Free Republic

It was an overnight operation under the darkest skies in New Jersey, where lone house lights were acres away on deserted country two-laners. Grant Stiles, the beekeeper, moved quickly from truck to forklift, dropping boxed colonies of bees along the flat, dirt roads of Variety Farms in Hammonton. The land is not barren; it is populated by rows of blueberry shrubs. But they were off in the dark. The only ground light was from the forklift lights, which illuminated the air-borne particles of gray farm-road dust. Stiles and his helper, Victor Ferrer, were in white suits, and his helper wore...

HAMMONTON -- Jack Tomasello has not slept well in months, not since the summer’s torrential rains swept through his sprawling Hammonton vineyard. In its wake, the rains left behind acres of grapes now cloaked in deadly fungus. Desperate to salvage the crops, Tomasello, who runs the state’s largest winery with his brother, has risen at daybreak each morning to inspect and spray fungicide on the 70 acres of Cabernet, Riesling and Chardonnay grapes. Even so, with just a few weeks left in the harvest, the winery will most likely reap less than half of last year’s 215 tons, when weather...

<p>Under a steel-gray sky, workers waded through the swirling mosaic of red, pink, and yellow cranberries at a Burlington County bog last week as wide-eyed onlookers snapped photos. A year’s worth of labor had come down to this moment, when the Lee family and its helpers, filled with excitement and a sense of urgency, began the autumn harvest ritual.</p>

When he pushed away from computer screens three years ago and turned to clearing and planting open ground, Pedro Guimaraes wasn’t just buying the organic precepts of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) or finding new avenues for small farms rooted in local economies. He was following a passion and finding a better way to live. "Working in an office, I used to have a lot of migraines, the bad headaches," he says. "Once I started working on a farm, I had very few. It’s not good for my head, being in front of a computer. Being outdoors improves your health." This...

I thought it would be a smart way to cut household expenses during these challenging economic times: forage for free food in parks, woodlots and along roadsides. In the past month, I've found three black walnut trees, with large, heavy nuts lying right on the ground while I was walking the dog, hunting for squirrels and watching my kids run in cross- country meets. I've found, however, that there are several downsides to collecting all these tons of free protein just lying around the state every autumn: 1) You may wind up with a bunch of maggots squirming around in...

A rare wildflower never before seen in the Garden State has been discovered in a forest in northwest New Jersey, state officials said Thursday. The fern-leaf scorpion-flower, or Phacelia bipinnatifida, was found on the forest floor and adjacent rock outcrops in the natural area at Whittingham Wildlife Management Area in Sussex County, a botanically rich location already home to 22 other endangered or threatened plants. "The amazing discovery of this beautiful wildflower underscores the importance of the work we are doing to thoroughly inventory the natural treasures that exist within hundreds of thousands of state-owned lands," said Lisa Jackson, commissioner...

-snip- Consumers may have to look harder and pay more for their fresh berries. But it's good news for New Jersey farmers, who will get paid a premium for their crop. "I heard through the co-op that there's a demand," said Sam Moore, a cranberry farmer in Tabernacle. "I hope it continues." Moore's farm, like many others in the Pine Barrens of South Jersey, is part of a national farming cooperative that supplies Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., and other companies with hundreds of millions of pounds of fresh cranberries annually. New Jersey accounts for 7 percent of the crop, behind...

When it came time to decide what to do with his family's Christmas tree farm in Monroe Township, Thomas Allen didn't have a lot of options. His grown children had no interest in the business, and Allen couldn't work the land while holding down his full-time job supervising town recreation. The farm in Middlesex County, where Christmas trees have been sold for 40 years, didn't generate enough profit to provide his sole income. So Allen did what so many farmers in New Jersey before him have done. He sold his land to developers. As farmers like Allen leave the cut-your-own...

Charlie Fisher guided the copper pole into the still pond and poked around. Within seconds, a steady stream of bubbles began to rise, showing signs of life from the spring below. "This is ready to be something special," said Fisher. "It's going to be a great resource." The spring, which on Tuesday afternoon had a healthy coating of a mosslike substance and was clogged with fallen leaves in various autumnal hues, and another just like it on the 43-acre Hunterdon County farm are probably Fisher's last chance to preserve the land. His hope: Going into the bottled water business. Fisher...

Of all the yaks lumbering around Edelweiss Farms, No. 49 was never going to win the Miss Congeniality award. She could often be seen walking alone, away from the herd. Her farmer, Dirk Milz, described her as having an "I'm the yak and this is it" mentality. She was the yak who took no flak. "You need two eyes on her," Milz said. Even so, no signs indicated she was capable of trouble -- until a baby yak named No. 85 came along. What came next is believed to be the first yak attack in Garden State history. It unfolded...

