They say there is a very real likelihood of our first frost tonight and Kevin covered the remaining chard and lettuce with row cover.  The broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage can withstand a frost but the last of the eggplant, peppers and tomatoes were harvested ahead of schedule in an effort to save the final share of these fall crops for our Tuesday share distribution. It's been an amazing season, with so much to be thankful for including a dedicated team, mild summer temperatures,  thriving plants and enthusiastic members. It's hard to believe the season is over for another year. 

The change in seasons felt very real today. Kevin picked up our rye seed which will be planted in the fields once the rows are cleared. We roasted our pie pumpkins for pie and tried a new recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds. 

News from the Coop: The hens are laying!! We saw our first egg about two weeks ago, a small brown one in the corner of their coop. Since then, they have started laying in their nesting boxes and we are up to 4 eggs a day as of this morning. As they mature, each hen should lay one egg each morning. They can often be heard announcing their accomplishment for all to hear. Good job girls! We're trying to figure out a way to give the chickens a little more room to roam but we have predators to worry about, especially hawks. For now, the barreds and reds remain within the safe confines of their coop. They still enjoy foraging on their patch of pasture which changes from week to week.

A while back I invited our Assisant Farm Manager, to write a post for our farm blog. She responded with a series of photographs that show a glimpse of the 2014 season here. The images are lovely reminders of our community supported agriculture program this year. One of my favorites is the very first picture of seeding onions - it all begins with a tiny seed and a heck of a lot of hope. 
 
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Now that another season at Appelget Farm is drawing to a close and the days are getting short, I have some spare time to finally write a blog post.

October seems the perfect time for reflection on the past few months.  It's been a pleasure working with the Appelget Family.  Without them and the wonderful crew we had this year, it would not be possible to continue the ambitious goal of supplying the local community with fresh food every week.  Getting to know members, chatting during distributions and discovering all the delicious ways food becomes part of your life has been one of the most rewarding parts of the job.  Thank you for sharing your stories with me.

I've managed to take a few photos throughout the year and would like to share what a farming season looks like from my perspective.  I hope you enjoy!


Virginia

The following is written by our Apprentice, Jess, and is a glimpse into her work during an average share distribution day. Jess has been a cheerful addition to our small team and can be seen smiling even at the end of a 12 hour day!

Working on a farm is like nothing else I’ve experienced—in an incredibly striking and beautiful way. I can’t say I’ve ever had a purer connection to food—and now believe that everyone should experience at least one honest day’s work on a farm. Although Appelget Farm is a small-scale family farm, it still feels large to a newcomer like myself—who previously worked with only 5% of an acre. To begin with is the schedule. At my tiny garden weeding the onion patch, tying tomatoes and planting a few flats of brassicas seemed a sizable task for one afternoon. The efficiency of task planning makes transplanting a few thousand plants in hundred foot rows easily accomplished within the hour. Here's a look at what happens the rest of the day.

7.30 AM
Arrive! Lori generally feeds Cinnamon the rabbit while one of us lets the chickens out of their coop and replenishes their water/feed. Kevin then comes in and updates Virginia on things like blight updates, rain received or in the forecast, etc.). With that we get a brief idea of what the day will have in store. Onto our first task, harvesting the melons. At first I thought everyone was joking when they mentioned it’ll involve catching skills. With a little practice cantaloupes are gently tossed (or in my case, walked) down the line and piled into harvest buckets. We then make our way around the delicate watermelons, turning them over to check for ripeness. A dried tendril and patch of gold on the rind indicates they’re ready to leave their winding vines.

8.30 AM
The rest of the morning is devoted to harvesting anything with tender (shade-loving) greens….think arugula, spinach, kale, beets, lettuce. We do this in the morning to make use of the cooler temperatures and avoid wilting. After pulling the largest beets to bunch we head over to the wash tent. After rinsing —consisting of dunking for kale and a nice spray for beets—the food is packed into bins and wheeled over to cold storage where they’ll ‘chill out’ until show-time.

