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Reprinted from February 2017 • Vol. 47, No. 2

Jim Kinsel and Sherry Dudas of Honey Brook Organic Farm

by TAMARA SCULLY

Since its inception 25 years ago, Honey Brook Organic Farm has led the way sustainable farmers in New Jersey. From innovative farmland so-lutions to a focus on affordability, farmer Jim Kinsel and wife Sherry Dudas, who serves as farm manager, marketing coordinator and commu-nity outreach representative, built a profitable certified organic farm by putting their community first. With 3,950 shares sold in 2016, some of which are split between several peo-ple, the roughly 4,000 members speak to the farm’s success.

Honey Brook Organic Farm be-gan in 1991, when Kinsel took the experience gained from working on other farms and struck out on his own

leased parcel. From the beginning, Honey Brook was a certified organ-ic, community supported agriculture farm. The farm was the first certified organic CSA in New Jersey, and at one time it was the largest in the na-tion. It remains the largest certified organic CSA on the East Coast and is currently the third largest in the nation, with two larger on the West Coast, according to Dudas. The farm grows more than 60 crops, with more than 350 varieties, many of which are unusual or heirloom selections.

The farm consists of 120 acres spread across four parcels. Two par-cels of farmland, located in Ches-terfield Township, are owned, and two parcels in Pennington are rented. The acreage owned by the couple is preserved farmland. Some of the

leased land is privately held and in the Farm-land Preservation Pro-gram as well.

The remainder of the leased land is owned by

the nonprofit Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association.

The farm demonstrates that nonprofit environmental groups and farmers can work together to achieve their common goals, while producing nutri-tious food. This emphasis on conser-vation goes hand in hand with certi-fied organic practices, fulfilling their mission of farming in a manner that enhances the community, protects the land and nourishes consumers with healthy food.

GROWING CONDITIONSThe leased farms, 90 acres located

in Pennington, have been joined by the purchased land, which is located about half an hour away. The loca-tion of the purchased farmland was a strategic move. Chesterfield has been a leader in New Jersey’s Farmland Preservation program, and the first farmland preserved in the state now belongs to Honey Brook. The Ches-terfield land was not certified organic, and had to undergo the three-year transition period. The CSA’s first crop was harvested in 2010.

Growing CommunityOrganic Farm Supports Large CSA

Accurate farm records — acres planted to each crop and variety, planting and harvest dates, production issues and the amount of each harvested and put into the CSA shares — help in planning the next season’s production.

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The Chesterfield farmland has a different climate, with different soil types than the Pennington land, which is an asset to crop production. The Chesterfield farmland provides an ex-tra week or two of growing time on either end of the season. Its sandy soils warm up more readily.

Pennington’s silty loam is a red shale-based soil, found at Jefferson’s Monticello and in much of Pennsyl-vania. In Chesterfied, more clay-type soils, along with a 7A USDA plant hardiness zone, make it a bit milder. Pennington is in the 6B zone, but the farms are located in a “frost pocket,” where conditions are more akin to 6A conditions about 50 miles north, Kinsel said.

Some pests that thrive in nearby Pennington have yet to make an ap-pearance here, such as flea beetles, Kinsel said, which are a serious on-going issue in Pennington. In Ches-terfield, leaf hoppers, affecting beets, beans and potatoes, are a prominent pest.

Cucumber beetles are one serious issue in Pennington, so cucurbits are rotated farm to farm to try to break the lifecycle. Likewise, flower thrips in onions required the crop be rotated to Chesterfield. After a few growing seasons, enough to disrupt the pest, crops can be moved back.

“Rotation within a 60-acre farm is not as effective as rotating between four farms that are anywhere between 2 and 15 miles apart,” said Kinsel. “We do kind of tailor some crops to specific areas,” due to differences in soils, disease pressures and climate.

