By Peter Lyons Hall
At a recent Saturday at Lakeside Farmers Market in Greenwood Lake, the farmers were asked to report on the status of the harvest so far this season, when early rains followed by a heat wave produced challenging conditions that had placed the produce and fruit in jeopardy at times.
“Despite the precipitation we’ve experienced at Locust Grove Orchards in Milton, NY, we have a good crop of Rainier cherries, sour cherries (that are really great for baking or cooking), and of course black cherries. And our raspberries and fresh blueberries –all hand-picked– withstood the rains quite well. Peaches are going to arrive shortly followed by apples, but we’ll have some plums pretty soon, as well,” reported David, the orchard and retail manager. He revealed that the rain was a little tricky with the cherries but Locust Grove is a huge farm that’s been around 200 years, with a plentiful stock that can offset most anomalies in weather patterns. The quality of the raspberries and blueberries was outstanding, with a terrific sugar-acid balance in this season’s crop.
Meanwhile, Jeff Bialis of J&A Farm, Goshen, NY, reflected on the precipitation a little differently: “As everybody knows the rain has been a huge challenge; we ended up with about 20 inches of rain in six weeks and really set back a lot of our crops. Fortunately, because of the way that I farm, we use succession planting to ensure a regular harvest so even though some of the crops of beets or lettuce were affected (and some of them have been wiped out) we have follow-up plantings that are coming in now that are absolutely gorgeous. The heat this week was extreme (102° on Wednesday) the plants actually seemed kind of indifferent; they were wilting in the afternoon, enduring a little bit of heat stress, but by the following morning they were popping up and resilient.”
When asked about the impact of the additional heat coming up he said that “The good thing is summer plants are benefiting from that we’ve had plenty of soil moisture and tomatoes are established; their root system is good they can withstand the fluctuations and the extreme heat better and so I think we’re going to have a really big push in our tomato plants. I already started harvesting a few cherry tomatoes this past week and I think the heat is actually going to push them to a level where they’re going to start producing and maybe by mid-July we’ll start harvesting eggplants.”
Look for snap peas, leaf lettuce, beets, kale, an excellent selection of herbs, zucchini, carrots, and yellow squash, all eager companions for some of the fresh-baked bread and cheeses offered by a few of the other vendors. Be sure to stop by Flower and Dough and grab a couple of the fresh-baked sour dough cinnamon rolls, and the homemade Greek yogurt and other specialties. The Lakeside Farmers Market, open every Saturday from 9AM-1PM on Windermere Ave., Greenwood Lake, NY offers a terrific array of vendors each week, live music entertainment, and accepts SNAP/EBT customers as well. To learn more, click on VillageofGreenwoodLake.gov/Lakeside-Farmers-Market/.
Photo credits: Peter Lyons Hall
David, Locust Grove Retail Manager,Milton, NY and Jeff Bialis of J&A Farm Goshen, NY
