almost Christmas!

We have only a few days left. There are still Fuji, Cameo, Mutsu, Gold Rush and Pink Lady apples left. We still have jams and apple butter, applesauce and some canned peaches. I will have hours from 10-5 through Wednesday. Don't forget to pick up your pies on Wednesday if you have placed an order!
We'll close after Thursday at noon. I plan to be at the farm on Saturdays in January. I'll try to let you know what we have then. Call if you need anything special and leave a number where I can get back to you. Thanks for getting us through the year.
Amy and Gary

Christmas Pie Orders due this week!

Don't miss your last chance until next June. Here's the list:
Regular Apple, Apple Crumb, Rustic Apple, Pumpkin, Sour Cherry, Mixed Berry and Mince.
Of course the fruit is from the farm and everything else is homemade, so it's amazing.
Call the farm or stop in with your order. Pick up is Wed. 12/23.
We STILL have apples available, Fuji,Cameo,Mutsu,Sun Crisp,Granny Smith,Pink Lady and Gold Rush. I'm shipping out gift baskets daily, so hurry up and get your order in!
Gary and Chris are making cider this morning
so be sure to get some when you're at the farm.
Anya did a great job making food for us on Saturday at the Open House.
There's still some soups, hummus, and amazing cakes you can get-
all available to make your life easier and tastier!
Sarah's centerpieces are selling but you can get one, too. Just stop on in.
Karen's beaded serving pieces are almost gone from the farm but you can visit her open house this Wednesday. Check out her website for more info: www.kasartware.com/blog/

Holiday Open House

Coming this Saturday, our 3rd Annual Holiday Open House.
Anya will be making lots of delicious cakes, appetizers and great tasting soup. Sarah is keeping busy creating amazing holiday centerpieces and accents from fresh greens. We have some great local crafters bringing in their wares for us as well. Just add some delicious preserves or applesauce and peaches and you've got holiday gifting all wrapped up.

Thanksgiving.

We made it to Thursday. Yeah, turkey day!

Only one person forgot their pie pickup out of 76.

"Pie Now" did a great job with all our orders.

Thanks to the pie lady!

We sold out of cider but plan to make it again soon.

I will not be open Friday,

but Saturday you can stop by for apples

and check out our selection of hand made crafts.

Our plan is to keep the market open until Dec. 24th.

If we still have apples, I'll open Saturdays in January.

The Centerpiece workshop is scheduled for 12/1 and 12/2.

Last year there were some beautiful arrangements created.

This year the price is still $35 to participate and all the supplies are provided, as well as any help you might need with your assembly!

Call the farm (215-297-8220) if you'd like to participate.

There is one evening and one day available.

Enjoying the lovely October weather! Yes, we know it's November.

Gary and Chris took advantage of the dry weather to plant a new block of Sour Cherry trees as well as replace some apples that took the rainy weather hard.

Don't forget to order your Thanksgiving Pies - we won't have any extra next week...

Late Day visit to the farm

Look for the Apple Sign when coming to the farm.

Pie Update

Order your Thanksgiving Pies. We've finally got the list to choose from:
Apple, Apple Crunch, Cranberry Apple, Rustic Apple, Pumpkin, Spiced Pumpkin Nut, Coconut Custard, Sour Cherry and Pecan.
Last day to order is 11/19. Call us with questions and of course come by on Fridays to get a head start on the pie eating!

fall on the farm

Gold rush are almost ready to pick.
New Strawberries have taken well in the tunnel.. next year they'll be protected from the weather.

Pretty view past the blackberries and apples to the back of the farm.

Jamming

I finally did a good batch of Sour Cherry Jam. mmmmm.

Now what to do with the runny batch...I'm thinking ice cream topping?

If you're waiting, wait no more.

It's going to be fun coming up with the seedless blackberry, I think I'll put some apples into the mix for added pectin. Then onto seedless Black Raspberry. Keep checking in the next few weeks as we work out the kinks!

BIG APPLE NEWS!!

Our applesauce is finally ready! All those people who are asking and ready to stock up for the holiday and the winter....it's time!

