Newsletter Articles
...by Gary Mount
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Right at the beginning of this article, I had better state the facts: my granddaughter, Maya, loves the color blue. From her earliest days, it has been blue all the way.
This predilection for blue just might have come from her grandfather’s love of growing blueberries. At Terhune Orchards, we have two acres of blueberries. That might not seem like much but, believe me, that’s a lot of blueberries—millions! And, they are just about the most satisfactory crop that I grow.
Growing blueberries is intriguing. They actually are not supposed to grow well here. They were discovered and developed in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey where the soil is very acidic (low PH), sandy, a high level of organic matter, very well drained but having a high water table, maybe as close as two feet from the surface. Terhune Orchards soil has none of these characteristics.
Planting blues begins with a two year old plant purchased from the nursery. I bought my plants from Michigan. Two acres, spaced at 3 by 10 feet gives us room for 3,000 plants -- an entire tractor and trailer load! But ordering the plants is just the first step -- then come the interesting parts.
Blueberries need to grow in acidic soil. The makeup of their roots is such that they cannot absorb from the soil the nutrients the plant needs unless the PH of that soil is very low -- about 4.5 to 5. Terhune soil normally ranges between 6 to 6.5 -- a big difference. We lower the PH by adding sulfur. Because soil tends to rebound to its natural state, we have to add sulfur every year.
Then there is the organic matter. Pine Barren soils have levels of between 7 and 9 percent or higher of organic matter. Our upland soils have about 2 percent. Some of you might have seen Terhune’s wood chip mountain. We apply them around the plants every year.
Next comes water management. Blueberries do not like “wet feet”. We ridge up each row 8-12 inches above the middles so heavy rainfall can run away from the plant roots. But, blueberries also cannot stand a drought. During the growing season, our water table can be fourteen feet below the surface. No blueberry roots go down that far. We have installed trickle irrigation systems to give them water -- every day if needed.
Another so-called intriguing part of growing blues is patience. It takes between 5 and 7 years to get significant production. In fact, the recommendation is to take all the fruit flowers off during the first growing season -- it just killed me to do so.
And then there came the birds. These voracious, winged blueberry disappearing devices could just about eat our whole crop. Very little would be left for us or for our pick-your-own customers. We now build a plastic net enclosure over the entire two acres. It takes a lot of time and it costs a lot, but when the birds sit outside the net and make a fuss about being excluded, it makes me smile.
When it is finally time to pick, about the third week in June, the first berries ready are amazing. They are huge, very tasty, but tart as well as sweet. There aren’t very many, only a few per bush, but our most experienced pick-your-own pickers make sure to get here early to get these first berries.
Blueberries are different from almost all other fruits. Most fruits need to be picked within a week after becoming ripe. Blueberries ripen and can hang on the bush for a month or more. Some people come every week and pick from the same bushes as they ripen.
Granddaughter Maya will be moving here from Baltimore this summer just in time to pick -- and eat -- the fruit of her favorite color, Blueberries.
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Terhune Orchards strawberry harvest season is just around the corner. Strawberries are one our first crops each year and also one of our best. Red, juicy, sweet, great refreshing taste—all those adjectives apply to strawberries. But when the days warm and the strawberry plants start to wake up and grow, much of the work in strawberries is already complete. Strawberry production starts in June of the previous year. We pick a field fairly close to the farmstore so that the berries can be harvested pick-your-own with out too long of a walk. But the field also should not have had strawberries planted for a few years. Planting the same crop in the same place year after year allows diseases and insects to build in the soil. It also depletes the specific nutrients needed for that crop to grow and produce a good tasting fruit.
Next we plow the site and make raised beds in the soil with a trickle irrigation tube buried in the bed and a cover of black plastic over each bed. The raised bed protects the plant roots from being flooded when we get downpours during the growing season. The raised bed and the black plastic cover also help the soil warm quickly n the spring—promoting good plant growth. The black plastic keeps weeds from growing and keeps the berries off the soil, which is a source of disease. The trickle irrigation tube provides water and nutrients during the growing season (more about nutrients later). As little as one week of severe dryness can stunt the plant and the crop. Even if followed by adequate watering, the strawberries will never get to where they should be.
Finally we are ready to plant, which we do in two ways. In early July we plant bare root plants. These plants are purchased from a nursery, which dug them in the fall and kept them in cold storage—about 33 degrees F—until it was time to ship them to us in July. We also plant some strawberries at the end of August. These are actively growing plants that were started at the nursery in June and shipped to us in flats much like the flats of pansy’s that might be seen at garden center.
We take care of the plants all summer and fall—taking care of weeds, insects, disease, watering, excluding the geese (the geese must think strawberry plants are some sort of candy), watching out for rabbits and deer. In late October, we cover the field with a white sheet material called floating row cover, which protects the plants from severe winter temperatures.
In the spring we watch for the first strawberry flowers to appear under the cover. At that time the covers must come off so bees that we bring into the field can pollinate the flowers. But--and this is a very big but—the strawberries are at their most vulnerable stage of growth during this period. Strawberries bloom early, during a time when spring frosts are prevalent. Freezing temperatures will kill the flowers, causing them to turn black and drop off. In the strawberry business, dead flowers mean no strawberries. So when we take off the covers, we install, on the same day, an overhead irrigation system for the field. If freezing temperatures occur, the irrigation is turned on. As the water freezes on the plants and flowers, it liberates heat. As long as water is continuously applied and it doesn’t get too, too cold, the plant temperature will not go below 32 degrees F and the flowers will live. This might be hard to understand unless you think of what happens when ice is put in a glass of water. As the ice melts, it makes the water colder. Out in the field, it is just the opposite. As the water freezes and makes ice, it makes the plant warmer. Simple, right? Trust me, it works.
After about 4-5 weeks the strawberries will be ready to pick. During this period, it is very important that nutrients are available in the soil for the plant to use while the berries are growing. Berry size, color, taste, firmness and sweetness are all affected. I attended a lecture this winter given by Steve Bogash, a Penn State ag extension agent. One of his specialties is strawberry production. He advises his growers to have strawberry plant tissue analysis do every week in the spring. This way the grower can know what the plant is actually getting from the soil and what is lacking. Nutrients, similar to the miracle-gro used on houseplants, can be mixed with the irrigation water fed through the tubes going down each raised bed. The plants get the nutrients immediately—it shows in the next week’s analysis! I think I will be doing some tissue analysis this spring.
So all this to grow a strawberry. It is complicated, painstaking and expensive. But, if we do it right and the weather cooperates, what a reward. Come on out and pick some strawberries this year. They should be ready about mid May.
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Keeping the Garden Green
by Gary Mount
In the late fall, much of the outdoor world that I am in touch with every day changes dramatically. Some things slow way down-fruit trees, berry bushes, weeds (thank goodness) and some things stop—vegetables and ornamentals. But regardless, the color green is gone. No longer can I see the daily miracle of plant growth, of fruiting and vegetable production, of getting ready for the next year’s cycle. All that just stops. And so my thoughts turn to the greenhouse.
Terhune’s greenhouse is not that big. Just three years ago we doubled its size to 5,000 square feet, but that’s still small as greenhouses go. However, it is a very active place. Starting in September and October, we plant hundreds of Freesia bulbs. These wonderful looking things grow slowly all fall and winter (55 o F). They bloom in January and February. Their blooms, all in a row on the stem are the most amazing colors! You can see we are planning for our winter pick-me-up already, but that’s getting ahead of my story.
Some time this fall, after the frantic apple harvest and pumpkin season, but before it gets too cold (remember the freesia), we have to recover the greenhouse. We use a double layer of poly, stretched over the greenhouse frame and fastened at the edges. The existing plastic has been on for three years—about the limit. Ultra-violet radiation from the sun turns the plastic cloudy , thus reducing the amount of sunlight that can pass through. UV also weakens the poly and makes it more likely to tear during a windstorm. In the winter that would mean the end of the freesias.
The trick of recovering is to find a calm day, warm enough so that the plants inside don’t suffer, and then work like heck. Whatever is taken off has to get replaced by the end of the day. Cold temperatures at night would ruin everything inside.
Our greenhouse is two bays wide. Each bay is covered by two sheets of poly 28 feet by 100 feet. Each double layer is fastened securely around the edges and then attached to a small fan which blows air into the space between the layers. This creates a taunt air pillow which keeps the plastic from flapping in the wind and also provides insulation as well.
Hopefully, if the recovery goes well, we can start on our next crop. Although freesia, cyclamen and later some spring bulbs are in the greenhouse all winter, there is lots of space for something else—lettuce!
We started with lettuce last winter—red leaf, green leaf, Boston and romaine. 55o turns out to be just right for lettuce as well as the freesia. We plant one crop after another—seeding and re-seeding all winter long. Each crop takes 8 to 12 weeks. We then pick it, sell it and start again. I stay happy—having a crop actively growing—until life on the farm outside begins again in the spring.
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Many fruit and vegetable crops are extremely perishable. Farmers must pick them and then sell them in a short time period. Take leaf lettuce, for example. We’ve been growing some great leaf lettuce this year–everyone loves it. But, if it is not sold within a day or two of harvest, forget it. Refrigeration helps, but only slightly. The same is true of many of the crops we grow–except for apples. The potential to store apples for many months with no loss of flavor or quality puts them in an entirely different category. Partly because of their year ’round availability, apples have become the number one produce item in the US.
