No extreme weather means good start for Jersey Fresh

The vast farmlands of southern New Jersey are not what people — those outside of agriculture, at least — think of when they think of New Jersey. But it should be. For this Northeastern state, June’s harvest is like the overflowing horn of plenty you normally see in Thanksgiving decorations. 

“Everything is in season,” said Chelsea Consalo, vice president of produce operations at Consalo Family Farms, Egg Harbor City, N.J., and The Fresh Wave distribution and shipping center, Vineland, N.J. By mid-May, her family’s farms had local New Jersey arugula, beets, spinach, kale, cilantro, swiss chard, leeks, radish, parsley, mint and lettuce.  Consalo said she’s optimistic about the volume of blueberries that should be ready to harvest by about June 13 or 14. The 2021 season started in April, mirroring 2020 with the same crops beginning first: spinach, cilantro and kale, she said. The company also grows other wet vegetables, other herbs, cooking greens, salad items, eggplant, pepper and squash. In 2021, Consalo Family Farms increased volume on parsley, cilantro and beets. 

The state’s top vegetables by production value are bell peppers, asparagus, summer squash, spinach, sweet corn, tomatoes and cucumbers. As for fruit, blueberries, cranberries and peaches are the highest earners, although much of the cranberry crop is processed. More bell peppers, cranberries and squash were harvested in 2020 compared to 2019, while the other top commodities — blueberries, peaches, asparagus and spinach — stayed the same or dropped acreage, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2020 State Agriculture Overview for New Jersey.

For this 2021 season, the peach crop is looking particularly rosy. “We are expecting a significantly larger volume of peaches this year, and other crops are on schedule for their normal harvest,” said New Jersey Department of Agriculture Secretary Douglas Fisher. Besides blueberries, cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini should be ready for harvest by mid-June. With the warm March, some South Jersey growers began shipping volume in early to mid-April, he said. Cooler temperatures in the northern part of the state were expected, and those growers typically start in May. Some crops may start a little earlier with projected warmer weather in the last 10 days of May.

Glassboro, N.J.-based Sunny Valley International, marketer for the Jersey Fruit Cooperative, has been fortunate so far this year, said Tom Beaver, director of sales and marketing. The cooperative includes nine family-owned commercial blueberry operations and two family-owned, multi-generational stone fruit growers. Sunny Valley also sells for Elmer, N.J.-based Larchmont Farms, which has 1,000 acres of orchards. Sunny Valley ships New Jersey blueberries from mid-June through early August, and markets New Jersey stone fruit from July through mid-September. “We are expecting an outstanding stone fruit crop. We had ample chill hours over the winter, avoided late frost and have so far not been impacted by any adverse weather. The situation is the same for our blueberry crop,” Beaver said. Blueberry quality looks great too, he said. Sunny Valley expects to ship almost 650,000 cartons of blueberries and more than 700,000 cartons of stone fruit, including yellow- and white-flesh peaches and nectarines. That’s more volume than last year, due mostly to unseasonably cool spring temperatures, Beaver said.

Mother Nature evened out the weather this year, said Bill Nardelli, president and owner of Nardelli Bros. Inc. and Lake View Farms, Cedarville, N.J. “It turned warm initially very early, and everybody got excited. A week or two later, then it turned cool again and remained unseasonably cool for a while. When you get ground temps in low 50s, crops are slower moving,” Nardelli said. “Now, it’s warming up, and we have traditional warmer spring weather, and then next week or so it’s extremely warm.” While there’s been no extreme weather such as hail or too much rain, Nardelli Bros. had to apply irrigation to every commodity to combat extremely dry weather for a couple of weeks in May, he said.
“That’s been a challenge,” Nardelli said, “but we have had beautiful season for quality, beautiful lettuce, leeks, beets, parsley, cilantro and some of the prettiest asparagus for South Jersey — a beautiful green. That’s a big thing for us.” All in all, Nardelli’s spring and summer crops should be just about on time, maybe a few days or a week late on some commodities.  “But what we have harvested, quality has been exceptional,” he said. The company, run by Nardelli and his two sons, Bill Jr. and Jimmy, grows summer, spring and fall crops.