330 Cold Soil Road Trenton Farmer’s Market Princeton, NJ 08540 • (609) 924-2310 Spruce Street www.TerhuneOrchards.com (609) 695-7855 email [email protected] SUMMER 2015 Annual Terhune Orchards Blueberry Bash — Pam’s Family Saturday & Sunday, July 11 & 12, 10am-5pm elebrate the official state fruit blueberry cobblers, blueberry salsa, blue - Column with Terhune Orchards’ annual berry pies and apple-blueberry crisps. by Pam Mount Blueberry Bash! New Jersey sum - Adults can stop by the Terhune mers wouldn’t be complete without big, Orchards Vineyard and Winery tasting ummer is definitely my favorite juicy, fresh blueberries. Our festival is filled room and sample our award-winning wines. time of year–the farm is loaded with fun for the whole family, from live Raise a glass to blueberries with our own with everything wonderful, music, to fabulous food, our apple blueberry wine, happy families, great fruits and vegetables pick-your-own blueberry Harvest Blues. and all our grandchildren are around. This patch, and more. Show off your baking year celebrating our 40 years of farming at After you’ve picked your skills by entering your Terhune Orchards does seem like a mile - blueberries, hop on one of our favorite blueberry treat in stone. Many things have changed: the farm tractor-drawn wagons for a our Blueberry Bash Bake- ride through our beautiful Off. The judging will take orchards and fields. Games place on Sunday, July 12, galore add to the at 1 p.m. The winners fun for children. receive The Tuc kers’ Tales Terhune Pup pet Theatre Orchards gift will present a pup - cards. Contest pet show to delight rules are children at noon available at and 1:30 p.m. on the farm store Saturday and Sunday. Coun try bands will and online, perform both days from noon to 4 p.m. terhune Pam’s Blueberry Buffet food tent will orchards.com. Entries and completed forms satisfy your appetite. Enjoy hot dogs, BBQ must be submitted by noon on Sunday, July chicken, salads, apple cider donuts, cider 12. slush and everything blueberry, of course, Blueberry Bash admission is $5, and from blueberry pies, blueberry muffins, and children under 3 are free. Free parking on The Mount Clan. blueberry breads. Our farm store will also the farm, and no admission to our winery have plenty of fresh-baked blueberry good - tasting room and farm store. The festival is has grown from 55 acres to 200 acres, from ies on hand, including blueberry muffins, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. 2 workers (Gary and I) to 25 year-round staff, from 3 crops (apple, pears and peach - es) to over 40 crops. But as the same time the core is the same; our love of family and Everything Peachy Festival community, respect for our good fortune to be stewards of the land. Sat. & Sun., August 1 & 2, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Twenty-five years ago we hosted a fam - ily reunion for Gary’s family. Now that our ee why area residents love our muffins, peach pie, peach tea, and more. generation is the “seniors”, it seemed like a Peach Festival. Come to the Our farm store will have delicious peach good idea to get everyone together again, farm and enjoy the harvest treats, including baskets overflowing with especially the young ones! So we are look - bounty during our August festival that peaches and nectarines, peach cobblers, ing forward to many Mounts here in offers fun for the whole family. Bring your peach salsa, and nectarine salsa. August! Renewing their farming roots. favorite foodie and enjoy our popular spe - A special feature is our Summer Here at Terhune Orchards we are very cial tasting event at the festival. Harvest Tasting. Chefs, from all over the glad to welcome thousands of families and Families can take a tractor-drawn state, who known for delicious menus using young ones to share in the wonders of wagon ride through our orchards. Enjoy live high quality local ingredients will demon - nature and learning to care for our earth. country music from 12-4 each day. Come strate their peach and seasonal recipes and hungry for our food tent full of homemade sample their foods. Enjoy this unique expe - country fare. Enjoy BBQ chicken, home - rience to taste what some of the best area made salads, hot dogs, favorite cider restaurants have to offer. Everything Pam’s Top Freezing Tip donuts, and apple cider, you will find peach peachy, everything local, everything deli - Freeze each berry or peach slice indi - cious! vidually on a baking sheet if you plan to use Adults can also stop in at the Terhune the