Storing apples has not always been so successful or well understood. In colonial times, before refrigeration and before any understanding of disease and insect pests, apples did not keep very long. Some even went bad on the tree before they were picked. But actually most apples grown in those times were not destined to be eaten. They were made into cider–which at that time meant alcoholic cider. The apples were stored in a liquid state. Most farmers had a few apple trees and if the farmer was unable to make the cider himself, he took the apples to a neighbor who could and brought the cider home in a barrel. After the cider fermented, the alcohol acted as a preservative–the minimum alcohol content to do the job was about 8 percent.
Hard cider was the nation’s favorite beverage until the late 1800s, when it was eclipsed by beer, but despite its popularity, apples were also eaten as well as used in cooking. At that time, apples were stored in root cellars, which were constructed into the slope of a hill next to the farmhouse. The constant, cool temperature and high humidity maintained the apples until winter. The root cellar also kept the apples from freezing, which would accelerate spoilage.
As some farmers started to specialize in producing apples for sale, they had to find better storage methods. When I started in business 31 years ago at Terhune Orchards, apple storage was well understood–but it was not the same for everybody. I got to know an older apple grower named Ralph DelSanti. Ralph farmed in one of the northern counties, Morris County, I think, and he told me of his “storage method.” Ralph had a very large spreading tree near his farm buildings. In the fall he stacked his baskets of apples under the tree and that was it. He did this mostly with varieties that were harvested late in the fall when the weather started to turn cool, especially in the northern part of the state. The tree protected the apples from direct sun and sheltered them from frost, both of which would spoil the apples. Ralph told me that the apples “kept pretty good.” I was not totally convinced but it took Ralph a month or so to sell all his apples and it worked for him!
The next big advance in apple storage was mechanical refrigeration. We take it for granted now, with our refrigerators, freezers and air conditioning, but as the refrigeration industry grew in the early to the mid 1900s, it was a welcome innovation to the apple growers. The technology of apple storage developed rapidly. It was learned what temperatures were best for specific varieties of apples. For example, Red Delicious or Stayman store best at 30-31°, but McIntosh stores better at 33°. Farmers also learned that refrigeration equipment of adequate size was important. Apples keep better if cooled to storage temperature within 24 hours after picking. Too small a unit takes too long and also condenses so much moisture out of the air in the cold storage that some apples shrivel. When it comes to apple refrigeration equipment, bigger is better.
The latest step in apple storing is controlled atmosphere or CA storage. Fruit ripening is partially an oxidation process. By storing apples at low temperature and at a low oxygen concentration, storage time can be greatly increased. Early researchers stored apples at 5% oxygen (compared to the 20% oxygen in the air that we breathe). The latest technology uses 1% or 2% oxygen, and apples can be stored 12 months or more. In fact, scientists at Cornell University are said to have stored apples successfully for up to four years. I am not sure what “successfully” means, but that’s impressive.
Those of you readers who know me have an idea of what I am working towards. It is sort of like tractors–never having enough. The fact is, we need a new cold storage. Many of our apples now are trucked to southern New Jersey to be stored in a friend’s cold storage. I have dreamt of building a cold storage for several years, and during a trip to Nova Scotia last winter, I visited two farms that had just the type of cold storage I want. Maybe next year, visitors to Terhune Orchards will see new construction–a modern apple cold storage.
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Many of us know the poem by Robert Frost, "After Apple Picking." This apple grower has a copy framed and hanging in his kitchen. But as much as apple growers look forward to the "after" apple picking, much work and planning goes into the "before."
This year at Terhune Orchards, we have a
tremendous crop of apples. We have been preparing for and caring for the crop
since just after the last year's harvest. Getting ready to pick the crop
involves many steps, and the first thing I think about is: Do I have enough
boxes to pick into? Years ago, when Pam and I first bought the orchard, all
apple picking was done into one-bushel boxes. These wooden crates held forty
pounds of apples. Pickers filled the boxes and we (me and an army of high
school boys) leveled them off—for some reason called "cutting them
down"—and stacked them on a wagon for transport to the farm's
cold storage. The boxes were pushed along a roller conveyor into a large room,
refrigerated to 32°F. They were then stacked by hand, box-by-box, right to
the fourteen-foot ceiling, leaving only enough space for the cold air to
circulate.
Needless to say, it was not too long before we changed over to bulk bins, handled by forklifts, with each bin holding eighteen bushels and weighing 800 pounds when filled. But, I'm still faced with the same question—will I have enough?
This year, I'm just not sure.
The next question a grower must face is who will pick all these apples. My father's farm, where I grew up, only produced one crop, apples. That meant the entire production of the farm had to be picked in a 6-week period. Enough workers had to be found, many coming from long distances, and housing and furnishings had to be provided.
Fortunately for Pam and I, we grow many crops at Terhune Orchards. The work of harvesting the farm's production is spread over many months and, because of our retail farm marketing, work on the farm continues all year. When it comes to apple picking, the work force is already here.
Now, preparation comes down to the more technical stuff—such as when to pick? I wish it were as simple as going out to the tree, picking an apple and just crunching down. But, it's not. The time to pick an apple is mostly determined by how it will get to the consumer. Pick-Your-Own customers want apples ready to eat, right then. The crunch test works fine for Pick-Your-Own sales.
Picking apples for sale later on is another matter. Picked too early, the apple is immature and has yet to develop its best flavor. Picked too late, apples will not store worth a darn. Apples mature slowly to a certain point. After that the ripening process advances rapidly and cannot be reversed. The trick is to pick and refrigerate the apple at full maturity but just before the start of rapid ripening.
There are several methods that I use to
determine the best harvest date. One method I do not use is to look just at the
color. Red color is a poor indicator of apple maturity. Color can be greatly
affected by weather conditions around the time of harvest. One
"older" method that I do use is to count the number of days since the
apple tree bloomed and the apple began to grow. Each year, cold or hot, wet or
dry, the number is pretty close to the average.
Then there is the techie stuff—as my wife Pam says, I am a sucker for technology. I use a handheld device to measure the firmness of the apple flesh. I use another to measure the concentration of sugar in the juice of the apple. There is also a device to measure the ripening rate of the apple. A needle is inserted into the center of the apple, where the seeds are. The air there is withdrawn and analyzed for ethylene gas concentration. All fruits produce this gas naturally as they ripen. The rate of ripening–and, therefore, the suitability for the apple to be stored for later sale—can be determined by the amount of ethylene.
Finally, there is the newest and simplest method, the Starch-Iodine test. While all this ripening is going on inside the apple, one of the most important things happening is that starch in the apple is changing to sugar—hooray! The test apples are cut in half and sprayed with an iodine solution. After a minute or two, the starch turns dark while the sugar stays light. Compare the test apples to a photo maturity chart, and you're done.
Like many growers, I use a combination of the above methods—from the crunch test (thanks to my dentist!) to the latest, over-the-top technology. But, then, there is one more—the continuing "hope for the best" method. Sometimes, as the apple harvest progresses, it takes on a mind of its own. Workers come and go, rain keeps us from picking, our retail farm marketing takes every available pair of hands—the care-fully planned, technology-aided harvest sequence falls behind. Then, it's a matter of working as hard as you can and just keep "hoping for the best."
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Trickle Irrigation Conserves Resources
by
Gary Mount
Blueberry devotees visiting Terhune Orchards have probably noticed the black plastic pipes decorating the rows between the blueberry bushes. They are there to resolve a watering problem that, until recently, Gary Mount was unaware that he had. Gary's blueberry experience highlights the importance of a proper irrigation system and the complexities that surround it.
The Immediate Challenge
While there are many acts of nature over which the farmer has no control, water — or lack thereof — is not one of them. At Terhune Orchards, Pam and Gary don't rely on Mother Nature to provide sufficient water for their plants. Instead, 55 acres of fields and orchards are irrigated using the farmhouse well, the connection to the public water system, and a complex system of trickle irrigation and other methods. The well pumps water at approximately 75 gallons per minute — a small amount as far as farm irrigation goes. But, because Terhune Orchards grows so many different fruits and vegetables, the farm is divided in "zones" that can be turned on or off depending on the moisture needs of each zone. This simple explanation describes a well-tuned system of irrigation that includes machinery, personnel, and resources.
The detective work began during 1999's El Niño summer when Gary noticed that the blueberries were not growing to his expectations. As do most fruit and vegetable farmers in New Jersey, Gary relies on a complex irrigation system to provide the appropriate amount of water at the right time to make Terhune Orchards' produce the best it can be.
His first approach to the blueberry problem was to check the trickle irrigation system used to water the bushes. Conventional wisdom suggested that bush roots would be densest near the underground water emitters — the roots sense the water and grow towards it, no matter where it is. However, because of a 5-inch layer of organic mulch positioned above-ground and around the bushes for weed control, the blueberry roots remained in the mulch and never grew downward in search of the water supply. In response, Gary repositioned the pipes on the surface to bring the water supply closer to the roots.
The Long-Term Solution
In an area that often requires its residents to conserve water during the driest parts of the summer, the Mounts are especially interested in and concerned about how to minimize their use of water while maximizing the effect of the water they use.