Buzz got cider from our first pressing!

Lucky guy.

We immediately sold out, so keep checking back

we'll make it a couple times a week.

busy, rainy week

Wow. We jumped ship last Sat and went to GA to visit my brother Doug and his family.
It's amazingly nice to leave town! We returned just as the rains arrived at the farm and managed to get some apples picked: the sun crisp, winesap, stayman and fuji.
We had the boys pick raspberries on Sat. while Gary drove to the Gettysburg area with our applesauce apples. 150 bushels of apples made the trek out and we hope to pick up our applesauce before the week is out. I know people are planning to get their applesauce as soon as it's in because we sold out last year. So don't be the last one!!
Today we finally got all the parts for the cider press and set up a trial pressing. Stop by for a sample and to get your fresh pressed juice! It's amazing how something so simple can take so long to do...it's only been on the list for 5 years now. But we're ready to move forward and I know Chris is planning some Hard Cider for the holidays...
I'll have pictures soon, couldn't find the connection this evening or maybe I'm just too tired.

Family Portrait

Well, we managed to get everyone out in the orchard at the same time. Of course we had picked the apples off the trees so you can't see them, but that's OK.

What a week. We're sorting and washing apples for applesauce. The pressing date is Monday, but we'll have to drive back out to the cannery and pick everything up later in the week. We need 150 bushels for a batch so all those people who want to buy cases this year are in luck! Kimes' is out in Biglersville, apple country for sure.

The new cider making equipment arrived this week and after a few phone calls we got the missing parts. Soooo, coming soon, our own cider. Yeah!!

Apple Time

This is the week the boys are doing all the end of season chores. They're tying up the new blackberry canes, amazing how much they grew this year! Boys and Blackberries...
Gary planted strawberries on black plastic in the tunnels. These will be our early, protected berries for next year. Gotta always try new ways to make this work.
The HoneyCrisp apples are everybody's favorite. We have a nice supply as well as 6 other varieties right now.

Apples - it's time!

The boys are picking Gala apples, they're huge this year! Guess the rain was good for something...

We're still picking RASPBERRIES out of the tunnel. Don't they look delicious!

White Hale Season is upon us - don't miss your last peach!!

End of Summer? No Way!!!

We are still picking summer fruit - peaches, nectarines, raspberries and blackberries. How can it be time for school to start? We did pick the first 3 apples - Zestar, Ginger Gold and Sansa.

This week we'll pick the Gala Apple. We're picking the JH Hale yellow peaches, still picking yellow Nectarines and the white peaches this week are NJ252 (before they named it) and

Lady Nancy. I like Lady N because it has a yellow racing stripe which seems very daring in a white peach!

We are missing our college kids - Hillary, Liz, Eric, Austin, Casey D. and Kaleigh but wishing them the best as they pursue their education. We still have "the boys" for a few more days - Michael, Michael and David - until High School starts. We should see about Home Schooling ...

Anyway Casey S.is here for a few weeks so be sure to say "HI" when you're here - and then it's just us Regulars.

FESTIVAL!

The first thing you see is the smoothie stand. Willie Cosner and Rose Johnson did an amazing job keeping everyone cool with strawberry/peach smoothies.

Move along to the craft table while waiting for your hayride.

Sydney worked on flowers and butterflies.

Marnie got really good painting peaches.

Casey did a great job for her first Festival!

Everyone seemed to have a good time.

We had full participation on the hayrides and people enjoyed picking and eating peaches.

7 batches of peach and peach raspberry ice cream were consumed. Wow!

Thanks to all who volunteered their time. We couldn't have done it without you. The Hahn boys and Michael did an amazing job directing people to ripe peaches and keeping everything going smoothly.

One more testimony to having the best customers

we could hope for and a great team to work with.

Peaches are delicious!

We had 2 beautiful days Friday and Saturday. The peaches are picking much better and we expect to harvest a lot of Sun Hi and Loring this week, both great for putting up.