Several years ago, when the brown marmorated stink bug became a con-cern, the fields were swarming with the insects, and it “seemed like an unstoppable scourge,” said Kinsel. Luckily, they’ve had no issues since that first year. Kinsel doesn’t know why, but anecdotally has seen a large increase in the praying mantis popula-tion and wonders if there could be a connection.

Another isolated issue was tobacco mosaic virus, which attacked the to-matoes after some of the staff were sneaking smoke breaks and inadver-tently affected the crop. A few rows were hardest hit, leaving early fruit

unmarketable, although only about 5 percent of the field suffered this se-verely. Heirloom varieties were “least affected,” probably due to latent dis-ease resistance, Kinsel hypothesized.

Pest and disease pressures are dealt with via crop rotations, building healthy soil microbiomes and plant fertility. Buffer zones to support ben-eficial insects, along with release of these beneficials, help control disease-causing insect pests. Trichogramma wasps are released to combat Europe-an corn borers, a problem in peppers and sweet corn. Approved OMRI-certified protectants are used to keep crops marketable when pressures are high. Bacillus thuringiensis, Entrust spi-nosad for cabbage lopper control and several other products are used if needed to prevent crop damage.

“Growing over time, based on your experience, you can identify what crops are going to be prone to disease or pest problems,” and develop strat-egies to cope with persistent issues, Kinsel said. “It’s really just a handful

of pests. You do have to get the fertil-ity right and keep ahead of any pest issues.”

Disease issues of note are cucur-bit downy mildew and basil downy mildew. Rotation is key for this per-sistent disease concern, which Kinsel describes as “difficult, but not impos-sible,” to control.

Basil downy mildew has caused them to stop all field production of basil and move it indoors to closed high tunnels. They grow basil on black plastic mulch, as heat helps to suppress the mildew. They are able to grow the basil in this manner and to have “good quality basil through mid-August, from one planting.”

BUILDING SOIL & CROP HEALTHNew to the farm is assistant farm

manager Louis Geri. Geri brings his experience and passion for biologi-cally activated fertilizer and disease-suppressive sprays to the farm’s grow-ing practices. Geri focuses on building the soil microbiome — bacteria, fungi

A Honey Brook Organic Farm CSA member at the Pennington distribution center. The CSA has nearly 4,000 members.

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and other microorganisms — through the application of brewed sprays.

These brewed formulations are “very effective as a biofungicide,” said Geri. They change the soil biosphere so there is “no room for pathogenic microorganisms.”

Geri brews with molasses or pel-leted chicken manure and can tailor the resulting product to adjust the available nutrients to a specific crop’s need. He can also use a variety of ni-trogen sources, such as soybean meal or seaweed, to increase the available nitrogen. The ability to adjust the nitrogen available for the growing season promotes healthy crop growth. This customization of fertility allows the farm to keep the cost of inputs low, adding only what is needed for optimal soil and plant health.

The products can be applied via drip irrigation or overhead fertigation, after being filtered. As the need arises throughout the growing season, more product can be utilized, formulas are adjusted and crop and soil fertility optimized.

Geri is also expanding the farm’s use of biological controls, via strate-gic releases of beneficial insects and increasing buffer zone habitat. This should help to suppress pathogenic insect issues.

Soil health is additionally enhanced via the use of green manure crops and tailored compost applications. The Pennington fields are enhanced with leaves collected from the municipal-ity and composted. Because the land has been farmed for many years, the phosphorus level needs to be closely watched. The leaf-derived composts have significant amounts of other nutrients, but negligible phosphorus levels.

Animal-based manures are com-paratively high in phosphorus. Horse manure and sawdust bedding are uti-lized as soil amendments at the Ches-terfield location, helping to build soil fertility.

Both locations are seeing an in-crease in the use of cover crops. A focus on fitting cover crops into the rotation schedule has led them to reverse their normal crop locations this season. In order to plant a green manure crop in Pennington, the sum-

mer crops normally grown here were moved to Chesterfield.