During the summer
months, Pam and Gary hire a teenager who zips around the farm on a golf cart
several times a week recording soil moisture readings. What makes this possible
is a tensiometer with two attached wires, which are visible above ground. The
tensiometer is a tiny devise which consists of a porous material that registers
electrical resistance according to the moisture content of the soil. When the
reading is high, the plants need moisture; when the reading is low, the ground
is moist enough.
Two sensors are buried close to each crop to be monitored. One is placed at a depth of between ten and twelve inches and a second at twenty inches. By placing the sensors at different depths, Gary can pinpoint areas of moisture — whether the moisture is on the surface, well below the surface, in both places, or in neither place. He uses the information to adjust the amount of water applied to the crops. If the bottom sensor indicates dry soil, the crops need a good dousing. If the soil near the surface is dry, but the bottom soil is wet, less water is added.
According to Gary, one of the challenges to growing so many varieties of fruits and vegetables is juggling their diverse water and nutrient requirements. For example, too much water for cantaloupes makes them mushy inside and tasteless, too! However, tomatoes and squash thrive on generous amounts of water. To further complicate the equation, fruits and vegetables need different amounts of water during the various stages of their life cycle. For example, those water phobic cantaloupes need more water as seedlings than they do as mature plants. Another factor Gary must consider is that the clay-like soil at Terhune Orchards requires different watering schedules from the sandy soil found in southern New Jersey.
In addition to checking moisture levels, Gary and his entourage can also check on the plants' general appearance. The flower cutting gardens, for example, experience a considerable number of visitors walking through the rows cutting flowers. With so many people cutting the flowers, the plants occasionally need a nutritional cocktail. This is easily accomplished with the trickle irrigation system — Gary simply adds nutrients to the water flowing through the trickle irrigation system within the flower beds to feed and water the plants simultaneously.
Although much of the Terhune Orchards fields and orchards are serviced by trickle irrigation, some crops benefit from overhead irrigation. Field crops, such as corn, rely on overhead systems because it is impractical and costly to lay trickle irrigation pipes across so many rows of plants! This type of irrigation requires a large amount of water, so Gary limits his use of overhead or sprinkler irrigation.
One of the unfortunate disadvantages of an overhead irrigation system is the propensity to encourage diseases especially for those plants growing in clay-like soil. Although a trickle irrigation system is more expensive to buy and more complex to install and service than an overhead system, Gary firmly believes the results justify the cost — fruits and vegetables of outstanding quality and flavor. Terhune Orchards' customers concur!
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Each year in May, something happens at Terhune Orchards that makes me cringe. It is time to thin apples. I hate doing it; I get stressed and grouchy (or so says my family) and thinning makes me a nervous wreck. But I have to do it. Not doing so would leave us with small apples at harvest, possibly broken down trees and, worst of all, the likelihood of a very light crop the following year.
Thinning
apples is the process of removing some of the small apples from the tree early
enough in the summer so the remaining ones can grow to a larger and more
marketable size. The fact is that Mother Nature provides fruit trees with many
more flower buds than are actually needed. A medium-size apple tree might be
able to support and bring to maturity about 700 apples. But, the tree may have
1,000 to 2,000 flower buds, with each bud capable of producing five flowers and
thus five apples. That's a lot of apples. Most years, spring frosts and
other environmental factors take their toll and not all of the flowers become
apples. Then it is a good thing that there are so many buds; some survive
— enough to make a good crop. Often, though, too many apples survive
— too many for the tree to support. That's when thinning becomes
necessary.
My life growing up on an apple farm involved a lot of thinning. In those days, all thinning was done by hand. My father was pleased to have four sons—that made eight extra hands in the orchard during the summer to pluck off some of the small apples.
My brothers and I worked during the summers when school was out. When my parents bought a summer house at the New Jersey shore, we commuted to the farm in Princeton each day. Thinning apples for my father was not easy; the trees were large and most of the work had to be done using a 22-foot ladder. It was very tiring. Up and down the ladder, as we first moved the ladder around the tree and then from tree to tree.
Then there was the mental work—how many to thin off and how many to leave. Decisions, decisions, decisions! Enough to make us all want to sleep in the car on the way back to the shore. But, my father's driving put a stop to that. It is impossible to say how many times the entire male line of my family came close to being extinguished.
Somehow we all survived to thin again. We not only aimed to increase the value of the crop by increasing the size of the apples, but we wanted to counteract the alternate bearing habit of apples. Each seed of a developing apple produces a hormone that is transmitted back up the stem into the wood of the tree. Each year, as the apples grow, the tree also grows the buds for the next year. A heavy crop with the consequently larger numbers of seeds and greater amount of hormone influences the forming buds to become leaf buds. A light crop means fewer apples, lower numbers of seeds and a smaller amount of hormone—and the bud is more likely to become a flower bud. This up and down pattern is distressing to fruit growers, because we absolutely need a crop every year.
Thinning in most orchards is now done with a combination of hand thinning and the use of sprays. The sprays take advantage of the tree's natural tendency to drop some of its fruit in June. The sprays mimic the natural process and encourage the fruit drop.
Then, we do the follow-up by hand.
But, wouldn't you know? Spray thinning is not an exact science. It is greatly affected by the weather before and after the time of application. Sometimes it works too little and sometimes too well. It's a sickening feeling to over-thin and realize that you did something that caused the light crop. Under thinning as a result of spraying means following up with a lot of hand thinning.
I try to keep a positive attitude around thinning time and try not to be too grouchy around my family. Thinning usually works as it should. It is just another part of what I think is the best job in the world—growing apples.
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In a recent apple grower's trip to a Wenatchee, Washington apple packinghouse, I watched in fascination as a huge machine assembled cardboard apple boxes–Zip, Slam, Bam. It took me back about 50 years. This one machine completely accomplished my boyhood job on my father's Princeton, New Jersey farm of making boxes—only about 50 times faster.
For a long time,
Western growers in Washington and Oregon have sent their fruit to be stored and
packed at large warehouses. Eastern growers, like my father, packed their own
apples. During the frantic harvest season, little packing was done as the fruit
was picked, transported and stored in refrigerated rooms. After the harvest was
completed, the packing began. On our farm it would continue all
winter—sometimes ending as late as May.
My father's cold storage and packinghouse was on US 1 in West Windsor. The storage rooms could hold some 175,000 bushels of apples, and the packinghouse was filled with packing machinery from the Wayland Company of Winchester, West Virginia. This equipment washed, dried, sorted, and sized the apples. The packing was done by hand.
My father built a second-story addition to the packinghouse for storage. This was also where I assembled the cardboard boxes. My after-school and Saturday job was to "make boxes". The boxes arrived at the farm flat and in bundles from the manufacturer, Union Bag and Box Company. I would open the flattened boxes and staple the bottom flaps together. I then threw them down a large hole in the packinghouse ceiling.
When the space below was filled, I made as many boxes ahead as I could for the next day, when I would be in school. Great was my delight when one year my father bought a motorized stapling machine and a monorail conveyor system to transport the assembled boxes down to the packing crew. Although, at age 13, I already rated myself the fastest box maker on the farm, my output increased dramatically.
Apple boxes of 45 years ago are much the same as those of today. Apple boxes before that time were quite different. Apples were packed in wooden boxes, with each apple often wrapped in a ten-inch square of oiled purple paper. Wrapping apples was an art and doing it rapidly was difficult. I got pretty good at it myself, but never as good as the best workers on our farm. Dollie Mae Jackson was the best—such a skilled worker was a valuable person on the farm. Her husband, Ivory (Ira) Jackson also worked on the farm and, in later years, I often worked with him in the orchard.
Wooden apple boxes came in two types—western (7/8 bushel) and eastern (1 bushel). Apples in westerns were individually wrapped. Those in easterns were loose packed. Wooden boxes on our farm were either purchased used and then refurbished or assembled new from parts purchased from a box manufacturer. In either case, a specialist named Gid Davis did this work on our farm. Gid spent most of the year in Florida and traveled to New Jersey once a year to work for my father. He sometimes drove a truck on the farm, but mostly he was our box man. His hands were lightning fast. He was very skilled at sanding the sides of the used boxes to make them appear new, and he had a 1952 Mercury. To my 12-year-old eyes, a '52 Merc was just about the ultimate in cool. I don't remember ever wanting a particular car more. Gid kept it immaculately clean and polished and would park it near where he worked on the boxes so that he could listen to the radio while he worked. I could never understand why that did not drain the battery, but the ‘52 Merc always cranked.
One special item Gid used was the nail stripper. Buying nails in bulk means the nails come in a jumbled pile. Picking up one nail results in getting your fingers poked by the points of other nails. A very slow and painful process! Somehow, the nail stripper shakes the nails down so they hang in strips. Neat! That was another thing my 12-year-old mind had trouble understanding. I recently saw a nail stripper in a museum during my Wenatchee trip. It brought back lots of memories!
At the other end of the packing process, after the washing, drying, sorting, sizing, and wrapping, came the final preparation of the boxes for shipment. The lids were nailed closed (another nail stripper), and boxes for export were strapped at each end with wire, then labeled and stenciled. Labeling evokes a lore all its own.
