Twin Springs Fruit Farm

Paul, Monica, and Itzel are all set up now at the Mt. Vernon market, ready to rock. Come grab your last minute groceries in the fresh air. Marty and crew will be set up shortly at the Concord St. Andrews Church as well (at intersection of River Rd and Goldsboro).

First pic shows Rowan running through our super healthy planting of #KALETTES... we’ll finally have them at market this weekend! Also available is our delicious and nutritious celery. Rowan and Jesse are pictured taking a peak under the row covers to see how it fared with the freezing temperatures midweek. Still good but the majority was harvested prior to the dip to be on the safe side. Jesse was also out pulling down the branches of the fig trees, so he could cover them wi...th the row covers. Another big project before the freeze was to winterize the irrigation system. All the water was drained out of the pipes to hopefully not have to fix them in the spring. Last photo is Tom in a tractor filling a hopper with wood chips, a carbon neutral fuel for our state of the art biomass furnace, which heats all 4 large and one small (transplant) greenhouses. More details and some recipes in the newsletter http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render See more

It been a while but we want to let you know this is the first week of our GoldRush crop being ripe, and they are fabulous, crisp and tart, and oh so flavorful. First pic shows Fermin picking; with the big rain coming there was a hard push to get apples off to avoid splitting. Next, newly formed garlic bed followed by the start of mounting solar panels on the warehouse roof. The fleeing deer is the culprit of the fence damage in the photos to follow. Deer cost farmers a huge a...mount in crops and headaches. Above is one which got inside the deer fence we put around a strawberry patch. A couple of deer can browse off a lot of plants, especially in a new planting, where every leaf counts. So Rowan and Jesse got to patching up the fence with some blue baling twine. As ubiquitous around the farm as duct tape. Something always needs a quick repair. Lastly is the obligatory fall foliage vista with blueberry bushes in the foreground. Click on Aubrey’s newsletter below for detailed list of the fall bounty you’ll see at market this week! http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render See more

Plentiful, gorgeous Broccoli this weekend! It is as nice as it has ever been, and there will be plenty on loads for the week ahead, and Michael has it listed, by the head, on the pre-order page on our website. This is the time of year for all of the Brassicas which we raise, and the slightly cool evenings have made it all the more sweet and flavorful. Fall is also the time when our planting of Brussels Sprouts and the Kalettes, a new, much talked about in the press, superfood, which is a cross between kale and Brussels sprouts mature. Both are looking good and are only a couple of weeks away. New this week are purple and yellow carrots; the red are about two weeks away. We are also still pulling leeks as they mature.

Strawberry planting this week First off you see a few of the 52,000 plants still on the wagon followed by the empty beds with fertigation lines. Then the planting: Fernando on the tractor pulls the planter with two of the crew on the planter itself, and a couple of guys going along to the side "setting" the plants at the proper depth, and covering the roots with soil when needed. You can see the guys pulling the individual plants from their trays, and placing them in... the holes made by the green wheels you see between them. They are staggered for ideal spacing. You'll notice both white and black mulch. We use both so that the season may be stretched on either end. In Spring the soil under the black mulch will warm up much faster than that under white, tending to make the berries grown on black, bear earlier, perhaps by as much as 10 days. After the planting, Rowan and Jesse work on buttoning up irrigation. Lastly, those planted a few weeks ago are growing just fine, but need a bit of TLC. The sooner you pull a weed the better off both the plants and the grower will be. If you let it go too long the hole would fill up with the weed and you would damage the strawberry plant trying to pull it out. After the plants have grown out enough to actually flower we snip those off. The last thing you want in the weeks after planting a Spring bearing strawberry seedling is for it to grow fruit. You want all the plant's energy to go into growing the plant itself. Newsletter http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render

Sweet figs! The first photo shows what you want to see in a ripe one, some cracking on the bottom; it shows the fruit is ready to be picked, rather than that it is defective. Small white dots are actually sugar dried up, and you can see some sugar syrup oozing out of the one pictured! Limited numbers this weekend as the planting is still young. We’ll have lots of grapes, however! The red ones pictured are Vanessa grapes, while the following is a shot of our Mars grapes, n...ew this week, a seedless Concord derived slipskin grape. They are quite delicious and will remind you of the grape juice flavor of your childhood. The blossoms are eggplant and cucumber respectively. Then the next set of celery plants ready to be planted. Followed by the recently planted carrots really taking off, note the irrigation line in the foreground, a real life saver in a summer like this one. Lastly, a pair of truly vine-ripened beefsteak tomatoes. Find the link to our newsletter below. This week, Aubrey features customer feedback for which we are very grateful and steps we are taking to correct course http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render

BLACKBERRY SALE! $55 for a flat of 12 pints. Also GRAPES We are going to be picking from three varieties this first week: * Vanessa produces medium-sized clusters of bright deep red berries with moderate bloom, firm flesh, and crisp texture. Flavor is mildly aromatic and is considered among the best of red seedless grapes.... * Himrod is a white table grape, released in 1952 by the New York Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York. It is seedless and known for ripening quickly and its sweet flavor. Himrod is considered very productive and reliable. Himrod resulted from a cross of Ontario by Thompson Seedless, a particularly successful cross. Grown for its clusters of small, entirely seedless, crispy sweet, early season fruit that turns golden yellow when fully ripe in the summer. Excellent for fresh eating as a sweet dessert grape. * Jupiter has large clusters of large, reddish-blue berries with mild muscat flavor. Non-slipskin with crisp flesh texture, a reddish-blue colored, seedless grape with a mild Muscat flavor. It is a non-slipskin type, skins are relatively thin and fruit cracking is not common. The individual berries are relatively large as are the clusters. Although termed a seedless grape it may occasionally produce a noticeable, soft seed trace. The vine is moderately vigorous and has moderate resistance to common fungal diseases. This vine is one of the hardier Arkansas cultivars.