fruit as a garnish or to eat with cereal. Orchards Vineyards and Winery tasting Store frozen fruit in containers or plastic room for a sample of one of our most popu - bags. For pies, fruit breads, etc., measure lar summer wines, Just Peachy. The won - out the amount specified in your recipe and derful aroma reminds you of just picked store in individual containers. Want the peaches. Also enjoy our other wines, made whole scoop on canning and freezing veg - from our own grapes and apple cider. etables? Call the farm store at 609-924- Festival admission is $5, children under 2310 to reserve your spot in Pam’s annual 3 free. Admission to the special food tasting freezing, canning, and preserving class area is $12 per person. Free admission to held on Saturday, August 1 at 10 a.m. the farm store and winery tasting room. The Weather by Gary Mount nyone reading these articles coconut culture but when the generator knows that I write again and refused to start, I was called. (There was no again about two things—water other electric power on Satawal.) and the weather. Water is important, of Fortunately my upbringing on a New course and also it is something the farmer Jersey farm and my having owned a 1930 can do something about. More water can be Model A Ford car since I was eleven helped added (irrigation) or crops can be protected me when it came to things mechanical. from too much water, such as growing on (Actually, I owned it jointly with my broth - raised beds or covering the planting with a er, Lee, who was fourteen when we bought high tunnel (greenhouse like structure). it. We still own it and it still runs—just But why the concern about the weath - fine.) One of my most memorable repairs er? It can't be changed, right? Yes, but with was to re-wire a solenoid coil by stringing the latest weather stations, more exact the great length of burned wire from information enables the farmer to manage coconut tree to coconut tree, sanding it and crops and respond to developing problems. re-insulating with shellac. I must have been I get teased a bit by my family (wife out of my mind. Pam) about my interest in weather sta - But back to the farm—my new weather tions. It goes back to the mid 1960's and our station is a dandy. Solar powered, it records days in the Peace Corps. We were stationed seven aspects of the weather--temperature, on a small island in the Pacific called wind speed, wind direction, humidity, rain - Satawal. There were 400 (and 2, us) resi - fall, leaf wetness and solar radiation. It is Terhune Weather Station. dents and the island was about a half connected to Weather Underground— square mile in size—-just about the amount (Princeton Terhune, KNJPRINC23) and to father would have to apply five weekly of land that I farm today. The US weather a web site at Cornell University (NEWA). sprays in June to make sure of control. The service installed a weather station complete It is located right next to our vineyard on information that my station reports to with generator and two way radio. Two Van Kirk Road. Anyone can look at the Cornell helps pinpoint the hatching time. I men, Rasemai and Rapuk were hired and information and I use it in many ways. can replace the five sprays with just one. trained to report their observations four One way is insect control. Codling Moth Similar computations provide advice on times a day. The observations were coded is a bad pest of apples. It is the worm in the all sorts of growing concerns. Apples, peach- into a series of four digit numbers which apple. And NOBODY wants a worm in their es, grapes, potato and tomato to name a few. were verbally relayed through about six dif - apple. As I ask my school tours, What is Insect control, disease forecasts, and crop ferent stations to reach a weather service worse than a worm in your apple? Answer: management, such as irrigation. Visitors to computer in Hawaii. That was state of the Half a worm—get it? The kids usually do. the farm who come for a wine tasting in the are—so satellite observations or communi - Anyhow, each year, the moths mature, mate vineyard get the full story about the weath- cations and the computer was mostly made and lay eggs which hatch out to be the er station. It will be there, because it is a of vacuum tubes—no transistors. But the worm in the apple—all according to a strict keeper. But then all my weather stations job got done and the Pacific area weather schedule directed by accumulation of are keepers. I still have the first one from 38 forecasts were of tremendous benefit.