Every packinghouse before 1960 had its own label—colorful and descriptive. Many apple growers have a collection of labels—some have hundreds! I think the "Mount Farms" label was one of the best. The labels were 8 by 11 inches and were applied to the ends of the boxes using a paste of flour and water. In the days before cardboard boxes, labeling was one of the jobs waiting for me when I got home from school.
The day's output of packed boxes was stacked in long rows in the front of the packinghouse. They needed only to be labeled and stenciled before being loaded onto a truck for delivery to a pier in New York. Getting the label on straight and marking the product with the family name as coming from our farm was very satisfying. It ranked close to the top of my favorite jobs on the farm—right up there with stenciling.
All boxes containing apples for export had to be stenciled. The code number for the shipment was punched into an oak-tag sheet to create a stencil. Then the number was stenciled with black ink onto the side of the box. At first, my father ordered the stencils pre-punched, but later bought his own stencil-cutting machine.
I don't remember my father as a patient person, but he must have been. It seemed I would often have something that I had to talk to him about just as he was finishing a stencil. A moment's distraction and a wrong letter would be punched. The stencil had to be discarded, and he would begin again. Another trial to his patience came one day when there were two different lots of apples to stencil. I not only liked stenciling, but I was quick at the job. When I got to the end of one lot of apples, no one told me to stop. So, I stenciled all the others. Oops!
Also included on the stencil was the name of the ship that would receive the apples. Seeing those ships' names in the packinghouse was unbearably romantic to a 12-year-old compulsive book reader. Even now I wonder how I kept from stowing away in the back of a truck headed for the piers. I guess I was needed at the farm.
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The leaves have fallen from the trees and bushes here at Terhune Orchards. The plants are getting themselves set for a season of dormancy, preparing for a glorious (I hope) springtime of blossoms and pollination. As they drift off towards a time of inactivity, I am headed in the other direction! Winter work, although not as time sensitive as the growing season or as hectic as the harvest season, is one of the most interesting tasks of the year.
Each tree, bush, and
cane on the farm has to be pruned every year. Pruning, the selective cutting of
the fruit plant's limbs or branches, is the farmer's best opportunity
to direct how his fruit crops will grow. During the growing season, we may
water, fertilize and spray, but the biggest influence on the plants at that
time is beyond our control— rain, temperature, wind, and sun—the
climate.
At Terhune Orchards, we have thousands of trees: 20,000+ apple, 2,000+ peach, 100+ pear, 1,000+ cherry, 3000+ blueberry bushes and about 10 acres of raspberries and blackberries. That's a lot of winter work! The pruning is done by hand, and there are as many ideas about pruning as there are farmers. Each winter, I go to three or four meetings or conferences where pruning is discussed. Sometimes the discussions get pretty "interesting" because each farmer, researcher, and extension agent is sure he is right.
I am not able to do the entire pruning on the farm by myself, especially with going to all these conventions. When I come home, it becomes my duty to distill what I have learned, add it to what I think I already know, and come up with usable directions for the men who help with the pruning on the farm.
Apples are probably the most interesting trees to prune. Several factors can greatly influence the tree and the crop, such as what types of branches are cut, where they are cut, and how many are cut on each tree. Apple size, color, sweetness and shape are affected. Tree size, the number of apples per tree, the number of apples per acre, how soon the planting comes into production, and how long the tree lasts are directly related to how the tree is pruned.
Too much pruning leads to slowness to bear, lack of red color and sweetness, and large apples of poor quality. Too little pruning leads to reduction of bearing, lack of red color and sweetness, disease and insect attacks on the fruit, and a weak tree that will break under a heavy crop.
This is to say that benign neglect is not what is best for an apple tree. For example, the big apple trees in the front of the farm suffered from lack of attention this year. They ended up with a very heavy crop, small apples, and many broken limbs.
Pruning peaches is somewhat simple compared to apples. Peaches bear fruit on one-year-old wood, so we leave as many healthy, vigorous, one-year-old shoots about pencil thickness and 30 inches long as possible, spaced around the tree.
Some pruning makes me cringe. Pear pruning could be as interesting as apples, except for fire blight. This fruit tree disease (it really does look like fire has burned through the tree) attacks young, vigorous, succulent branches of the tree. It can strike a tree dead in a very short time. Since pruning stimulates the tree and promotes that kind of growth, the only solution is to prune hardly at all. Just basic shaping, minor thinning, and leave the tree alone. Hopefully the fire blight will, too.
Even higher on the cringe scale of pruning is blueberries. I am a bit new at growing blueberries, but the basics are if you want big, sweet, flavorful berries, the older canes have to be removed in rotation. If you want a lot of berries, the older canes have to be left in much longer. What a dilemma! A large crop equals small berries, potentially lower price but higher income, unhappy customers, puzzled farmer. Large berries equal less crop, potentially higher prices but lower income, happier customers, puzzled farmer. Each year I say to myself, "Let someone else prune these blueberries!"
Lots of factors can affect the eventual outcome of the fruit crop. Since many of them are beyond the farmer's control, there is no sense in worrying about them. Besides, there is nothing to do anyway. At the end of the winter when the pruning is done, there comes the satisfaction of knowing that what needed to be done was done and what could be done for a rewarding crop was completed. Happy growing.
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Expanding a Greenhouse
by Gary Mount
This year we are expanding our greenhouse at Terhune Orchards. We first built the greenhouse 12 years ago. Prior to that we hadn't grown very many of the plants that we sold. Mostly we bought them from others farmers for resale. But by growing our own plants, in our own greenhouse, we have just the right vegetable plants that we want to transplant. We can offer better quality plans, and --- most of all --- it's more fun.
Our original greenhouse was 50 by 48 feet ---
about 2500 square feet. It quickly became too small for the green thumb of the
family, wife Pam. There are just so many nice things to grow! This year we are
doubling the size to 50 by 96 feet --- nearly 5000 square feet.
We start our growing season with Freesia, a bulb that we make successive plantings of starting in September. They are the most fantastic plants, with long stems and multiple flowers lined up in a row, hanging off the top. Freesias originated in South America and are not widely grown in New Jersey. Many greenhouse growers have their greenhouses full of poinsettias in the fall and have no room to plant freesias. Pam and I have never gotten excited about growing poinsettias, so we have room. Freesias also take a long time to grow. The first ones are ready to sell in January.
Along with freesia, we plant primrose and cyclamen -- transported to the Farm Store for sale as they mature. At the same time, we also plant tulips, daffodils, tete-a-tete, and grape hyacinth. These bulbs take a side trip to the bulb cooler for a few months. The bulb cooler is a completely-dark and refrigerated room. Those conditions allow the bulb roots to grow, but the cold temperature and the darkness keep the tops from growing. After two or three months, the roots have filled the pots, but the tops are only two inches tall and without any green color. Starting in January, we bring a few out into the greenhouse each week. After two weeks, they have grown, turned green, started to flower and are ready to sell. Fantastic!
The story of bulb growing explains one of the reasons why greenhouse growing is such fun. The grower gets to control the weather -- at least the inside weather. Heaters, powered by natural gas, maintain a constant temperature. Fans cool the greenhouse when the sun is shining. Each plant gets the exact amount of water it needs and, by adding insect screening and growing lights (for a longer growing day), we can further control the growing environment.
One more thing -- during this winter-time growing, it is warm in the greenhouse. Here at the farm, where we work outside all winter, Pam never has trouble getting help doing work inside the greenhouse. It rates right up there with the bakery as a nice place to work on a cold day!
After the winter bulks have all flowered and been sold, we start growing our spring flowers, herbs and vegetable plants that I transplant into the fields --- tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, and in the summer, broccoli, collards, and brussel sprouts.
Some plants arrive as "plugs." They are already germinated seeds and are one-half inch high. These tiny plants come 72, 144, 225 or more to a 10 by 20 inch flat. We transplant them to pots or hanging baskets, and then put them into the greenhouse to grow. We grow other plants from seed. We first sow the seed in rows in a fine textured soil mix and place the sowing tray on a heated bench. We mist the bench frequently and transplant the tiny plants to pots when they get about three-quarters of an inch tall.
All in all, this is a very complicated
growing process. To get the best results with so many different types of
plants, we have to give each their own particular treatment and the right
amount of growing time. Making all these plantings come out right is very
satisfying.
That's part of the fun. Then, there is the technology of it all. As Pam says, I am a sucker for technology. One of the best examples is the greenhouse monitor. If it gets too cold, too hot, too noisy, or if the electricity goes off, this machine calls me up, immediately. I puck up the phone and hear the recording, "The temperature is too low." That means it is time for me to get out there and fix the heaters. If I am not home, the machine calls three other people in sequence. On a cold night, greenhouse temperatures can fall to damaging levels in as little as 4 or 5 hours. Or on a hot day, without the cooling fans, the temperature can soar to plant-killing levels in as little as an hour. This past Christmas, while I was on vacation, the electricity went off during a snowstorm. Fortunately, the machine summoned two key employees who came in and started a generator to power the heaters. Thank goodness!
That brings up my latest greenhouse technology --- a stand-by generator. Powered by natural gas (no fuel tank to go empty, no gasoline to turn stale), it starts, comes to full power, and switches over in 20 seconds. It runs until power is restored, whether that takes hours or days. It also exercises itself once a week. It starts and runs for twenty minutes --- just for fun!