The raspberries are coming full tilt and the blackberries have really sweetened up. We are definately planning on a good Peach Festival next Sat. the 15th. The Ernie's Choice should be really nice for picking if we leave them hanging this week. I know t-storms are forecast, but it'd be nice to just see some gentle rain this week instead. Bill Short has volunteered to lend his hay wagon again so we can do hayrides up to the peach orchard. All our friends and family are setting aside their Saturday plans to help out at the grill, entertainment, ice cream making and general being helpful. Thanks to all who have volunteered!!

Sam, Hillary, Casey, Chelsea and I finished the Tshirts for the festival.

This year we designed and printed our own. WOW!! They'll be available for sale on Saturday. Plan on spending some time seeing the farm and enjoying the day. We'll start around 9:30 and end around 4:30.

Gary says the Zestar apples are almost ready to pick!! These little trees have a huge apple crop...

Donut Peaches!

We have yellow and white donuts. They are super sweet, fun to eat and only around for a week. Be sure to get by to try them.

While you're here say "hi" to Mr. Frog. He lives next to the parking lot in a puddle (one of many puddles these days) We haven't been able to get a picture of his roommate, but if you sneak up on them by the shed you can sometimes spot them both.
We're finally starting to pick the Red Haven peaches. These are the first of the main season yellows. There'll be more to follow in the next couple weeks.

It's been so LONG since it rained!

Chelsea picked the first flowers for bouquets, the pie lady is making peach pies,

cobblers are coming for the weekend, so it's all good.

The boys look so cute in their rain gear -- off to pick white nectarines.

Bird Netting

The Bird Netting arrived via the Fed Ex truck, which Hale likes because she makes him stop at the entrance so she can get a ride...good thing the driver is really nice! We're covering the Blackberries which are getting ripe quickly. As soon as we finished the birds were very noisy and angry that we eliminated their feast. This is the view from the back of the barn today, in the rain.

PEACHES!

Wow, the heat is really bringing in the fruit. We're picking the white nectarines, white peaches and 2 varieties of yellow peaches.
As usual we have to send the customers outside to eat their peaches, they're just too juicy!!!

Next year's strawberries.

Next on the list is to get all the strawberry beds renovated and ready for next year. Gary mows off the plants, then runs over the rows with the rototiller with the center tines removed. This narrows the rows back to the main plant. The newly planted strawberries are being hoed again. This random sunflower was too fun to hoe out so now it's blooming.

The Ginger Gold apple trees are in the background. They are usually early, around the second week of August.

We're waiting for the bird netting to arrive. It'll go over the blackberries first, then we'll figure out how to cover the raspberry tunnels.

The first Early Yellow Peaches are ready! We're open at the farm every day but Sunday. The Sugar May is the first white peach and we expect to pick that closer to the end of this week. It's still a little firm. White Nectarines are about 10 days out.

Salmon is in

What do we do while waiting for peaches? We've been weeding, and mowing and getting packages from Alaska. What? Yes, the smoked salmon has arrived from alaska and boy are we excited!! I know lots of people have been waiting for our shipment. See picture below...

We expect to pick some Peaches for Sat. and that should be the very beginning of 8 weeks of peach season.

Now what?

The farm stand is closed for the moment. We are picking the black raspberries, but they will all go into jam. I've decided we need more sour cherries. Gary will order the trees this week and we'll plant them this fall or next spring. Many people wanted sour cherries for their pies or to freeze- who would have thought that would be a hot item? I definately don't want to plant more sweet cherries, what a bother they are. I think we could do PYO pie cherries right after strawberries and everyone would be happy. They hardly have any bird damage and the rain only squished them a little. More to follow on that...

I once again tied up the blackberries and black raspberry bushes, they are growing like crazy! Obviously the rain is good for something. The early peaches are starting to color up and Gary thinks 10 days to 2 weeks, which is what I put on the sign out front. So we're good.

Have a happy 4th of July, we're planning to listen to the Riverside Symphonia at Tinicum. It's been a while since we were there but it's always amazing.

Cherries, will they survive the weather?

