Fresh from the fields, every day
Fresh from the fields, every day
In New Jersey, late spring and early summer are good times to grow broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, snow peas, and kale. You will see these available in our markets and farm stands, harvested fresh every morning. You will also find garlic scapes and green onions appearing in our markets for a very short time making both… Read More »
In New Jersey, late spring and early summer are good times to grow broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, snow peas, and kale. You will see these available in our markets and farm stands, harvested fresh every morning. You will also find garlic scapes and green onions appearing in our markets for a very short time making both of them something to savor.
Can’t Escape the Garlic
You may have heard about garlic scapes and their alluring flavor and uncommonly unique taste. Garlic scapes are a vegetable, an aromatic, and also an herb all in one. They are the tender stem and flower buds of a garlic plant and grow straight up from a garlic bulb and then curl a bit by the time of harvest. Scapes are harvested in late spring and early summer in this hardiness climate zone in Chester NJ. Garlic is one of the few plants with two harvests and harvesting scapes is important to the garlic bulb to ensure that the energy remains in the bulb producing a larger and more flavorful bulb.
If You Hear an Onion Ring, Answer It
Green onions with the tops intact provides a sharp and delicious flavor to your dishes from both the bulb and green stalks. Bunching onions (AKA green onions or scallions) easily grow from transplants in our fields. We begin planting onions seeds in our greenhouses in mid-January and the seedlings are allowed to grow indoors through winter. The onion transplants get planted in the ground in late March or early April and are ready to harvest by this time. We planted 250,000 seeds of onions this year alone in our greenhouses. You can watch the video here. Onions are sensitive to daylight, or photoperiodic; therefore, we grow different varieties at different times of the year according to the day lengths. Learn more about onions on our onion blog.
Garlic and onions both are said to contain high anti-inflammatory properties and are high in antioxidants. Try to incorporate these into your diet when possible. For recipe inspirations visit our website by clicking here.
Lettuce Turnip the Beet
Other crops you will see coming from the fields right now are lettuces, leafy greens, and radishes. New this year, we
planted a few newer crops of lettuces including iceberg, endive, red Boston, and escarole. They join our mainstay greens of arugula, spinach, romaine lettuce, green & red leaf lettuce, and green Boston lettuce. Radishes may seem to be around for a long time, however, we are right on time with our harvest. We did have an early harvest from our high tunnels allowing us to enjoy this veggie a bit longer. Our cruciferous veggies (kale, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower) are coming in strong with fresh harvests daily. You may occasionally see a colorful purple or orange cauliflower in addition to the traditional white varieties in our farm markets.
Our team likes to share recipes and cooking techniques and we post fun tips for you on our social media. Did you know that we have a culinary and educational specialist on staff to help guide you to maximize the flavor and nutrition of eating farm fresh? Check out some of Miss Jenn’s recipe inspirations for eating in the season by visiting our website.