To go along with all the fun, the greenhouse also has some problems. When it snows, I have to turn the heat way up so that it will melt off the roof as it falls. Letting snow buld up might collapse the greenhouse or allow ice to form, which if blown by the wind later can slice the greenhouse plastic to ribbons. Also, a severs hailstorm, like the one in June this year, can actually puncture holes in the plastic, which then needs to be replaced.
Mostly, the greenhouse is an enjoyable challenge. It gives me a chance to control the inside weather, has a lot of neat complicated devices for me to work with, and it provides brightness and warmth during the long New Jersey winters!
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Sweet
Apple Cider - Making The Best!
by Gary Mount
I have come full circle in my attempts to make the best apple cider that I can at Terhune Orchards. Make those two full circles. Ideas that I tried when I first started, than abandoned, then tried again in a different way are now either back in or back out. What I have found over the years is that there is more than one way to make apple cider. But, just keep to the basics and you'll be all right.
What are the basics?
Start with sound, ripe apples. Don't use just one variety of apples. Look for a
blend of different types. Keep everything as clean as you can. Cool the cider
immediately after pressing and pasteurizing.
Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, it is, although it's not that hard to get it wrong. One of the most common mistakes in cider making is using immature apples. Maturity in an apple means the starches in the fruit have mostly changed to sugar. Eating a starchy apple will bring out adjectives like woody, tasteless, green, or mealy.
And just what is a "sound" apple? I tell the cider makers here at Terhune Orchards that if they would not eat the apple, then don't let it go into the cider press. No decay, no major bruises. Just that simple, but it makes a big difference.
Keeping everything as clean as possible is critical as well. It's a lot of work. Sometimes, when we are only make four or five hundred gallons, it takes longer to clean up afterwards than to press the cider! Items to be cleaned: bin dumper, sorting rollers, apple washer, bucket elevator, apple grinder, pomace (ground up apple) tank, pomace pump, the cider press itself, press cloths, cider pumps, cider filter, storage tanks, pasteurizer, and jug filler. Using a pressure washer at 1000 psi does the trick for most items.
Finally, there is cooling. Each of our four hundred gallon storage tanks has its own two horsepower cooling system. Good quality cider is made without preservatives. At warm temperatures, fermentation starts quickly. Refrigeration (as close to 32 degrees as possible) is essential.
That's about it -- except for the actual blend of varieties that we use. Each cider maker has a preference. The exact mix usually changes over the season and is not often divulged. Asking is like asking a Main lobsterman where he catches his lobsters. Ey-yup!
The more I learn about making cider, the more I realize that the basics count. I keep trying new ways to get at the basics--this year we will debut a plan for cider quality and safety. I have worked this out in conjunction with the US FDA and the New Jersey Department of Health at a seminar sponsored by the New Jersey Horticultural Society, of which I am treasurer. This plan should go a long way towards keeping Terhune Orchards Apple Cider the very best.
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With the Stem or Without?
by Gary Mount
Picking your own fruit leads to a lot of questions - weather forecast, clothing, how much to pick -on and on. But when it comes to cherries, the decision is a weighty one of whether to pick them with the stem (slowly and carefully) or without the stem (much faster).
Cherries grow on
two- to three-inch stems, just the way that you see them in the store. At
bloom, the cherry-flower clusters are tight to the limb. After the flowers
bloom, the stem grows rapidly, giving the developing cherry some room to grow.
Cherries are so fragile and susceptible to decay that they would not do well
jammed tightly together. Space between the cherries would stay moist, fostering
decay. Also, pressure from the other cherries in such tight quarters would
deform the cherry and damage the skin.
Regardless of whether you pick with or without the stem, one thing for sure is that there will be a lot of cherries. I just read about a contest sponsored by cherry growers in Washington last year. The idea was to guess the number of cherries on a tree. The number was 12,299! I think the tree in question was larger than my trees (we planted dwarf trees for easy picking). But still, two acres times 300 trees per acre times ???? cherries per tree-wow, that's a lot of cherries. I hope you are all hungry for cherries.
But the cherries don't all have to be picked at the same time. We have eleven varieties of sweet cherries: Hudson, Somerset, Ulster, Heidelfingen, Lapin, Van, Sam, Ranier, Hartland, Chelan, and Schmidt as well as Montmorency sour cherries. Each variety is ready to pick at a slightly different time. The harvest can be spread our over two weeks or so, but be forewarned; hot weather can greatly accelerate the ripening process. The cherries can be gone before you know it.
But with the stem or without? The best I can say is that it really depends on how and when you plan to use them. For immediate use or in salads or pies, the fast and easy way (without stems) will do. If you plan to refrigerate them for more than a day or two, then pick with the stems. This is slower but does not break the skin of the cherry. Happy Picking!
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Spring Frost
- The Grim Reaper
by Gary Mount
One of the very great risks in growing fruit in New Jersey is that freezing temperatures around bloom time, known as spring frosts, can kill buds or blossoms and devastate the crop. On spring nights, freezing air can move into the fields or on clear, windless nights, objects near the ground, such as fruit buds can radiate heat right up to the sky and become even colder than the surrounding air. When that happens, there can be frost even though the air temperature is above freezing.
This freezing and killing of fruit buds is not good. Dead buds mean no fruit. Without a consistent production of fruit, well, there goes the farm. But farmers have been trying to control frost since ancient times when grape growers burned brush in their vineyards. Modern farmers also try heating. Sometimes they use fans to mix the lower level cold air with the warmer air from above. And sometimes they try irrigation, which is what I am going to try this year on my strawberries.
Irrigation is one of the most effective methods available to help a farmer survive a frost. But it's not that the water being applied is 55 degrees and warms the plant. Actually, when the water first hits the plant and starts to evaporate, the plants temperature cools a few degrees. Farmers start irrigating a few degrees above freezing to avoid causing worse damage than that which they are trying to control.
Frost protection by irrigation works from a scientific principle: as water freezes it liberates heat. If this seems confusing, think of how ice melts when heat is added. The reverse of the process, making ice, gives off heat. As long as enough water is applied continuously, ice keeps forming and the temperature of the strawberry bud does not go below freezing. Ice may build up, but the freezing process stabilizes the temperature even when the surrounding air temperature is well below freezing.
This process releases considerable heat. A gallon of heating oil burned in a heater releases about 144,000 BTUs of heat into the field or orchard. That same gallon used in a diesel-powered pump could spray about 14,000 gallons of water on the field. If all this water froze into ice it would release over 16,000,000 BTUs of heat -- 120 times more!
Planning and constructing an irrigation system for frost protection has been interesting. First, a water supply and reliable pump is needed. My new well and pumping system will be adequate to do the job. Then there is the layout of sprinklers and piping in the strawberry patch. Fortunately, a lot of written information is available. My frost protection folder is now about four inches thick! And, finally, knowing when to turn the irrigation on is important. Over-irrigation is expensive and can damage the plants. Waiting too long might just waste the whole effort.
I have consulted with some of my fellow farmers about this. Some of them get very little sleep during strawberry bloom time. They put a sleeping bag in their pickup truck, park out by the field, and wake up every half hour or so to check the temperature. There is no room for error. In extreme cases, temperatures can drop as much as 9 degrees in as little as 15 minutes!
The trouble with these methods is that I like my sleep. The prospect of being awake night after night, followed by working all day does not appeal to me. Fortunately, I have a device that warns me if the temperature falls in my greenhouse. This machine dials my phone and announces, "The temperature is low." I have a spare device that I will use for the strawberries. When I hear the message, it means I had better get out there and start the irrigation.
This spring, if you drive by early some morning and see the irrigation running on the strawberries, you'll know why. And when you come back in May to pick some strawberries for dinner, you'll know that just maybe those berries came from buds that were safely protected under the ice this spring.
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A
Building of Many Names
by Gary Mount
The Terhune Orchards Farm Store has always interested me - its architecture, function, history, and names. In our early years of owning Terhune Orchards, we called it the "apple building." I recently talked with Richard Terhune, a member of the Terhune family who sold us the farm 28 years ago. He told me that his family always called it the "apple house" as in farmhouse, cider, house, smokehouse, wash house, etc. In his day, apples were their main crop, but they also grew some peaches. We now grown about 32 different crops, all sold through the "farm store". "Apple Building" just doesn't quite fit anymore.
The Farm Store building was
constructed in the 1930's. The basement was dug using a "bull scoop" pulled by
a Fordson tractor. (They were so called because when Henry Ford first started
selling tractors, the name Ford was already taken by another company. He formed
a new company, Henry Ford & Son, and named the tractors Fordson.) The scoop
had two handles, similar to wheelbarrow handles. As it was pulled along,
lifting the handles slightly would scrape off a layer of soil. When it was
full, the handles were pushed down and the scoop slid along the ground. The
scoop's contents were dumped by sharply lifting the handles to slip it
frontward. Tractor, scoop, and operators made many trips, round and round,
scooping up a bit of earth each time.
Dick related a family story about the scoop having uncovered a spring during construction of the "apple house". Everyone was very glad that the tractor had been parked up and out of the basement excavation that night because, by morning, it was filled with water! To this day, the spring runs through in the basement floor and fills the small pond behind the store.