9.30 AM
Some of my favorite memories so far are from snack-time. Around this time we’ll stop for ten minutes and slice into something just harvested—generally one of the split or unsavory looking cantaloupes that’s still wonderful on the inside. Not only is it the freshest food you will ever eat, but no one seems to care if the juice accidentally dribbles down your face and there’s never a reason to bother with forks. It’s messy, but that’s what makes it a moment of pure enjoyment…enjoying and respecting food in the rawest form possible, without judgment.  

10.30 AM                                                                                    
Pepper (sweet, ancho, jalapeño) harvesting is in full-swing! These are all small plants so we scan down the rows with green buckets, plucking the ripe ones off. Once we gather a colorful assortment we’re onto the prickly eggplants. The young half-inch Fairytales definitely win this year’s ‘most adorable vegetable’ award.

11.30 AM
Zucchini/summer squash, cucumbers and pickles. This is our trio. Zucchini plants (as I’ve discovered) are particularly scratchy and extremely prolific. With the trailer fully loaded we drive to the garage and sort/count everything into bins. The amount of math involved in farming is pretty incredible.

12.30 PM
We take a half-hour lunch from 12.00-12.30 which generally manifests itself as extended conversations about movies, school adventures, travel plans or—you guessed it—what we cooked that week. Between just three of us there’s an omnivore, a vegetarian and a vegan…so there’s plenty of discussion about egg replacer, cows and different ways to transform zucchini. After grabbing our pitch forks we head out and begin our favorite guessing game: Rock or Potato? We generally harvest a row (roughly two bushels worth) before weighing them out to 2.5 pounds in crisp paper bags.

1.30 PM
Tomato time. Scrunching down to peer inside the plants, about a foot off the ground we magically find hundreds of tomatoes. For cherries we bring endearingly tiny containers that we empty out every few feet. For the larger varieties we carry a 2 foot container along, placing the tomatoes upside down to avoid bruising their delicate bottoms.  

2.30 PM
With a little over half hour to pick-up we begin set-up. Virginia drives her truck over to cold storage and we load it up with the food needed for the first half of the pick-up, then unload at the garage. We’ll go back with a wagon halfway through to re-stock, so everything stays as fresh and cold as possible. After finalizing the numbers for half and full-shares, we organize the placement, take off the lids and do one last floor sweep to tidy up.

3.30 PM
It’s time! CSA pick-up begins, as some team members call it quits for the day. We work to re-stock and make sure everything is in place—as well as quickly peruse the fridge to see if there’s any leftover zucchini bread. As you all already know this place is magically rich in food. It is equally matched by the sheer kindness of the family that runs it, who surprise us with food on especially hot or long days.

4.30 PM
While the CSA runs, we’re back to the wash tent to start cleaning up from the morning. Buckets are separated into harvest bins (multicolored) and storage bins (grey); both types as well as the wash-sinks are thoroughly washed and sanitized after each use.

5.30 PM
Stop in to check on the status of the CSA veggies. After restocking it’s on to the greenhouse to start seeding lettuce; the cycle never ends! This one’s easy though…only six flats. Lettuce seeds are merely twice the size of this upcoming comma however, so making sure you place only two seeds per cell requires attention.

6.30 PM
Time to pack up! The rest of the now-empty bins are brought to the wash station and rinsed out. There’s always some food left over (people who didn’t come, opted for only one leek instead of two) so we package that up and bring it back to cold storage.

7.00 PM
Grab some bruised or split tomatoes from the Farmer Vegetable tray for dinner.

High-five and we’re homeward bound!

Our 2013 Apprentice, Martine sends greetings from Scotland! It seems that her housing comes complete with a funny little dog named Brochan to keep her company. Her photos and updates are a joy to see and we are looking forward to her return next month in time to harvest the watermelons!

Best of everything to you Martine! Virginia and the team harvested all 1,750 carrots on Tuesday - nice and sweet with good color. Thank you for the time spent hand weeding earlier this summer. Members: The treasure will be divided over 2 weeks so enjoy your carrot share while it lasts!

