Author: Bryan Housel

Hello Everyone!  So, you may have noticed I haven’t had much to say about the weather for the past few weeks; a deviation from the norm – since most of my updates begin with a weather report.  I jokingly refer to it as griping about the weather, but it’s really meant to help the members understand what we are up against, and in what ways the weather affects our production.  With the devastation caused by Harvey and then Irma and now Maria, it didn’t seem appropriate to utter a single word that might be construed as complaining.  Besides, the frequent rain had ceased, and after a cool beginning September, the weather has warmed up nicely.  (more…)

Hi Everyone!  As we head into the fall we will be transitioning back into cool weather crops, but for now we are still abundant with summer veggies.  Next week we will begin to have broccoli again and we will start to ship some of the winter squash in the shares.  We have a nice crop of fall carrots coming along, but we will give them one more week to size up.   We have salad turnips for everyone this week.  They are great either raw or cooked and have beautiful greens. (more…)

Hi Folks!  So you might think that by now things would start to ease up a bit here on the farm, and I would have time to write these updates and get them out to the members in a timely manner.  But it never really slows down much until November.  We are still busy transplanting fall crops, such as lettuce, and direct seeding other crops like spinach and radish.  We are cleaning up fields that have produced their crop and planting oats and peas as a winter cover crop.  And we are preparing ground for planting garlic in late October and early November.  (more…)

Hello Everyone, we have another nice share for you this week, including another round of sweet corn.  Last week the corn we sent was Silverqueen, an old standard variety.  This week we are sending an heirloom variety called Luther Hill.  This is a variety that is well renowned in the tristate area, with its fans known for seeking it out.  It was actually one of the parents that were used in creating the hybrid Silverqueen.  It has rather small ears but boasts excellent flavor without the cloying sweetness of the new supersweet hybrids.  A few groups were shorted their Silverqueen last week and will receive it this time around and the Luther Hill for next week.  Everyone will receive some corn at least twice this season.  We have one more planting but it is uncertain how well it will yield.  There is a low incidence of earworm but it is still possible you may find one on the tip of some of your ears. (more…)

Hi Folks, Happy Labor Day!  I hope you enjoyed it however you spent it!  Of course, there’s no day off for us here on the farm — the show must go on!  My workers don’t mind — they are here to work and earn money to help their families.  And I get my vacation time in the winter.  Speaking of winter… it feels like it will be here soon!  We have had a few very chilly nights up here in North Jersey.  The long range forecast doesn’t call for frost until sometime in Mid-October; I hope that will be the case.  The fall crops are loving it, and the warm weather crops are hanging in there (excepting the melons and tomatoes, which were done in by the rain). (more…)

Hi Folks, So I have some good news and some bad news; which would you like first?  The bad news you say; well it seems we will have a short melon season.  The rain was just too much for these delicate plants — the first planting did not produce a second crop and the second planting is probably not going to produce much of anything.  The watermelons are a little hardier and we will be trying to get some to all groups that have not yet received any, over the next 3 weeks or so.  The good news is that we are back in lettuce harvest mode, and should have it in the shares for most of the rest of the season.  We are also beginning to pick from the second planting of beans, so beans should be abundant for the next month. (more…)

Hello everyone, I am a bit under the weather at present so I will, with apologies, skip the usual complaints about the rain and get right to the part of the update that most of you probably skip to anyway.  Lol! (more…)

Hi Folks!  So, we begin, as always, with the weather report.   We received a whopping two and a half inches of the wet stuff over a 12-hour period last Friday.  Fortunately, it fell mostly at night and did not rain on any of my weekend markets. Also fortunate is that we have well drained sandy soil.  (more…)