Crossway Farms

The peak of black raspberry season is here! We have an abundant supply of summer reds, too, and the recent rains have helped plump up the berries nicely. The picking is fairly easy for those who want to get black and red raspberries in the U-pick patch; or we have a daily supply of pre-picked — that’s first come first serve. If you are interested in either U-pick or pre-picked berries we recommend that you call the farm number (937-210-1590) to find out the supply for that day. We will have red raspberries through the rest of July and black raspberries for about one and a half weeks more.

We have plenty of red and green cabbage and snow peas, although next week will be the last of the snow peas. We will start picking green beans next week and maybe a few tomatoes toward the end of next week. After a slow start, we should have some yellow squash in a week or so. The peppers have an abundance of flowers and are setting fruit very well.
Angie and Debbie will have their baked goods at the Farmer’s Market and I have listed the items below.

Baked Goods: No Bake Cookies, Peanut Butter Fudge, White Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Fudge, Rice Krispy Treats, Lemon Bars, Frosted Cut-out Cookies, Oatmeal Cookies, Mini-Carrot Cakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, Hershey Kiss Cookies, Cinnamon Rolls and Pennsylvania Dutch Coffee Cakes.

Have a great weekend !!

Jason and Angela Frantom

Crossway Farms

We will be opening the U-pick red and black raspberry patch on Monday, June 25, 2007 at Cisco Rd. We have been picking some of both but only in small quantities. All of our red raspberry plants were damaged by the Easter freeze so they will produce less this year. The black raspberries are just coming on strong and we should have a good supply. But I do warn you : they sell out quickly and we are selling on a first come first serve basis. Our prices for both red and black raspberries are as follows: $3.50 per pint pre-picked and $2.50 per pound U-pick. We provide the pint containers for picking. We look for a peak picking time for black raspberries to be around July 1st. We will have berries downtown and at the Cisco Rd Market on Saturday, but as I said before they will go quickly.

This week we’ll have the last supply of our romaine and leaf lettuce. We have some nice Stonehead cabbage ready — about a 3 or 4 pound head. We also have plenty of snow peas this week. Believe it or not, I got to eat a ripe cherry tomato this week and more are on the way. I look for them in about a week and a half. The greeenhouse tomatoes are looking good but have not seen any ripening yet.

We did get some rain to help the pumpkins and gourds but we could soak up 2 inches real quick. The irrigation is still running 24/7, especially on the raspberries to keep the fruit growing.

Angie and Debbie will have their baked goods at the Farmer’s Market and I have listed the items below.
Baked Goods: No Bake Cookies, Peanut Butter Fudge, White Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Fudge, Rice Krispy Treats, Lemon Bars, Frosted Cut-out Cookies, Oatmeal Cookies, Mini-Carrot Cakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, Hershey Kiss Cookies, Cinnamon Rolls and Pennsylvania Dutch Coffee Cakes.

Have a great weekend !!

Jason and Angela Frantom

Well, our strawberries are done for another year, and now the raspberries are on their way in! The strawberry season was short and early, and though we are sad to see it end, we’re already planning for next year and will increase the size of our patch.

We have been picking red raspberries for about a week and are picking more each day. They are available to purchase at Cisco Rd. and we will have some at the farmer’s market. The black raspberries are slowly ripening and by next weekend we may be able to open the U-pick patch at Cisco Rd. The Easter freeze hurt the raspberries more than we thought, however, so the quantity and size of the berries are not as I had expected even one week ago. I will give you notice when the U-pick is open.

We will have leaf lettuce this weekend as well as some romaine throughout the coming week. Also we will have snow peas at the market as well.

We have been irrigating 24/7 and even then it has been tough to keep everything watered in this dry weather.
Our tomatoes are doing well in the greenhouse and it looks as if we will have some mature before or around July 4th. Our outside tomatoes are flowering and setting fruit as are the peppers. We will have cabbage late next week.

Angie and Debbie will have their baked goods at the Farmer’s Market and I have listed the items below.

Have a great weekend !!

Jason and Angela Frantom

Baked Goods: No Bake Cookies, Peanut Butter Fudge, White Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Fudge, Rice Krispy Treats, Lemon Bars, Frosted Cut-out Cookies, Oatmeal Cookies, Mini-Carrot Cakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, Hershey Kiss Cookies, Cinnamon Rolls and Pennsylvania Dutch Coffee Cakes.

We received more than two inches of rain this past weekend, which helped take some of the pressure off the irrigation system…at least for a while. We’ve kept busy weeding — in between picking strawberries and trellising tomatoes. Some of our peppers just got planted this past week into the black plastic and are doing well. The zucchini and squash plants have had a slow start this year, so they’ll show up a little later than usual at the market.

We apologize to those of you who came to the market and couldn’t get any strawberries this past week. The demand has been MUCH greater than we ever expected. Weather issues held back production a little too, even with the new patch on Cisco Rd. We are picking fewer and fewer strawberries every day, so please call before you drive out to the farm. We have already ordered the new strawberry plants for this year and will double our production on Cisco Rd.

Our Red Raspberries will start to mature next week, and I will send an email out to let you know when they are ready. The Black Raspberries are loaded this year and I look for them to be ready the third or fourth week of June.

At the Sidney Farmers Market this week we will have spinach, leaf lettuce, and bibb lettuce, as well as Angie and Debbie’s baked goods, which are listed below. We will not have strawberries at the Sidney Farmers Market this week. Any strawberries we have for Saturday will be at the Cisco Rd. location at 10 A.M. Have a great weekend !!

Jason and Angela Frantom, Crossway Farms

Baked Goods for Saturday, June 9: No Bake Cookies, Peanut Butter Fudge, White Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Fudge, Rice Krispy Treats, Lemon Bars, Frosted Cut-out Cookies, Oatmeal Cookies, Mini-Carrot Cakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, Hershey Kiss Cookies, Cinnamon Rolls and Pennsylvania Dutch Coffee Cakes.

What a busy week! Keeping up with full-production strawberries and irrigation has made for some long days. The strawberries are earlier this year and with the heat will probably not last as long as they have in the past years. Our first-year u-pick patch has not been as productive as we had hoped, but next year should be better with more growth and new plantings that have already been ordered. I look for strawberry harvest to only last for another 10 to 15 days. However, the red raspberries should be near maturity by that time, and our black raspberries are setting fruit very well. I look for their harvest to start in the late June to early July time frame.

We have been trellising our tomato plants in the greenhouse as some of them are nearly 4 feet tall. Our outside tomatoes are nearly ready for trellising as well and are setting fruit. We have quite a few tomatoes with golfball-size fruit in the greenhouse and hope to have some yellow cherry and early girl tomatoes ready before July 4th. The heat has been hard on our lettuce but we will have fresh spinach at the market this weekend.

We will be at the Sidney Farmers Market this Saturday with a limited supply of strawberries and the fresh spinach. We hope to see you there!

Jason and Angie