This post has been a long time in the making mainly due to the fact that I am very seldom in one place long enough to sit down and write. More accurately, I am seldom in one quiet place long enough to write. Lately I've been feeling a little bit like Tom Sawyer sitting by while his friends whitewash his fence. Only instead of fence painting, the team is busy cleaning out the barns, preparing beds, seeding and planting. I've been cheering them on from home base which most days is our lilac-infused front yard.

In honor of Mother's Day, I want to take the opportunity to thank our mothers for all their help. I also want to thank all the mothers who take the time to support our farm through their membership. A lot of members are mothers of young children who arrive each week with their little ones in tow. These visits are a wonderful way to show children where their food comes from and kids are some of our most enthusiastic champions of fresh food.

Welcome Cinnamon! We didn't intend to buy a rabbit when we set out on our trip to buy supplies in Lancaster, PA recently but we returned home from our pilgrimage to Nolts Produce Supplies with the truck piled high with irrigation hose, vegetable storage bins, harvesting baskets, row cover, wooden plant stakes and one very sweet bunny. We bought the bunny from a Mennonite girl who gave us a box with some wood shavings and a bag of food. She held the rabbit for a moment before placing him inside - a brief goodbye and happy blessing for a creature she had raised for 10 weeks. He was the last of his litter to depart their family farm. We promised to give him a good home!

The drive through the rural PA landscape was beautiful although there was noticeably less farmland than the last time I visited. I enjoyed hearing Pennsylvania Dutch being spoken at the counter at the supply store by an Amish man whose horse and buggy was parked outside. We also loved seeing children working alongside their parents in the fields, a lovely image of a simpler way of life. We ended our day at September Farm Cheese Shop for sandwiches and headed back home.

Welcome to the New Flock of Laying Hens! On Friday we picked up 10 tiny chicks at the New Egypt Agway. 5 Barred Rocks and 5 Rhode Island Reds. They are cheeping away in their brooder and seem to be getting along. We are very much looking forward to fresh eggs come October!

We are busy planting and taking advantage of the good stretches of weather while we can. The first share distribution is about a month away and the pace is beginning to pick up. We have onions, potatoes, peas, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage in the field as well as flowers and herbs. New this year, leeks!

All in all, things are going smoothly but there were a challenging few days last month while we were trying to find organic fertilizer. We purchased it last year from Purdue University but they will no longer sell directly to farmers. We were directed instead to find a distributor. Purchasing through a distributor was more expensive and came with additional logistics but it all worked out in the end. After the initial application of fertilizer came a couple of very windy days and an incredible amount of rain. I tried hard not to imagine actual dollars blowing away or washing off with the rain. In reality the fertilizer (organic chicken manure), had been tilled into the soil and is more than likely still "in the rows" right where it should be.

Taking the day away from the farm to pick up supplies gave us a bit of perspective. We were reminded that a simpler way of life certainly isn't easier but it's satisfying on a very fundamental level. Inner lights shine just a little brighter when people are doing work they enjoy and our team members absolutely exhibit this vibrancy. And while we have yet to prove a profit on paper, there is no amount of money that can buy that feeling. Now if we can just figure out a way to achieve both goals!

Thank you to Gravity Hill Farm for hosting us at their annual season kickoff event. We enjoyed the brick-oven pizza and the tour of your beautiful farm. Thank you to Virginia for all of her hard work over these past few months. Thank you also to Bruce for mowing and mowing the grass that grows at an impossible rate to keep up with this time of year.

A belated happy Mother’s Day to our mothers and all the mothers who read our little blog!

It is finally starting to warm up and the greenhouse is almost full to capacity. Due to the weather, the first crop of snow peas and shelling peas have been started within the warm confines of our greenhouse instead of the field. The first tomato seeds have been pressed into the dirt and if everything goes according to schedule, we should have our first crop of tomatoes a week earlier than last year. I know a lot of you are cheering! We are in ramp up mode at the farm and work is slow and steady.

