants are all shut down and the tomatoes we are delivering are from our local farm trading partners.

Weather Report: The overnight rain Saturday into Sunday somewhat dampened our Sunday morning harvest but there was a break in the weather so we could complete our harvest before the day temperatures got too warm. Fortunately we have greenhouses and it is so much better to harvest greens from the greenhouse & not get wet!

Animal report: Though not really an animal, an insect at best, the Annual Wooly Bear Caterpillar report will be coming up soon. So far we have found 2 and both had wide center stripes which indicate a mild winter. We do however; need more than 2 to make a more statistical analysis!!

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. 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.

Volume 14 No 16 - Week of September 21st

2009-09-21T05:14:00.001-04:00

If a tree grows in Brooklyn....

If a tree grows in Brooklyn why not peanuts in NJ. That's right! Since we have to supplement the deliveries, as the season has been so terrible, Farmer Diane called us that she found a local farmer with peanuts and we said sure why not!! These of course are raw or "green" peanuts and can be boiled or roasted (see recipes on the back). You can simple eat them raw and add them to salads whole or chop them and sprinkle the bits over your salads, raw soups, and even raw desserts. The flavor of raw peanuts is quite delicate compared to the more familiar taste of roasted peanuts.

When we bought the farm back in 1985, Farmer Rich planted 100 apple trees. The deer proceeded to eat all but 9 of these trees in the course of the first few years. The remaining 9 trees have intermittently produced fruit over the years and this year when Ali & Lisa check them out, they had about 200 pounds of our "wild" apples to pick. Though they are a bit on the wild side, they taste great, more of a tart taste, but have not been sprayed ever (and they look it). You also will be getting Yellow Delicious apples from Windy Brow Farm this week.

From the Fields: With the better growing weather the seeded crops are doing very well. In this week's delivery you will be getting a mix of baby greens which are thinnings from the rows of mustards, oriental greens and radishes. We hope to get another batch of thinnings for another delivery. Some spinach is on the horizon. It too is doing well in the field.

The final bed in the Franklin greenhouse has been rolled over and seeded with arugula. The Sweet Peppers continue to do extremely well (as you have noticed) and until a frost should continue to do so. The winter squash harvest has started. This week you will be receiving butternut squash. More varieties are coming, such as delicata, carnival and acorn.

The established crops in the field look the best they have all year, though 16 weeks into the season. We hope that this increases our deliveries for the remaining weeks yet to come. Farmer Rich considers this the worst season in our 14 years of CSA deliveries. We have tried hard to keep the deliveries consistent and hope that you all understand the risks involved when there is season where the weather has severely impacted the outcomes of the crops.

The crew continues to pull up the plastic on the beds in the field as the season is winding down. We plan on tilling it and plant a cover crop of oats for the winter.

Weather Report: Some rain did fall on Thursday and it helped the newly seeded crops which are all field planted and depend on rain and/or irrigation. The night temperatures are in the high 30's. There was a frost warning for the area, but fortunately it did not hit the farm, though the week ahead looks like some frost may hit.

Animal Report: The Farm Cat continues to become a part of the farm family making it's rounds and keeping the voles & field mice at bay.

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. 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.

Volume 14 No 15 - Week of September 14th

2009-09-14T04:54:00.001-04:00

Believe it or not!

Believe it or not we needed rain and it came on Friday & Saturday. So far with all the rainy days we have had this season we haven't missed out on any work at the farm nor have had to send the crew home early. Between working in the greenhouses & finding other important tasks that need to be done our crew has worked through those rainy days and more positively have not had a sick day either.

If you want to have a good laugh you must read an article by our Hoboken South CSA coordinator Carolyn in her "The Crisper Whisperer" article for Serious Eats. Farmer Rich and I were laughing hysterically and it is a great read. We even went so far as to post a photo of the "fuzzy squash, hairy gourd or Mo Qua" growing on the vine for all to see. Click here for a link to the article. Actually both Lisa and Ali like these fuzzy squash better than zucchini or other summer squash that are more traditional. Seems like many are turned off by their appearance, but they taste great!