The basement of the building was used to store apples. The fruit was sorted and packed on the main floor, and the attic was used to store boxes and baskets. Elsie Terhune Davison, who with her husband Jack were the former owners of Terhune Orchards, told me that she and her sister Ruth also roller skated on the main floor during the off-season. According to Elsie, Ruth was the better skater.
All the apples were picked and stored in half-bushel baskets in those days - similar to the baskets used to display apples in the farmstore today. The baskets were open on the top and stacked pyramid-style on the basement floor. This took some skill as I found out when I tried it.
Cooling the stored apples was accomplished by means of cellar doors and an air tunnel that went all the way up to the cupola on top of the building. The doors were kept open day and night; cool air came in through the doors and hot air rose up through the air tunnel and out the cupola. The doors were closed only when the outdoor temperatures were low enough to freeze and spoil the apples. The running spring also helped cool the air and keep the humidity high.
Apples were lifted up by hand through a trap door to the mail floor. Although today all apple containers are handled with a forklift, it was several years after our purchase of Terhune Orchards in 1975 before we could afford such a labor-saving machine. Apples kept well in this storage - often into January. In the 1960's, the first mechanical refrigeration was installed.
I've
always wondered about the design of the building. Dick and Elsie related how
their father, the builder of the "apple house", worked very closely with "the
college." (All older New Jersey farmers refer to Rutgers' Cook College that
way. I suppose it comes from Cook College's former name, "The College of
Agriculture.") His close association with "the college" and the building's
functional design leads us to believe that agricultural engineers - perhaps
from "the college" - were involved.
The first electricity in the "apple house" was DC current supplied by storage batteries kept in an old smokehouse located between the "apple house" and the farmhouse. The batteries were charged by a wind-powered Delco generator, which was mounted on or near the windmill next tot he farmhouse. Unfortunately, neither the windmill nor the smokehouse exists today. The main use of electric power was for lighting, and wires were also run to the barn and the farmhouse. Elsie recalls that the first electric clothes washer was powered by this system and had to be re-wired when AC power was brought in from the street. A family joke was that when the lights dimmed (low batteries), it was time to go to bed!
The progression of name changes also reflect today's use of the building as the main point of sales on the farm. A front porch was added in 1978 and later a rear addition for preparing fruits and vegetables for sale.
Pam and I really love our farmstore. The interior has undergone many changes - new walls, additional windows, opening the ceiling, and replacing the floor. The walls are covered with old farm tools from my grandfather's farm. During the busiest times of the year the store is too small, but most of the time it's just right.
Writing this story has brought home to me how different farm life was one hundred years ago. Far fewer people lived in this area, and families were often connected in ways that are no longer remembered. Dick Terhune had a surprise for me when I talked to him about the "apple house". His grandfather, the first Terhune to own this farm, was named Richard MOUNT Terhune. His middle name was the same as my own family name! I put my bother Lee Mount, our family genealogist, on the job. He found that Richard Mount Terhune's mother's maiden name was Mary A Mount. What's more, his mother-in-law's maiden name was Edna E. Mount. Both women shared common ancestors with my father's family!
It was a great surprise to learn that when Pam and I bought this farm, it was really a family affair.
Many thanks to the Terhune family, Dick Terhune, Elsie Davison and Charles Hunt (their brother-in-law), and my brother Lee Mount for their help with this story.
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Tractors and the Farmers Who Love Them
by
Gary Mount
My father once told me that he had asked my grandfather, whose farm was on Route 1 in West Windsor, what he and his farmer friends talked about when they stood together at different gatherings. "Horses and women" was his answer. I always wanted to ask whether, in my father's day, it was "tractors and women".
One of
the enduring themes of farm life is the farmer's relationship with his horses
and his tractors. One of my uncles sketched out a map of my grandfather's farm
as it looked between 1900 and 1910. It shows the horse barn and lists all of
the horses he could remember by name--Tom, Dan, Jumbo, Dick, Pansy, Ned,
Charlie, Lester, Stewart, John Bonehead, and Jenny. They did the plowing,
planting, cultivating, haying, harvesting, hauling, and transporting people.
Horses were even used to pull ropes that hoisted hay into the top of the barns
or to power different pieces of stationary equipment. Horses wer4 very
important on the farm, and it took quite a number of them to do all of the
work.
In 1916, my grandfather, William M. Mount, bought his first tractor, an Avery Model 8-16. The number 8 meant that the tractor was able to exert the same pull as 8 horses, i.e., 8 horsepower. The larger number was the power of the engine. Almost half of its power was lost in the transmission and gears! Gears were shifted by a hand lever that moved the entire engine assembly forward and back to engage the correct gear combinations. The tractor was powered by kerosene and used gasoline to start it. In addition to the two fuel tanks, a third tank held water, which was added in small amounts to suppress combustion knocking (pinging) of the kerosene and to add power.
In short order, my grandfather bought two more Avery tractors, a 6-12 and a 12-25. He like them so much he became an Avery Tractor dealer. His four sons, including my father, had the job of delivering them. The steel wheeled behemoths were simply driven along the road to their destination. No driver's license was needed in those days. They had to return to the farm by shanks-mare (an old saying meaning "on foot").
The first tractors were large and heavy, difficult to maneuver, and had cleated steel wheels that jarred the operator down to his bones. However, everything considered, farmers liked them more than horses. In addition to more pulling power, each tractor had a powered pulley that could drive a flat belt. The belt was attached to a piece of machinery like a thresher or a circular saw. I have actually used one of these saws, powered by a belt from one of my father's tractors. Luckily, I survived the experience with all limbs intact.
As the use of tractors on farms increased, they became more powerful, easier to use, and began to come with rubber tires. One of my uncles and my father argued about whether steel or rubber would pull better. To settle the matter, they hooked two tractors back-to-back. It was a dead heat. They just sat there and dug holes in the ground. I don't think my grandfather was too pleased.
Along with the coming of rubber tires came the demise of the Avery Company. My grandfather switched to Case tractors, still retaining the same delivery staff. When I grew up, there was only one tractor to have on the farm--Case. However, when I was ten, my father bought a Ferguson. It was quite a radical step, even though the Ferguson had several features that made it more suitable for some farm jobs than the Case.
It might seem
strange that a better machine would be so radical, but just as with their
horses, farmers are particular about their tractors. Even today, many rural
towns divide their farmers according to the equipment they use. People are
identified by their brand of tractor. "He's a John Deere man." Or, "He's a Case
man." Part of the identity is the paint color. "They're all green (John Deere)
over there," is a comment I heard only last week.
Another part of the identity is passion. No farmer who believes in his tractors is lukewarm about them. Several years ago, I traveled to Biglerville, PA, to look at a new sprayer for my orchards. The dealer took me to see a particular model on someone's farm. When I asked the farmer how he liked the sprayer, I was sternly told that it "worked good, but only if you have something green (John Deere) to put in front of it." It wasn't at all clear whether this farmer would even let me look at the sprayer if I wasn't going to pull it with a John Deere. Red (Case or International), orange (Allis Chalmers), or blue (Ford) just wouldn't do.
So, you really can't separate farmers and their tractors. Actually, for an self-respecting farmer, it is a case of the more the better. (This truism doesn't usually apply to the farmer's spouse.) One year before Thanksgiving dinner at our house, my younger brother Tim walked around the farmstead, sort of looking things over. At dinner (keep in mind, this is my own brother!), between mouthfuls of turkey, he asked, "Gary, why do you need 13 tractors?" The dead silence that followed was broken by Pam's questions, "We - have - 13 - tractors?" That's why farmers never, ever park all of their tractors in a row--too easy to count!
As I write this, I am thinking about getting a new tractor. It is something I desperately need. The more, the better!
*Thanks to my brothers Bill and Lee for information for this article.
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EQIP(ment) - An Irrigation Story
by Gary
Mount
I've said it before -- each time I think that I know what I'm doing in farming, something new and unexpected comes along to surprise me.
The 2002 growing season is bringing new challenges for farmers in our area. By this I mean the drought. Many New Jersey farmers are wondering if we face another summer like that of 1999, one of the driest ever. For me, 1999 served as a wake up call. It made me realize that I had better be ready to adequately water my crops -- and to do so with the smallest amount of water possible.
The problems of drought are self evident for all farms -- no water equals no crop production and no income. Drought compounds the problem for a fruit grower. Not only does drought reduce the amount of fruit, but it reduces fruit size and quality. Also, most fruit bearing plants develop flower buds for the next year at the same time fruit is growing for the present year. This means the affects of a drought can be seen over several years. Finally, is some areas of low rainfall and/or very sandy soil, lack of rain can kill the fruit tree. Although my front lawn at the farm may turn brown and look dead during a drought, it is really just dormant and comes back when it rains again. Fruit trees don't.
Enough about the problems. What are the solutions? In 1980, Pam and I purchased a farm on Van Kirk Road and planted apples and raspberries. That is where we now have our pick-your-own apple orchards. I installed trickle irrigation in this location and, as a result, have watered the farm very efficiently over the years. Drip irrigation delivers water slowly and in small amounts, right at ground level. Very little is lost to evaporation or runoff. My trees and raspberries have survived several dry years. At that time, my irrigation system was state of the art.
That was 22 years ago. Funny how things change. After my dry summer of 1999 wake up call, I started to think about ways to improve my system. Maybe there were ways to water the trees better and use water more efficiently. Maybe there were people out there who knew more than I did about irrigation (although I hate to admit it).