Seeds are arriving in the mail regularly and we're getting ready to start tilling and preparing our first fields. The results of our soil test should be back from Rutgers any day now and that will give us the information we need to plan any necessary soil amendments. In the meantime we are faithfully watching over the seedlings in the greenhouse and they are doing well. We like to grow as many of our plants as possible from seed. This serves two different purposes, the first is economical (at least in theory). Seeds are less expensive than seedlings but there are costs associated with growing from seed too - such as the propane and electricity to heat the greenhouse. Also, planting mix (we use Sunshine natural and organic professional planting mix) and fertilizer. The seeds require daily watering, sometimes twice a day if the day is a warm one. The second and perhaps more important reason we grow from seed is that we have the utmost control over the plant from germination onwards.

A member recently asked me if we are an organic farm and I thought I'd use this opportunity to share our answer. Kevin and I farm organically but we are not a certified organic farm. We are interested in researching our certification options through resources listed by the National Organic Program but in the meantime, our members trust us to use organic practices in growing for our CSA. We don't just farm here, we live here and we are passionate about our role as stewards.  Our own children could one day care for the very fields their great great grandparents once did and the fertility of the soil is the most important component of a farm. We also care deeply about not working with toxic pesticides or eating food that been sprayed with dangerous chemicals. If anyone ever has any questions about any of our practices, we encourage you to just ask!

If you drive by the farm, you may notice it's starting to green up - that's the rows of rye we planted last fall. The rye will be tilled into the soil and all the good organic matter will be churned into the earth. Saturday we hope to get out the tractor and start preparing our first fields for planting. The first day we start working up the fields is always an exciting one! We've taken down the fencing around the lower herb garden to allow us to expand that area this year. Ready, set, GROW! We are excited to announce we have 70 members signed up and still have some shares remaining if you or someone you know is interested.

Thank you to our members Andrew and Diane for stopping by to say hello while in the neighborhood recently and for letting us know the spring peepers were singing in the pond across the way - a welcome sound of Spring! Everyone seems hungry for the first fresh food to come out of the earth after a very long winter. I came across a list of recipes at Kitchen Garden Seeds that look delicious. It's never too early to start planning how you will enjoy your first Spring veggies. Check out these suggestions for Sugar Snap Pasta Primavera and Arugula Salad and bookmark the site for later meal planning.

I recently picked up Consumed: Food for a Finite Planet at the library and invite anyone who is interested to read along with me and share their comments online or personally.

We are building our team for the summer! If you or someone you know is interested in farm work, please contact us directly by email. See our Internship posting in ATTRA's National Sustainable Farming Internship Directory.

There is a tiny glimpse of spring at the farm today! Snow is melting off the barns, birds are chirping and the first seedlings have bravely emerged from the soil in the greenhouse. On Saturday, we started sweet onion and red onion seeds along with some broccoli and cauliflower. The greenhouse has been turned on and is keeping at 50-54 degrees. With temperatures dipping below 10 degrees at night, making sure the greenhouse and thermostat are working correctly is important. The first day of seeding is always exciting and nothing compares to the rich smell of the soil after so many winter weeks.

We've been in planning mode and have spent countless nights looking through seed catalogs preparing our seed order. Once we finalized our list of crops, we consulted The Rutgers Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations for NJ. We learn from our own experience year to year but this list of crops and varieties that grow well in our region is very useful. The seed order has been placed and we have about 30 different crops planned  including a few new things like miniature eggplant, arugula, Brussels sprouts and red cabbage. Kevin is also drafting our crop rotation plan which will hopefully include the addition of a new field allowing us to leave one fallow.

The price of seeds has gone up noticeably since last year. We are going to use any viable leftover seed whenever possible but not all older seeds will germinate. We're happy we held on to some of last year's kale seeds as the seed companies are all out of stock. Can you say kale craze? How can kale be sold out everywhere? I wonder if there is a black market for organic kale seeds. I've come across some of the thicker dinosaur variety in stores but am still searching for the curly type.

Kevin recently participated in the Organic Farm Advisory organized by Rutgers NJ Agricultural Experiment Station. Held at Terhune Orchard, this roundtable discussion was a nice opportunity to share ideas and information with other farmers in the area who have a desire to farm in a traditional way without the use of harmful chemicals. Topics included OMRI approved pesticides and recommended practices to reduce plant diseases. It's always inspiring to spend time with other farmers in the area and it reminds us that there is a strong organic farming movement right here in NJ.