This week you will be receiving both Apples & Asian Pears. The Gravenstein Apples are from Windy Brow Farm and the Asian Pears are from a local grower whom Rich met recently. The Gravenstein Apple is perhaps one of the most versatile apples and great for baking & cooking with its sweet/tart flavor. The Asian Pear actually looks more like an apple than it does a pear and it too has crispy & juicy fruit. There are two varieties, one being mostly yellow and the other mostly russet. They both taste delicious, actually we like the russet one better.

From the Fields: Our late plantings are actually coming along quite nicely. We received some rain that we needed after a week of dry weather. Farmer Rich is still rounding up tomatoes from neighboring farmers and they are getting more and more difficult to find. We know tomatoes are important to the deliveries and we try will to keep them in the deliveries as long as we can. We should start having some winter squash in the deliveries by next week. Farmer Scott was spending Sunday harvesting more potatoes. The Sweet Peppers continue to do well and hopefully we won't get an early frost.

The crew pulled up plastic on some of the beds that were not producing in anticipation of preparing those beds for garlic planting. The remaining beds that aren't producing as going to be cover cropped with oats for the winter in preparation of next year. Many of the local farmers are already getting ready for next year and planting rye in their fields. It is hard to believe that after virtually no summer it is already time to starting thinking about next year.

Weather Report: Rain on Friday & Saturday, but it was needed for the crops that have been planted recently over the past few weeks. During the rainy days we cleaned up some garlic so the days weren't wasted.

Animal Report: We have a cat sneaking into the fields, which is keeping any field voles & mice away. The crew hasn't nicknamed it yet so we'll just refer to it as the "farm cat" for now.

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. 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.

Volume 14 No 14 - Week of September 7th

2009-09-07T20:10:00.000-04:00

Dry Weather, finally!

Farmer Rich, Ali & Lisa were able to accomplish a lot of field work this week, and it may have been the first full week of dry weather. Farmer Rich said it was great to finally feel like a farmer! The crew was able to plant many crops for the October deliveries and if the weather continues on the positive side, we anticipate a great end of the season. They even had to turn on the irrigation system for the first time this season.

As you know, we like to grow many "different" varieties of vegetables which give you an opportunity to try new things that you normally could not find at the grocery store. This week you will be getting a Golden Celery, which at first glance it looks like there is something wrong with it, as you are looking for traditional green celery. This variety is Golden Self-Blanching celery from Jordan Seed. They are great tasting and free of strings. Another unusual veggie this week are the Asparagus Beans, often referred to as Yard-Long beans. They tasted like a cross between asparagus and green beans. Great anyway you cook them, stir-fry, soups and salads, stewing, braising, sautéing or frying. Actually, cooking, the long beans intensify their flavor.

From the Fields : With the stretch of nice weather we were able to catch up on field maintenance and weed control. We planted Yukana Savoy (oriental green), red frilly mustard, large leaf mustard, dicon radishes, while hailstone radishes, golden ball turnips, pak choi, peas for sprouts, lettuce and spinach. Though the planting is a little on the late side (should have been planted the end of August), we have irrigated and almost everything is up & growing. After our last sorrel delivery the weeds had gotten out of control so we mowed down the whole field and the sorrel is about 6" already, so there will be another harvest of sorrel. Ali & Lisa transplanted collards and kale and with good weather they should be ready for the end of the season deliveries. The garlic planting season is rapidly approaching so we will be planning a work-day at the farm either on September 19^th or October 10^th. We'll keep you posted by next newsletter.

Weather Report: Finally!!! A full week of dry weather. The cooler temperatures continue at night, but the day time temperatures are hot. Everything seemed to perk up this week.

Animal Report: Still quiet with no break-ins in the greenhouses or the fields. We guess there is enough for our neighboring groundhogs to find outside the fence to eat so they are leaving the crops alone.

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. 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.

Volume 14 No 13 - Week of August 31st

2009-08-31T07:00:00.001-04:00

Cooler Temps!

We anticipated more field work early this past week, as the weather had improved. We were going to plow up the potato field and plant some fall greens but the tractor would not start. Just another trial and tribulation to add to the dreadful season we have been having. A neighboring farmer came to our rescue on Sunday to repair the tractor. This delayed our field work, but we were able to get some transplanting done with endive & collards. One main field was tilled up on Sunday and we were able to seed arugula. The rest of the day was spent getting the deliveries ready so we can work early on Monday before Farmer Rich heads south for the deliveries.