Weather, birds who would have thought it was such a pain to grow cherries? The earlier sweet cherries exploded from the rain. But we had a couple sunny days to sweeten the rest of the crop and ripen it. So yesterday Sam, Hillary and Casey picked about 100 quarts of cherries. Whooee!

We'll probably try to be open friday or saturday to sell them.

The sour cherry crop looks like just enough to make a couple batches of jam which would be great for the holidays. Of course, Gary wants to make sure he gets a couple pies, and the pie lady wants some as well so she can make some sour cherry pies for the market. If you didn't get any last year, you are missing something special!

The crew is working on thinning out the red raspberry plants in the tunnels. It could be a nice late August - September crop this year.

Gary and Mike H. were working in the orchard yesterday. The baby honey crisp trees needed to be tied to their stakes. They have a nice crop, also!

Hale loves strawberry season...

Due to the heavy rains we are done strawberries. So sad. We've picked a few sweet cherries and are waiting for the sour cherries to ripen. I can't wait to make sour cherry jam again, it was a big hit last year. Next we'll try to finish the peach thinning, and get the farm ready for peach harvest. It looks like a lot of fruit on the trees this year!

Still Picking in spite of the rain.

Wow. We didn't start the ark, but we should have... luckily there's still lots of ripe fruit. We'll be open on Sunday 9-5 for PYO and also have some already picked in the store. Wear your rain boots and be ready to eat fruit!

Strawberries!

Picking is going well, in spite of the rain. 2 days of sunshine this weekend really brought the people and the berries out in full force. We expect more berries this week and will plan to be open Tue and Thur eve until 7:30 in addition to the 9-5 hours every day. Don't wait to get your taste.

We're Open!

Saving our seeds. Harvesting Pumpkin Guts...

Our favorite chore.
Strawberry picking is going well in spite of the rain showers. We expect to be open all weekend 9-5 and next week we'll start the Tue/ Thur eve. hours until 7:30.

Strawberries begin.

We picked 50 quarts in 3 fields yesterday and then it rained 3/4 of an inch last night.
We'll wait a couple hours to scan the fields again. Luckily, the taste is wonderful and
reminds us why we wait so long for real strawberries. One advantage to not being
deep in berries is that we can get to work on the peach thinning. The peach crop looks
very nice, especially those donut peaches!

Blackberries get their turn to bloom.

They sure look pretty when they bloom. I can't believe how well everythings grown.

We picked 3 quarts of strawberries for Memorial Day so it'll be sometime this week that they will all start to color up. I'm predicting we'll have some for sale this coming weekend and maybe Pick your own starting June 1...they sure taste good after waiting so long.

Picking up Maple Syrup!

Well, with all the rain I couldn't do much planting anyway... so off to Vermont I went with Clara.

We drove to Brattleboro on Monday and on Tuesday headed off to Albany, Vt.(not quite to Canada) Sonya met us when we arrived and along with her boys helped us load all the maple syrup into the van. I got to see the Sugaring Shack and the Sugar Bush. What a beautiful place! Now we have enough syrup for the season. Last year we sold out, so we are starting out with a little extra this year. Luckily, Kittredge's had a good year for making syrup. This is a picture from along the road.

Strawberries Bloom

This is probably the most perfect strawberry field ever. There are 3 varieties in this field with Earliglow blooming significantly ahead of the other 2. Every blossom is going to be a strawberry, so get ready to pick!

More blossoms...

The sour cherries look great! Guess we better figure out how to pit them.... New Strawberries are happy and ready to bloom...







OK, so a few days of 90 degree weather and we're in full bloom. Everything. The apples are all fluffy with puff balls of potential fruit.

We've been trying to brush the white nectarine blossoms to thin them out a bit, they look like azalea bushes! We did get through many of the donut peaches. If it doesn't rain tomorrow we can keep working our way through the Raritan Rose white peaches. Looks like this weekend will bring full bloom to the strawberries. Yeah!
We dug up the renegade blackberry runners and even got them planted. Now for a little rain for our "reserve" planting.