Spring cleaning is also on the agenda this month as we hope to be able to set up our market table inside this year. No more mud puddles to wade through! This farm has been here for a long time, and that means there is equipment and machinery that is no longer used. Some of it can be re-purposed but not everything. Thank you to our friend Bruce for helping us out by carting off over 1,300lbs of scrap metal recently. It's a start!

There are a lot of expenditures involved in operating a farm. Some are obvious such as labor, equipment, seeds and fertilizer. Other costs are not as obvious such as propane to heat the greenhouse, building supplies and insurance. We are planning to sell about 90 shares this year, with many of our shareholders spitting their share with others. This means we will have over 100 members in total, such an exciting milestone! Community Supported Agriculture means that our costs are divided by our members for which we are grateful. Thank you to our returning members who have renewed their subscriptions and for the new members who are in the process of signing up!

This winter is certainly a cold one and we've had plenty of beautiful snow. Our farm is small, but the fields feel vast and quiet. Snowstorms mean hunkering down inside and enjoying pancakes on the griddle, library books and arts & crafts projects. We're giving our bodies a much-needed rest and gearing up for a new growing season. Outside, our earthworm families dig down a little deeper in the fields and go to sleep dreaming of spring.

We are thrilled to announce that we have found an Assistant Farm Manager who will help us grow our program this year! Virginia comes to us from Howell Living History Farm in Titusville, NJ and will be an outstanding addition to our team. As their Sustainable Farming Intern, she assisted with  daily chores very much as farmers did in 1890-1920, that means using oxen for draft power. Howell's blog, The Furrow, has beautiful photos and tales of the old ways. We will be sitting down together for our first planning meeting this weekend. Full steam ahead!

On Sunday, Kevin attended the Northeast Organic Farming Association's Conference. He attended sessions on Crop Planning/Scheduling and Organic Pest Management among others. This year, event organizers have made some conference handouts available online, some of which may be relevant for backyard gardeners. If you have a backyard garden, be sure to check out the resources for Organic Pest Management.

Speaking of pest management, we have a rather large colony of little brown bats roosting in our barn.  Our challenge continues to be how to get them out. On one hand they help by eating insects which should help keep our mosquito population down but they seem to prefer to hunt in the woods closer to the pond in general. They would be welcome aside from the fact that their droppings on the barn floor pose a risk.  We've thought about giving up and coexisting by putting up a layer of plastic sheeting beneath the rafters but we're open to other humane suggestions.

We are in the process of planning for the Spring planting and are working on our seed order. There have been a lot of headlines in the news lately about GMOs, Genetically Modified Organisms. We realize there are 2 sides to this important debate but wanted to take the opportunity to inform our members that we do not use genetically modified seeds. We order our seeds from Johnnys who do not sell genetically modified seed. See their Safe Seed Pledge.

Stay warm!

Hopefully you are all enjoying the season and seeking refuge from the cold in warm kitchens. Thank you to all of our members who have taken the time to complete our end of season survey, the response has been incredible. We've read all of your feedback and appreciate your comments. We're working on our 2014 farm share application and hope to have it up soon. Thank you for your patience as we iron out a few details. 

The fields have been put to rest for the winter and the tractors have been sent off for servicing. Alongside a flurry of holiday cards, seed catalogs for the 2014 growing season are arriving in our mailbox. It seems that there are only a matter of days between the end of one farm season and the beginning of another but we are enjoying the slower pace while it lasts!

Despite the fact that we don't have any crops in the ground right now, there is still plenty to do including updating our accounting and records as well as planning for next year. We also use this time to catch up on reading agricultural newsletters and journals to give us insights into current farming trends and research. Most importantly, we are in the midst of searching for a new Assistant Farm Manager who will help us run our farm next year. 