We do hope to get the whole field seeded on Monday morning with Chinese greens, lettuce and spinach for the later season deliveries. This all should have been done weeks ago, but with the dreadful weather we could not get this accomplished. We do hope that the weather will continue to cooperate and these crops will be able to grow and be harvested before the end of the season.

The tomatoes at ours as well at all the neighboring farms continue to have problems with the blight. The production of any of our tomatoes is not nearly what it should be. Our sources for more good local tomatoes are running thin, but we keep trying.

Our gorgeous cucumber plants decided to shut down on or about Thursday. Farmer Rich and the girls harvested what they could. The same thing happened at our fields at Scott's in Unionville. At least half of the potatoes in Scott's fields have been harvested and will continue to be delivered over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile in our Franklin greenhouse we cleared a bed for planting Oriental greens. The basil today's delivery was harvested from the greenhouse.

From the Fields: The wet conditions have impacted most of the field crops, from broccoli to cabbage. The chard & kale are doing ok, but not great. We haven't been able to deliver much chard/kale yet. The sweet pepper plants continue to be one of our best producers. The winter squash plants that were planted at the work-day at the farm on the 16^th are doing great. We can only hope that they bear fruit before the end of October.

Weather Report: Cooler overnight temperatures have arrived. This has been nice to harvest the crops in the early morning hours. The cooler temperatures do however start to shut down the warm weather crops. Saturday night brought more rain (which we certainly don't need).

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. 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.

Volume 14 No 12 - Week of August 24th

2009-08-24T06:10:00.001-04:00

Heirlooms at Last!

As you know from the last newsletter as well as in the news, the tomatoes are scarce this year. We have been doing the Heirloom Tomato Tasting at the Hoboken Historical Museum for the past 10 years, and even if Rich had to go to Peru to get tomatoes he would. Fortunately, we have a network of farmers who were able to get us tomatoes for the event as well as supplement any of our harvest for the CSA delivery, so there are finally some heirlooms!!! Farmer Rich notes that our on-farm Heirlooms are not in great shape. The field in the back was lost due to the blight. The other field is just too wet to get any good production, but we hope to be able to harvest some more over the next week or two.

It was great to meet many CSA members at the Tasting on Sunday and we want to thank the Hoboken Historical Museum for hosting the event as well as their network of volunteers who worked throughout the day from set-up to take-down. It was a brisk day of non-stop lines of tomato lovers basking the glory of finally being able to taste about 20 different varieties of tomatoes.

One of our local farmers is Shawna who we have been getting some of her glorious tomatoes over the years. She just became a Certified Food Processor and brought over some of her goodies for us to bring to the Tomato Tasting. Everyone who tried her products loved them and what we want to do is offer them to you on a pre-order basis. She likes to harvest and process on the SAME day, so you can't get much fresher than that. Currently she has the following items:
• Watermelon Pickles
• Peach Jam
• Peach Chutney
• Homegrown Plum Jam
• Blueberry Jam
• Sweet Pickle Relish
• Pat's Crispy Sweet Pickle Chips
• Dilly Beans
Shawna anticipates expanding her offerings and will include some more seasonal goodies. We also want to work with her to prepare some garlic goods over the next month. I will be sending out an e-mail to everyone so you can pre-order and we can make a delivery once a month of her goodies.

From the Fields: During the week Farmer Rich and the crew managed to re-seed the beds that were washed out from one of our many storms. It was just in time for another 2 ½" of rain and hopefully they are not washed out as well. It is getting very late in the season for direct seeding, but we keep trying!! Some greens will be planted from transplants this week.

Weather Report: An interesting week in that some more severe thundershowers passed through. We even had a hail storm on Friday afternoon as we were rounding up the tomatoes, etc from our local network of farmers. At least the hail did not damage any of the field crops, as Farmer Rich was able to assess for any damage rather quickly. Not that we could do anything about it, but he likes to get a pulse from the fields each and every day.

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. 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.