This past year, I have worked with a federal/state conservation program known as EQIP, which is designed to improve the environmental quality of farming enterprises. Experts were available to review my new plans, and I rehabilitated my irrigation system on Van Kirk Road during the summer of 2001. I installed new piping to deliver water to each section of the orchard, new control valves in each section, and modern tubing that releases water evenly all along each row. These improvements have made a tremendous difference. It seems that more evenly controlled watering does not have to be turned on for as long a period. Trees at the beginning of the row do not have to be over-watered in order for the ones at the end of the row to get enough. New sensors buried in the orchard tell me exactly when the soil is moist enough. And best of all, I only have to run the system about half as long as I did before!
I wouldn't have believed it, but then each time I think I know what I'm doing, something new comes along.
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Purple Martins Return
by Gary Mount
Four or five years ago, I was surprised to receive a Purple Martin house as a birthday present from my family. I love Purple Martins; they are migratory birds with some of the most interesting habits of any birds. I have been interested in Purple Martins for a long time, which started with my first martin house at my parents' home near Grover's Mill, New Jersey. I later received one built by my brother Bill Mount shortly after Pam and I bought Terhune Orchards 27 years ago.
Martin houses are literally apartment houses for birds. Purple Martins live in colonies and almost exclusively in housing built for them by humans. Some of the earliest martin housing was included in sketches made by New World explorers. Martin houses, in the form of hollow gourds, were pictured hanging near Native American homesites.
Purple Martin houses can be sets of "single family" dwellings hung near each other or "multifamily" units with 10, 20, or more attached dwellings. These are mounted on poles about 15 feet off the ground.
Neither of my earlier martin house experiences successfully attracted martins, but I was determined to be successful this time. It seems that the biggest factor in attracting martins conforms to the old real estate maxim: location, location, location. Martins don't like to live near trees -- they like to swoop and dive. They don't like undergrowth near the base of the pole -- too many predators such as raccoons or snakes can hide there, ready to climb the pole at night. Martins also like places with a good food supply -- near a pond for instance. They eat tremendous numbers of insects (that's one reason I like martins so much), catching them on the fly as they swoop and dive.
In addition to these common sense location guides, there came an unexpected one. Purple Martins like to be near people. They seem to like seeing people as they go about their daily tasks of eating every flying insect in the area. I almost made the mistake of putting my new "low income housing" in a field far from the farm buildings.
Purple Martins spend their winters very far south in Brazil. They migrate north, with the first ones arriving in the southern US -- Texas or Louisiana -- in February or March and to our area about April 1. The first ones to arrive are adult male martins, so black in color that they are almost purple. They check out the accommodations and, if they approve, hang around waiting for the rest of the family to arrive. Very early each morning, they fly high above the farm singing their dawn song.
As an as yet unproven theory suggests, the female and young adult martins, flying north at this later time, hear the song and are attracted to the site. The martins move in, sometimes evicting local squatters such as sparrows. They raise a family and are with us all summer, filling the air with their twangy chirping -- recognized immediately by any martin enthusiast. In mid-August, they depart for their long journey south.
My first year, I didn't get my new birdhouse put up soon enough to qualify as a "prime" location. My birthday is mid-May, and then I had to assemble and erect the thing -- so many little parts! It was Memorial Day before it was ready for occupancy. To my surprise, martins arrived three days later. They were young adults, probably escaping crowded conditions elsewhere. Although they set up housekeeping, they were unsuccessful in raising a family. It was great having them around, and each year since we've been lucky to have several families visit for the summer. I have put up another apartment house and several fiberglass gourds as well. As I write this while returning from an Easter visit to our daughter Tannwen in San Francisco, I wonder who will get home first – Pam and me or the martins.
Please join us in enjoying the Purple Martins. You can watch the fun through the telescope we set up on the Farm Store porch or sit at a nearby picnic table. For additional information, visit www.purplemartin.org.
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IPM - It's Catching (On)
by Gary
Mount
There's been a lot of IPM going around lately. At Terhune Orchards, we got it over 15 years ago and we still have it.Quite a few of my farmer friends in New Jersey have it and not just fruit growers, but vegetable farmers too. When I went to a Michigan fruit grower meeting this winter, I found it all over the place out there too! And last winter when Pam and I went to Australia and New Zeeland, guess what? It had spread all over down under as well.
Just what is IPM?It is NOT some terrible agriculturally related calamity NOR is it a new esoteric illness only inflicting farmers. IPM is Integrated Pest Management and it's the best. IPM is a systematic approach to dealing with pests and diseases that damage crops. IPM scientifically evaluates all methods of control and all factors involved in each and then applies the ones that make the most sense overall. Not necessarily the cheapest-although cost is a factor, not necessarily the most lethal to the pest-although effectiveness is a factor, and not necessarily the easiest to use-although safety is a huge factor. A farmer using IPM evaluates these three factors-cost, effectiveness and safety in addition to many others in order to determine how and to what degree, to combat a pest that damages crops.
This seems logical, right? Just use the scientific method and come out with a rational answer. Well, it hasn't always been that way.
Imagine years and years ago, when everyone lived on a farm. Many different crops were grown and pest damage was accepted as part of growing a crop. Damaged farm crops could always be salvaged in some way-animal food for example. If you grew it for your own use, you could deal with the problem. What came next however was farmers selling their crops to other people. Oops! Damage to a salable item was much more important and not acceptable. And the specialization in growing crops led to increased damage because of concentration of pests and diseases.
When chemical products to control pest became widely used in the 1940's, they were the magic bullet-one solution fit every problem-don't need to think about anything else. Harmful effects of long persistence of the chemical and/or possible harm to other species weren't well understood and not a concern to most people.
But what about today and IPM at Terhune Orchards? IPM is accepted as one of the most bio-rational methods a farmer can use to control crop damaging pests and diseases. At Terhune Orchards, IPM has led us into doing some pretty interesting stuff. An IPM scout from Rutgers Cooperative Extension visits our farm three or four times a week to help us determine the presence and severity of pests and disease. The scout counts the numbers of several different damaging insects that are caught in traps on the farm each week. (We are not trying to trap all the insects-just to find out when they are present and when is the best time to control them.)
Maybe you've heard of the "worm in the apple". That usually is the larva of the codling moth. If you are a fruit grower trying to sell apples, you just can't have any worms in the apples. Years ago, growers had to apply up to 5 sprays to be sure they killed the hatching codling moth larvae. At Terhune Orchards (and most other IPM farms), we add the average daily temperatures, known as degree-days, from when our IPM scout first catches a codling moth and then determine when the first damaging larvae will hatch. We then know just when to spray. One spray does it-that's one fifth, .20, 20%--that's part of IPM.
We use another neat technique to control apple scab-a devastating disease affecting both the apple tree and the fruit. We keep a mini weather station (it is how we count the degree days in the codling moth example) and we track the rainfall, leaf wetness and temperature during the apple season. We correlate the length of time the leaves are wet at a given temperature with the occurrence of the disease, apple scab. If the disease is going to happen, we spray. If it is too cold for the scab to develop, or the leaves aren't wet long enough, we don't spray. We substitute information in place of chemicals; without that information, we would have to spray on a calendar schedule to be sure of having no scab. Many years we save over half the scab sprays-that's .50, 50%--it's part of IPM.
I could write on forever with examples of IPM, but the last story to tell is the best. It's a technique we use to almost completely eliminate insect sprays in peaches. The two main insects that attack peaches are the Oriental Fruit Moth (OFM--the worm in the peach) and the Peach Tree Borer (PTB-a wood boring insect that gets inside the bark of the tree.) The system is based on the fact that the male moth finds the female by following her scent through the air. We purchase tiny plastic tubes that look like the twist-ems which close off the end of plastic bags. They contain the synthetic scent of the female OFM and female PTB. This scent is actually the same attractant our IPM scouts use to attract male moths to their traps. The difference is that we attach one twist-em to each tree in the whole peach orchard. I can't help but think that this much female scent out there must attract every male OFM and PTB in the county to our orchard!! But, and it's a big but, when they get here, there is so much scent around that they become confused and cannot find the real female OFM or PTB. I shouldn't have to explain further-after all, you have read this far-but if the males cannot find the females, there is no mating, no egg laying, no hatching of worms or borers and best of all, no need to spray. That's great and it's part of IPM.
So that's three ways we use IPM at Terhune Orchards. If you are visiting sometime and would like me to show you more, just ask.
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A Sweet Charlie By Any Other Name
by Gary
Mount
What in the world is Sweet Charlie anyhow? When I was a boy, I had a black and white stool in the shape of a skunk that was called Sweet William, but Sweet Charlie?
One of the aspects of fruit growing that we'd like to change around here is in the naming of varieties. As Pam says, who would want to eat an apple named Carousel? Or a peach named Contender? Or a raspberry called Prelude? —Anyhow, you get the drift. Who names these things anyhow?
Some years ago, we attended a "naming party' given by my friend Dave Meirs of Creamridge. Dave is a breeder of racehorses and each year is faced with the task of providing unique names for his many foals. As the mares and their colts were led out for those of us at the party to see, we wrote down a suggested name for each—Dave collected them at the end and had a supply of names that would last for a while. Of course, what we were drinking had a beneficial effect on the quality of the names. Maybe fruit growers should do something similar for new varieties.