Thank you to our small group of readers who check in on farm happenings from time to time. There's something amazing about coaxing thousands of pounds of vegetables out of the earth and we believe the daily challenges and triumphs are worth sharing. When you read about where your food comes from you have a greater understanding of what goes into growing it. Blogs have always been a source of information and inspiration for us as we work to establish our new CSA. One of my favorite windows into small farming/homesteading is the Cold Antler Farm blog. While Jenna's model is different from ours, her experiments in self sufficiency on a small farm in New York are fun to read about.

I spent some time catching up with one of our members recently and she shared that her father dried her butternut and pumpkin seeds during his visit from Poland - leaving them behind for her to feed to the squirrels. Because they need to eat during the winter too. Hear that west windsor squirrels? You get a share too. So funny how a little story of kindness has a way of warming you on a cold day!

Happy Holidays from our family at Appelget Farm!

Appelget Farm in West Windsor, NJ is looking for a Full-time Assistant Farm Manager with at least 2 years of experience in organic vegetable production. We are a 10 acre family-run farm with 3 acres in production for our growing Community Supported Agriculture Program (CSA).

Position Available We are in search of someone with on-farm experience to assist us with the production of vegetables, herbs and flowers starting in February. Duties will include assisting owners with all aspects of crop production including planning and management, propagation and planting (seeding, seedling propagation, greenhouse management, direct seeding, transplanting and field preparation). Duties will include weeding, trellising, pest and disease management and irrigation. Our Assistant Farm Manager will train apprentices and volunteers and be responsible for their oversight in the field. The person in this position will be responsible for harvesting and processing including washing, bunching and storing produce for share distribution.

Skills Sought A basic knowledge of small farming skills and experience with small tractors and equipment preferable. If you are highly motivated, dependable, have organic farming experience and are looking for a unique opportunity to work on a small family farm, we are interested in speaking with you. Unfortunately, no onsite housing is available. Salary will be discussed with qualified candidates. Applicants who are interested in this position should send an email of introduction with resume.

Our farm share program has come to an end for 2013. A tremendous amount of work but a success by almost all measures, we were blessed with good weather for the most part, an abundance of healthy crops and a dedicated team. Thank you to all of our members for their support!  We are lamenting the end of the season as one would the end of anything good but we are looking forward to having more time for other things during the winter months. There's still work to do but thankfully some of it can be done from the comfort of a warm house or a dry barn.

We will miss the members each week and hope that you will continue to keep in touch with us through the winter. A huge thank you to all who participated in our end of season cleanup! Volunteers worked throughout the day to clear the fields for winter. The next step is to plant rye which will serve as a cover crop for the winter. Cover crops add organic matter and their root system opens passageways that help the soil absorb water and nutrients. Even small gardens will benefit from the use of cover crops. Read more about cover crops.

We wanted to take this opportunity to thank Sue and Charlie for their help this year. Without them, the program would not have been possible. They worked tirelessly to help us toward our goal of establishing a CSA program for West Windsor and for this we are incredibly grateful. Other thank yous go out to Grace for the delicious zucchini muffins - what a thoughtful surprise! To Frances for volunteering her time and to Tivka for sharing her fresh tomato sauce and recipe at the end of the season. I'd also like to thank Megan at Fulper Farm in Lambertville for sharing some of their dairy products, we look forward to finding a way to offer fresh dairy goods such as butter and yogurt to members in the future.

Meal Planning and Recipes
Ironically, we don't have a lot of time for cooking during the summer so it will be nice to be able to spend a little more time in the kitchen this fall. Recently, we made Stuffed Pepper Casserole with the last of our bell peppers in cold storage and Chicken Stew with Turnips & Mushrooms - a great way to use those wonderful turnips that may still be available at your local farmers market.

Roasted Pumpkin
If you haven't had a chance to cook your little pie pumpkin yet, plan to roast it this week. Cook it as you would a buttercup squash, top with a little butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Enjoy as a nutritious snack or a side!

Calico Beans
We served up hot pots of Calico Beans for our Work Day volunteers last weekend and thought we'd share the recipe.

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook all day on low or 4-5 hours on high.  Serves 6. This dish is a lot like chili but sweet instead spicy. Perfect for a cool fall day and can easily be doubled for a larger group. Great with cornbread!

May your week be bountiful in all ways!