Picking Pumpkins

These are just a few pictures of all the work....and fun we have on the farm.

FALL IS IN THE AIR!

I can't believe markets are coming to an end already. Boy, the season has really flown by this year. We are knee deep in pumpkins, squash and mums now! I thought lugging around watermelons and cantaloupe were heavy......needless to say I'm getting a workout! We have had a bumper crop of pumpkins this year, actually the best ever. We'll probaby be baking pumpkin till spring next year we grew so many. So we welcome any interesting recipes for pumpkins and squash from you all. We won't go hungry this winter, that's for sure. I'm throwing in a few pictures of the family picking pumpkins and us at a fall festival. We want to say a big "THANK YOU" to all of our customers this season and we so appreciate your business. We love what we do, but we couldn't do it without you all to buy our products. So many of you have become treasured friends and we will keep you in our prayers during the winter months and pray to see you again in the Spring. We are keeping a list of everyones email, name, or phone # so we can let you know when markets start again in the spring. Thanks again and May God Bless You!

Gerry, Lisa, Jeff, Shayla, Jesse, Josiah, Jonah, Sarai, Salome, Selah, Shemaiah, and Shekinah Newman

The Harvest is Many but the Laborors are Few

Wow! I can't believe summer is almost coming to an end already. It seems that when you get so busy seasons just fly! Maybe that is just getting old too!!! We've been keeping very busy picking , picking and more picking. The Harvest is in great abundance and even though we are a family of 12, we can hardly keep up sometimes. Our fall crops are coming on very nicely. Pumpkins, mums, squash and lettuces are growing by the day. Around here in Trenton, we're getting enough rain that we should be able to grow the biggest pumpkin around! Next year we need to arrange better management of our zucchini picking. It seems the standard size this year has been "Baseball Bat" size, the amount of rain we've been getting doesn't help any either. I think they grow inches by the hour!
The children have been enjoying the summer months swimming and playing. It won't be long and they will be jumping in the piles of leaves. One day at a time Lisa!
I'm going to enter some pictures of the girls out in the fields. On my next entry I'll show you how the mums and stuff are doing.
We sure enjoy talking to all our customers who chat with us at the stand. We love hearing all the interesting ways the food we grow are being prepared. I've learned alot of neat recipes from lots of you and can't wait to try all of them.
Take care for now and stop by and say "Hi" to us at one of our markets!

Rain, Rain---Go Away!

Well, I think we've gotten enough rain to last awhile. I can't imagine how Noah must have felt! Even though we still have to pick--rain or shine---I'm getting tired of the muddy mud boots, muddy floors and wet clothes! I'm very thankful that horrible hailstorm only got us on the tailend of the storm and we only recieved pea sized hail, still the vegetables didn't care for it much.

The pumpkins and watermelon plants are doing quite well now. Getting very big with the moisture we've been having. We picked the first of our cut flowers to sell. Beautiful colored plume celosia and multi-colored zinnias. We'll be taking those to our BriarCliff Market tomorrow. The zucchini and yellow squash are coming on full-force too. We're now picking those daily to avoid the Baseball Bat Syndrome!

We'll keep you posted on any upcoming events! Kids Night at BriarCliff Village will be the 18th of June. It should be alot of fun. Come on out and bring the family.

Just a little tidbit of our children and who we are.

My oldest son Jeff and oldest daughter Shayla run a couple of our stands in Farmers Markets, you've probably met them. Couldn't do it without their help. My 2nd oldest son, Jesse, works the BriarCliff Market with us (17). All of our younger children come to one market or another to see where our produce is sold. Josiah (13), Jonah (11), Sarai (9), Salome (7), Selah (6), Shemaiah ( 4), and Shekinah (1) (she doesn't get to go to market because she doesn't like to sit still!) I'll include some pictures to let you see a few of them.

Market Madness

Vegetables are in the full swing of things now. It seems that we can hardly get everything picked in a full day. We have lots of help but there's an endless amount of work that needs to be done besides the picking. I'm going to enclose some pictures of the farm and what actually goes on here. We have our fun days too, not all work! We are really hitting the markets hard with all the fresh greens you could possibly want. The tomatoes in the greenhouses are doing well for us as well. We tried alot of new vegetables this year and we're quite happy with the result of them all except one---dwarf pak choi. We'll do the regular size one next year! Hope to see you all at the market soon!