But back to Sweet Charlie—it's a strawberry. And yes we have planted some—about an acre—here at Terhune Orchards. Using a technique developed by the Cooperative Extension Service at Rutgers, we planted the strawberries in August 1999. After preparing the soil by liming, fertilizing, plowing and disking, we made raised beds across the field with a trickle irrigation tube under the surface of each row and black plastic over the top.
Raised bed technology provides for better drainage and aeration of the soil. The black plastic warms the soil for faster and earlier growth and prevents weed competition without use of herbicides. The trickle tube waters the plants and can be used to add fertilizer if the plants should need it.
We planted our strawberries quite close—awful darn close, actually—six inches apart in a double row on the plastic strips making 17,000 plants in our one acre! Then in October, we covered the entire acre with white floating row cover. This cover is spun polyester weighing 0.9 ounces per square yard. It "floats" on top of the plants and provides protection from severe winter cold as well as spring frosts. In addition, the warm microclimate under the covers induces earlier fruiting. The cover will be pulled back before the strawberries bloom, but kept at the edge of the field for re-covering in the case of a spring frost when the blossoms are out. This past winter, you may have seen the white cloth covered field while driving down Cold Soil Rd.
All of this strawberry work has now resulted in an investment of about $6,500. However, the raised bed and close planting techniques "should" result in significant yield, size and quality this spring. As Pam says, I'm a sucker for technology. But I just couldn't pass up the prospect of a successful strawberry planting in only one year. (Traditional techniques take two years.) But keep in mind the quotes around the word "should". This is the first strawberry planting at Terhune Orchards. Without the new technology, our chances for success would be slim.
And Sweet Charlie? When we chose a variety to plant, we heard that "Chandler" gave the largest berries and that "Seneca" gave the top production per acre, but that Sweet Charlie was the best tasting. So towards the end of May, get ready for the opening of our pick-your-own berry patch. Check our web page, watch for our newspaper ads or call the farm. Our Sweet Charlies will be ready.
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Wombats and Kangaroos
by Gary Mount
This past February, Pam and I traveled in New Zealand and Australia for three weeks as part of a group of apple growers attending the International Dwarf Fruit Tree Association (IDFTA)'s annual conference. This organization of fruit growers, researchers and nurseries is dedicated to promoting fruit growing on compact or "dwarf" trees. Visitors to Terhune Orchards have noticed that we have very few of the twenty foot tall apple tree behemoths left—most of our trees are planted close together and do not get more than seven feet high. I learned the techniques of growing trees this way through my association with the IDFTA. In fact, I am now its longest serving board member and chair of the research committee. This New Zealand conference marked our first meeting outside of North America and was a great success! Not only did we have attendees from North America (260), including seven from New Jersey, but also New Zealanders and Australians took the opportunity to attend. Pam and I toured orchards and nurseries, attended meetings, and even got to have a look at the America's Cup racing. I was also thrilled to go on board a replica of the Endeavour, the ship used by my hero, Captain James Cook, in his Pacific explorations.
As far as apple growing goes, New Zealand's growing conditions are to die for. A very long growing season, moderate temperatures (not too cold in winter, nor too hot in summer), lots of intense sunlight, little rainfall but plentiful ground water, very few insect and disease pests, and fertile, well-drained soils. We were jealous of all this and of the reported quality and quantity of production (1600 to 2000 bushel/acre). But one counterpoint to the above made us still glad to be New Jersey farmers. New Zealand's population is quite small—3 to 4 million and growers must export most of their crop. New Zealand is a long, costly trip from anywhere and competition in the world market is very sharp.
Part of the conference included the meeting of the Research Committee. We awarded grants totaling $60,000 for research in dwarf fruit trees. Funding for this research comes from grower members of the association. One grant will be especially interesting to New Jersey's peach growers in that it funded research evaluating dwarf peach rootstocks—brought to the United States from other countries. This is a new development in peach growing and quite exciting to the industry. At Terhune Orchards, I have never been able to plant dwarf peach trees, only apple. The New Jersey State Horticultural Society has contributed to the research committee for many years.
After the conference, some 120 of us traveled through some of the fruit growing areas of Australia, starting with the island state of Tasmania and ending in Sydney. The whole point of touring an area so different from our own is not that we can bring all of their techniques home and use them here. Conditions are often too different. But instead it was of great interest to us to see how farmers in other areas meet the challenges of growing in their location.
In Tasmania, the fruit industry lost the entire market for its 10 million bushel crop when Great Britain joined the common market! For us it would be like closing off Cold Soil Road! Young Tasmanian growers are redirecting their crop to Asian markets—having replanted with sweeter varieties. We admired their enthusiasm.
In the Batlow area the Snowy Mountains of mainland Australia, apples grow to a quality unequaled anywhere. However, severe and frequent hailstorms threaten the profitability and continuance of the region. We were amazed at the tenacity and ingenuity of growers in erecting hail netting over large acreages.
We also saw an interesting solution to overpopulation of deer in both New Zealand and Australia. We saw thousands of acres of farms where deer are fenced in and raised for meat. Venison from "down under" is shipped all over the world. Deer have no natural predators in the two countries—something like our situation here in New Jersey. Without control, the deer population used to overrun the country.No more.
We ended our trip in Sydney. The warmth, friendliness and dynamism of the city's population make in easy to see that this year's Olympic games couldn't be in a better place. Attending a performance in the Sydney Opera House and joining our tour group for a farewell dinner cruise in Sydney Harbor are memories we will have forever.
And the wombats and kangaroos? Yes, they are there--in great numbers—and all that I had read about them is true.
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Raking Brush and Other Farm Chores
by Gary
Mount
One of the first farm jobs that I had as a boy was raking brush. This time-honored task seems to be particularly reserved for the children of fruit growers and for me came just after my stint at fixing boxes. That job, paid at 5 cents a box started at age ten and consisted of repairing (or in some cases, re-constructing) one and one-eighth bushel field crates used for harvest and storage of apples and one-bushel pie boxes used for reject apples that were not sufficient quality to make the first grade and thus were destined for processing into sliced apples, apple sauce or cider. I'm not quite sure whether my father had my brothers and I repair all those boxes over and over again just to save money or whether he was ensuring our minds and bodies were fully occupied. Maybe some of both - what do you think? Great was the day when I could leave behind the hundreds (thousands!) of boxes fixed and unfixed and work in the orchard raking brush.
On most apple farms, each tree is pruned every year. The cut branches fall to the ground and besides making the orchard look messy (heavens!), they get in the way of other orchard work (mowing, spraying, thinning and picking). This sets the stage for the orchardist's son (or some other equally lucky person) to rake the branches from under the trees with a pitchfork and pile them into rows between the trees. Prior to 1955 or so, common practice was to push all of this brush out of the orchard with a bull rake - an assemblage of long wooden forks that slide along the ground in front of and pushed by a tractor. Not only was the brush gotten out of the way, but diseased branches were also removed from the orchard. This, in an era before effective fungicides, was an important method of disease control.
When Pam and I purchased Terhune Orchards in 1975, one of the gems that came with the farm was a 1939 McCormick-Deering tractor, Model O-14 (The O stands for orchard - this make later became International Harvester). It was fitted with a bull rake and for several years I used it to push brush out of the orchard and into the pasture to be burned. This was always an exciting job because I would burn the brush as I worked and if the tractor stalled at the brush pile, the only way to start it again way by hand cranking!! With the pile of burning brush in front, it made for interesting work. (This tractor is now the one that children may drive. It's along the drive between the chicken pen and the pasture.)
These days I take care of most of the brush by driving over it with a large and very sturdy rotary mower. The chopped up branches then decay and return to the soil. Some pear and peach brush still needs to be removed from the orchard for disease control and I still have the bull rake in the barn. I'd be glad to show it to you sometime. Happy Farming!
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Water, Water - Not Everywhere
by Gary
Mount
The drought during the summer of 1999 made a lasting impression on me. Never in my 25 years of farming did I have to watch some of my crops die due to lack of water. Each year I plan and plant, with the expectation of harvesting crops later in the summer. There are lots of things that can happen to the crops. Too much rain, too much disease, hail, frost – little can be done about them. But a farmer can do something about a lack of water – irrigate. Supplying needed water to crops has allowed the United States to become the biggest agricultural producer in the world. Irrigation has made the Israeli desert bloom. But what about Cold Soil Road in central New Jersey?
My quest for more water began 23 years ago. Our life of farming had just started, and I realized the new dwarf apple trees that I was planting would need irrigation. Their root systems are small, and they do not thrive in a drought. I discovered that our farm well was actually capable of providing much more water than was needed for the house, Farm Store, and cider mill. In fact, it could yield 70 gallons per minute (gpm)! It is a remarkable well for this geographic area. In southern New Jersey, it is not unusual to find wells producing 800 to 1000 gallons per minute. The aquifers are plentiful and not far below the ground surface. In our area, 4 to 10 gallons per minute is more usual.
We installed trickle irrigation throughout the farm and have watered our fruits and vegetables from this well for over 20 years. But, as our farm expanded with our rental of adjacent land and with the growing of more intensive crops, our water need also increased. For example, to water our two acres of blueberries we use 40 gallons per minute. During a dry time, the