Author: Bryan Housel

Hi Folks!  We have another great and colorful share for you this week with red onions and rainbow carrots.  As I have alluded to in previous updates it will be heavy on roots, greens, and brassica family crops.  We are hoping to finish up the cauliflower rotation this week and we have Brussels sprouts. (more…)

We will be offering one additional share to be delivered during the week of November 20th (Thanksgiving week). This will be a “stock up” share and will include various vegetables that store well, so that you will be able to enjoy produce from the farm well into the winter months as well as provide veggies for your Thanksgiving feast. The delivery will be one day earlier than your normal pickup day. Friday groups will receive their stock up share along with their final regular share on the Friday before Thanksgiving. (more…)

Hello Folks!  We received about an inch of rain this week from a day of drizzle on Thursday and a couple of hours of heavier rain on Sunday.  This should help the crops remaining in the field to size up.  We also had a couple of cold nights; what we refer to as a hard freeze as compared to a light frost.  We have been continuing to cover the peppers but they sustain a little more damage each time and we have to pick much of the fruit green beforehand.  We will have peppers again this week but unfortunately not many of the beautiful red and yellow ripe fruit we have had. (more…)

Hello Everyone!  This past weekend’s storms brought us a scant .4 of an inch of rain.  It was more wind than rain, and we continue with very dry conditions.  We will have another chance of precipitation on Thursday.  We will also have a couple of cold nights this week, but probably not severe enough to damage what remains in the fields. (more…)

Hello Folks!  So we have had 2 light frosts since my last update.  We were able to cover and protect a few crops, notably the peppers.  We tried to save a late planting of string beans but were only marginally successful.  We are still quite dry and are hoping for some rain on Friday.  Most of what remains in the fields now are brassica family crops that require a lot of water. (more…)

Hi Folks!  We are expecting the possibility of our first frost early Tuesday morning.  It will likely be a light one, and things will begin to warm up as we go through the week.  Most of what is left in the field is hardy enough to survive, and we will be covering a few tender crops to try and protect them.  This will be the last week for eggplant, except for maybe a few small ones as an extra.  We will have some lettuce in the shares again this week, although the heads won’t be very large; everything grows rather slowly now with the short days and cool nights.  For those who did not get broccoli last week, you should expect it this time around, otherwise there will be kale. We will be including a few decorative gourds and mini pumpkins in the share this week.  The mini pumpkins are edible, the gourds are not! (more…)

Hi Folks!  So after 3 days of overcast and drizzly weather, we received about a quarter of an inch of total precipitation.  It was good for germinating the seeds that I recently planted, but not nearly what I would like for the acres of brassica crops that I have growing.  This family, which includes broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, needs a lot of moisture to make large heads. (more…)

Hi Folks!  So the nights are getting quite chilly now up here in the hills of Northwest NJ.  We came quite close to having a frost on Sunday night.  Just down the road, in a low lying field where another farm has some pumpkins planted, I noticed that many of the vines had been blackened by the cold.  It’s warming up again so we should have another 2 weeks at least before the next round of cold air descends upon us.  We have been getting some rain, with more in the forecast over the next few days.  So now I will be worried that it will rain too much!  Such is the life of a farmer – always something weather related to fret about. (more…)

Hi Everyone!  So we received a little bit of rain this past weekend.  I heard reports of heavy downpours near the farm but they seem to have missed us and we got perhaps a quarter of an inch.  I planted a lot of seeds for fall crops as well as several acres of oat cover crop ahead of the storms.  The light rain will at least help these plantings germinate, but we are still in a drought situation.  Nevertheless, we have a great share for you this week. (more…)

Hey Folks! So after another mercifully brief heat wave it has cooled off again. Unfortunately, the rain that generally accompanies these temperature changes did not materialize. We were also missed by the scattered storms that moved through on Friday. So it’s dust bowl days here on the farm again! I am trying to prepare beds for the last round of transplants and direct seeded crops as well as 50 acres of ground to be planted in oats and rye as cover crop. I ride over my fields enveloped in clouds of dust. We are moving the sprinklers around constantly to get newly planted seeds to germinate, wilting transplants to perk up, and mature crops to produce or continue producing. It seems that we have lost the final planting of cucumbers; we just could get water on them in time and they have more or less burned up. We have a couple of shots at the wet stuff in the week ahead, so keep your fingers crossed. (more…)