This week’s gallery: First off is Tom checking up on the trays of broccoli seedlings hardening off, ready of be planted. Followed by Arturo watering the plants, which you can see being planted later that afternoon. The picture of the bare-looking field is really the main crop of carrots that Jesse just seeded - 61 rows, 21,000 row feet, 20,000 seeds per row - potentially 1.200,000 carrots. The dark soil is the irrigation running to dampen the just planted seeds. He took t...he next photo and commented that you can just about see all 22,000 Brussels sprout plants from here. In the greenhouse you see the fall tomato crop ready to be attached to the baling twine hanging down followed by a picture of the sachets of predator insects. Biocontrol of pests, along with pollination by bumblebees - nature taking care of things in there for us! You can see it up close hanging on the young tomato plant in the trough and also on the young eggplant. Lastly, Rowan cooling down with a cucumber. Check out the newsletter link for all things tomato ! http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render

Time for canning and sauce making! Vine-ripened tomatoes on sale at Twin Springs Fruit Farm. Order now for easy market pick up, or stop by on Sunday to get yours. Read more here: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render

Fantastic Freestone Peaches, peak of the season! And it’s National Farmers’ Market Week! Check out this week’s newsletter for a look into how Twin Springs started out with farmers’ markets. Also, some awesome summer recipes. http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render

It’s officially melon season! The four varieties we grow are Christmas Melon (lambkin, what Rowan is picking), Canary, Sugar Cube (a small personal cantaloupe), and Sarah’s Choice cantaloupe. After the melons is a photo of the fall carrots emerging. Unlike last year the seed hasn't been badly washed away by a severe storm. Let's all keep our fingers crossed. We ran out of carrots early last winter due to those storms. Then you’ll see the Brussels sprouts growing nicely (note... the butterfly ). Also a just planted celery seedling that you’ll notice by its distinct leaves. You can see some light pruning done to make them hardier, sturdier, as well as easier to plant. Also, a big crop of blackberries is just around the corner! Last pic is Rowan enjoying the fruits of her labor. Link to full newsletter http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render

This week’s gallery: first off you see garlic as it lays on top of the soil drying out after being pulled. It has been gathered and further dried in lugs in the greenhouse. It will be available everywhere this weekend, and is also offered online. Next in photos is Daniel and Steve repairing leaks in trickle lines in the leeks. Note the gushing water! Followed by Jesse pouring gravel over buried pipe, and then Jesse and Rowan inspecting his work. Color is beginning to appear ...in Jupiter grapes since last week. A good percentage of the fruit, with all the current dryness, is too small for our sales. They are, of course, perfectly fine, and will find good homes through various food pantries in Adams County. In these tough times it behooves us all to not waste food, and we are very grateful that there is organized gleaning in our area. Everyone you see in the second and third to last photos is a volunteer, out in some pretty hot and sticky weather, working for their less fortunate neighbors. Last pic is the grandkids picking blueberries. Full newsletter http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render

We did our first ever Nectarine Glean this week at Twin Springs Fruit Farm! We collected over 400 lbs of these delicious fruits and we can’t wait to share them... with you! Many thanks to David at Twin Springs Fruit Farm #nectarineglean2020 #freshfruit #healthyadamscounty

Picking up 350 lbs of peaches, 80 lbs of nectarines & 60 lbs of blueberries from Twin Springs Fruit Farm because to make the best fruit pie, you need the best fruit. #locallysourced #Summerpie #eatmorepie

This week’s gallery: You’ll see developing grapes, white nectarines and blackberries. Shallots ready for harvest. A wagon full of the last planting of melons (and Rowan). The Sugar Cube melon is a couple weeks out and a butternut winter squash putting on size, but a good way from being harvestable. The developing fruits are loving this dry, hot weather as long as it is getting irrigated. Jesse and Michael have spent a lot of time and money, in the last few years, with havi...ng wells drilled, burying pipe and wiring, installing controllers and valves, preparing for just such a season as this one is becoming. Jesse has it running, as much as possible, on all bearing berries, but even most of our peaches are now getting well water pumped through lines with emitters. We’re having to dig up some of the irrigation lines for repairs; problems tend to show up when the system is under stress. For full scoop on what’s at market and how to order, check out our newsletter: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render

Flats of Red/black raspberries for preorder online. Purple carrots at market. Squash blossoms being pollinated in the field. Brussels sprouts planting for days. Field tomatoes and Jesse making beds for the next ones. And Rowan, happy about her peach/ black raspberry popsicle. Check out newsletter for details http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render

Feeling very much like July in South Central PA! Come see us at market this weekend to celebrate the 4th and the gifts from the earth. We’ll be at all our regular locations with a bounty of produce! Our newsletter has the details, check out the What’s at Market section at the bottom: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render