 Joe Silvestri, owner of Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff, with Pennsylvania-raised turkeys destined for Thanksgiving dinner tables. Thousands of families across North Jersey will eat Thanksgiving dinner with a real local flavor -- with fresh-killed turkeys from Wyckoff, rutabagas from an organic farm in Emerson and Jersey-grown cranberries and squash.  "Thanksgiving is the perfect time for sharing locally grown foods with friends and family," says Carol Rice, a Ridgewood resident who has been trying to "eat local" to support area farmers for about five years. "Isn't that what the holiday has always been about?"Thanksgiving dinner done local is...

The wind schusses through the grove of tall trees, rustling their soft, bright green needles that, strangely enough, are the color of inchworms. The morning sun spills down through the branches, casting the glade in a pale green light, a hue unlike anything the visitors have ever seen. These metasequoia trees -- all 360 of them -- are living fossils, the lonely representatives of a species that once filled the forests of the Americas, Europe and Asia when dinosaurs roamed the Earth more than 60 million to 100 million years ago. The stand of trees, located on a Rutgers University...

It's little wonder that peach growers throughout New Jersey are wearing big smiles these days.  Mother Nature has provided ideal conditions for what is shaping up as a banner year for one of the state's premier crops. Barring extreme weather in the next four to six weeks, New Jersey peach growers should approach last year's totals of 34,000 tons and $35.7 million, said Jerry Frecon, an agricultural agent specializing in fruit at the Rutgers Cooperative Extension in Gloucester County. Fast facts •  Approximately 150 producers grow 8,000 acres of peaches in New Jersey.•  In 2006, New Jersey produced 34,000...

The tree, like the man who planted it, is still here. The 200-year-old house is gone, the old southern Somerset County farm has been turned into some 200 new houses. But the sugar maple tree Charlie Grayson planted on Arbor Day when he was 8 is right where he put it. A little stooped and creaky, like Charlie Grayson himself, but still here. Charlie Grayson's tree has weathered nearly nine decades of change in the landscape. Once the smallest tree in a clump of mature shade trees in front of a Colonial- era farmhouse (circa 1700s), it's now the old-timer...

At the Weis Ecology Center in Ringwood, trees are tapped in February and March. When the trees bud, the sap turns bitter. See those wide-spreading trees with the broad leaves that are bigger than your hands? The ones whose seeds helicopter down into your lawn every spring?  They're maples. And even here in North Jersey, they're full of that sweet sap, which can be boiled down into what is rightfully called liquid gold: pure, clean, bright maple syrup.   "New Jersey's is every bit as good as syrup from Vermont," said Candice Stockdale, an environmental educator at the New Jersey...

There is nothing better than going to a farm for all-natural food. The air is crisp, despite the occasional whiff of cow manure, and the two-lane blacktop is winding and scenic. But the real enjoyment comes in the following days, when cave-aged cheese, wood-fired bread, organic eggs and meat from grass-fed animals brighten your meals at home.  Small farms in Morris and Sussex counties are close enough for comfortable day trips, but given that cozy inns, restaurants, antiques shops, parks and wineries are nearby, you can easily stretch your visit into a weekend.Routes 80 and 23 will speed you to...

Fifteen years ago, Irwin Richardt was asked this question as he sat in the kitchen of his sagging clapboard house with no heat, little plumbing and only one room with electricity. "Who will take care of you when you get too sick or too old to work?" "My neighbors. That's the way God intended it to be." Richardt said this with absolute confidence. It was how the old farmer spoke. In slogans and dogmatic truths. Strong words from a slight, soft-eyed man with a thinning white ponytail. The question was asked as Richardt explained why he chose to live like...

Multimedia: Making apple cider(please enable pop-ups to see the gallery)Doris Heddy remembers when apple cider was the drink of choice each autumn.  Years ago, it was the most popular drink, but now there are choices that are unbelievable," she said, referring to an ever-growing soda and bottled water market.  Heddy owns Van Duyne's Cider Mill in Montville, the remnants of a large farm that dates back to the late 18th century. Every year, from late September until April, she sells thousands of gallons of fresh apple cider, pressed from apples trucked in from Mellick's Orchard in Oldwick.  "Doris has a...

Amid the squirrels and jays pouncing on acorns early this fall was 10-year-old Junior Girl Scout Amanda Diacont. As Tropical Storm Ernesto whipped the white oaks around her family's vacation campsite near Cape May, Amanda poked out of her canvas tent and swept falling acorns into empty milk jugs, working to earn her Inchworm of Service badge by contributing to the state Forest Service annual acorn collection. She filled 2 1/2 containers. "Every five minutes we would go out and get some more," said Amanda, who is from Ringoes, Hunterdon County. "I probably could have filled 10-ish, but my mom...

Emilio Camacho and Jennifer Caruso could hardly be more different. He's a migrant worker from El Paso, Texas. She's a home-schooling mother from Hightstown. What they have in common is Honey Brook Organic Farm in Mercer County, the nation's largest practitioner of an increasingly popular business model called community-supported agriculture. Camacho and his family are the field crew, the backbone of the 60-acre farm. During the growing season they till the fields and pull the weeds, commuting from a rented house in Trenton. Caruso and 2,986 other New Jersey and Pennsylvania residents are the farm's members. Their checks fill its...