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…)

Hi Folks, I hope you had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend.  I guess we dodged a bullet with the hurricane moving out to sea — although I confess I was hoping it might spin a little precipitation our way.  There isn’t much rain in the forecast ahead, and we have another heat wave arriving later this week.  We are in the final push to get seeds in the ground for the fall crops like spinach, arugula, turnips, and radishes.  I guess we will have to continue moving the sprinklers around to ensure germination!  It is what it is, as they say, and we do what we gotta do. (more…)

Hello Everyone!  This week marks the beginning of the second half of the season (time flies when you’re eating well!).  We still have three more weeks of summer officially and we hope for at least a few more of warm, frost free weather.  We are also hoping for some rain (but not too much) as we have slipped back into a dry weather pattern.  Our early planting of tomatoes has mostly succumbed to disease, but we have second and third plantings that will continue to produce for a while yet.  Peppers and eggplant will continue for at least another 6 weeks.  Unfortunately, the second and third planting of summer squash have not fared so well, so we will probably not have much zucchini for you until a fourth planting begins to produce in a few weeks.  We do have another planting of cucumbers beginning to come in, so we hope to have some cukes for you in the coming weeks. (more…)

Hello Everyone!  So we have finally gotten some relief from the heat!  The cold front brought us a small amount of rain as it moved in, a little more would have been welcome but at least there was no severe weather.  The heat wave took a toll on our lettuce production, causing many varieties to bolt prematurely.  We had to cut many heads at a very small size or lose them.  You will receive 2 or possibly even 3 small heads of lettuce this week.  The rest of the share is similar to recent weeks – lots of tomatoes, beans, peppers and eggplant. (more…)

Hi Folks!  It is my firm belief (or perhaps my desperate hope) that we are over the worse of the heat wave.  It’s been a tough couple of weeks!  I thought that it was forecast to break on Tuesday with some rain followed by more tolerable temperatures but now it seems the temps will climb toward the upper eighties later in the week with no real relief in sight until early next week.  The good news is that we received nearly 3 “of rain during the week a huge benefit to the fall crops that we have been seeding and transplanting. (more…)

Hello Everyone!  We received about 2/10 of an inch of rain on Saturday from a brief downpour.  It appears we will have multiple chances of precipitation during the week ahead and dry spell is over for now; I only hope it doesn’t start to rain too much.  The tomato crop is coming in heavy now, but many of the vines are succumbing to disease, and wet conditions serve to exacerbate the problem.  The squash crop is also quite prone to diseases such as powdery mildew, that are promoted by warm, wet conditions. (more…)