Author: Bryan Housel

Hello Everyone, We received .6 inches of rain this past weekend. Although not as much as I would have liked, it will greatly benefit the fall crops. The timing was also less than desirable — raining all through my Saturday morning market and costing me thousands of dollars in lost income. C’est la vie! (more…)

Hi Folks, We have once again been teased with the promise of rain only to be disappointed. The forecast for last Thursday was for 24 hours of rain, heavy at times, 1 to 2 inches. We got 5 hours of drizzle and a total of .14 inches! Total rainfall for September was 1.3 inches. We are doing the best we can with our irrigation system, but we just don’t have the capacity to keep everything well watered. The semi–drought has hurt our bean production and has greatly slowed down the greens and the fall root crops. (more…)

Hi Folks, Still no rain here on the farm, and none in the forecast for at least another week! It looks like we’ll be spending a lot of time moving the sprinklers around. It’s fortunate that we have a lot of crops planted on plastic mulched beds with drip irrigation. With drip irrigation we can keep a lot more crops growing with less water.  Lettuce is a good example — crops for early fall are planted on white plastic to keep the soil cool and later plantings are put on black plastic to maintain soil warmth as we head into late fall. We are back into lettuce production this week and will have it in the shares now for the rest of the season. (more…)

Hello Everyone, We continue on the dry side here at the farm, having received a paltry 0.3 inches from Saturdays drizzle and light rain. At least it came slowly, allowing the soil to soak it up. We have another slight chance of precipitation on Monday night into Tuesday morning. We are making the best of it, using overhead irrigation to germinate seeds and keep the fall brassica crop growing. (more…)

Hi Folks, We finally got some rain this past Saturday, about a half an inch. The summer squash and the beans had more or less stopped flowering, so now maybe they will be revived. This week’s share will not be as large as the distributions have been over the past few weeks. I expect this will be the case for a few weeks until the brassica crops begin to head up and the winter squash ripens. (more…)

Hello Everyone, Happy Labor Day! We don’t really get to take holidays here on the farm, so today we continue to labor away! A dearth of rain continues to make our job harder; we received a scant tenth of an inch from yesterday’s storms. We continue to have an abundance of veggies for you however. There was no cabbage in the share last week; so you know what that means…. This week it’s the red variety. (more…)

Hi Folks, This week marks the midpoint of the season. It’s hard to belief we are half way through. I guess time flies when you’re working hard! I am very pleased with what we have been able to provide the members thus far and from the feedback I have received, you all are fairly happy as well. We got off to a late start and I have been behind on my planting schedule almost the entire season. I have been worried that we will reach a point when the shares are not so bountiful. That day may come but it won’t be this week! We are almost out of carrots and I was only recently able to plant more. The second planting of cukes and zukes is starting to wane and the third planting is just coming up. With the dry weather we have had this past month it has been challenging to get seeds to germinate, have transplants survive or even prepare more ground for planting. We received 1.4 inches of rain last week, still not enough, but we take what we can get! (more…)

Hello Everyone, We received about 1.3 inches of rain from last week’s storms that were predicted to bring 2 to 4 inches. While I was glad not to get 4 inches, I was hoping for a little more. After 3 weeks without rain, the ground quickly soaked up the moisture and is still on the dry side. The precipitation was helpful for germinating seeds and watering in some of our transplanted crops, giving us a break from moving the sprinklers around the field. (more…)

Hi Folks, We are still very dry here on the farm. On Tuesday evening, returning from market in Hoboken, we drove through some heavy showers but when we arrived at the farm it was dry. It looks as though we may get some precipitation this Tuesday or Wednesday- keep your fingers crossed! (more…)