Cover crop mixes include cow peas, sorghum-Sudangrass and sun-hemp. Sunhemp is tall, leafy and dense, Kinsel said, and adds an “in-credible amount of biomass” to the fields. The green manure crops are typically disked into the fields.

The farm also undertakes multi-year rotations to optimize fields for continued crop production. Rye and vetch are broadcast in the fall and al-lowed to go to seed the next spring. Sorghum-Sudangrass is then broad-cast as the rye and vetch are mowed and packed down, allowing the grass to germinate. In the fall, the grass is mowed and provides a mulch layer for the rye and vetch to reseed and germinate for a second season before being terminated and incorporated.

Irrigation is accomplished via farm ponds and well water. Weed control is via flame weeding, the use of plastic mulch, mechanical cultivation and hand weeding. Basic equipment, such as tractors and sprayers, is kept at both the Pennington and Chesterfield loca-tions, although specialized equipment is shared and moved. Equipment for the farms is primarily sourced from Europe, such as a baby greens har-vester and several cultivators.

“The scale of operations is smaller there,” said Kinsel.

NEW DIMENSIONSHoney Brook Organic Farm is

expanding in new directions. The couple wants to explore other farming options, and their members are seek-ing unique products. Owning their own land has allowed them to diver-sify. They’ve chosen a unique way to do so, adding high tunnel tree fruit, as well as perishable nut crops.

They have added small fruits, with blueberries, blackberries and raspber-ries. Fall raspberries were not particu-larly successful, primarily due to the flame weeding schedule. Just as the new canes were emerging, so were the weeds, which clearly wasn’t going to work in the raspberries.

Perishable nuts — primarily chest-nuts — were selected as a new crop, rather than storable, commodity nut crops. The Asian chestnut orchard is

about 3/4 of an acre in size, and is planted in a high-density system.

“The fact that it is perishable would make it suitable for a small farm,” Kinsel said of selecting the chestnut.

The chestnuts, along with some tree fruit, were planted about two years ago. American and Asian per-simmons, hardy kiwi and pawpaws are planted in open fields, in a 1-acre high density orchard, along with some dwarf apple trees, planted on Bud 9 rootstock.

The farm also has four 200-by-28-feet high tunnels, with 150 trees planted in each structure. These trees — apricots, Asian plums, peaches, ap-ples and nectarines — are high-value crops that are not successfully grown organically on the East coast in large numbers. Organic fruit grown in the region, even sold at retailers, is typi-cally blemished, with cosmetic im-perfections. High tunnel production decreases fungal issues, as the trees are not exposed to any rainfall.

These crops are “known to be diffi-cult to do organically, for which there would be clear advantages for tunnel production,” said Kinsel. He expects to produce peaches two to four weeks earlier than in the field, which “would be a real advantage and a marketing opportunity.”

Tunnel trees are planted with a perpendicular “V” system, truncated with an open center. Only two scaf-fold branches come off of the tree to form a 50-80 degree angle, to “maxi-mize light penetration,” he said. Trees should produce fruit next year.

“We have to change our game to stay competitive,” and season exten-sion and tree fruit are ways of doing just that. “We are looking not to ex-pand acreage in vegetable crops, but expand the diversity of crops,” said Kinsel.

MARKETINGThe goal of the farm has been

to provide affordable, healthy food grown in a ecologically responsible manner. Dudas conducted research to ascertain that their food was more affordable than other organic options, such as purchasing from the super-market or from specialty grocers. The farm is based in a region where

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pockets of wealth exist near Trenton and other lower-income areas. It has always been a goal to meet the needs of all residents and not cater only to those with disposable income.

While striving to remain affordable, the farm is facing economic pressure with the cost of production threaten-ing to increase. If the minimum wage is increased, the cost would have to be passed on to customers, said Dudas.

“We have always been able, and we still are, to provide our members with affordable produce,” said Dudas. “Every time we raise the prices, we do lose customers.”

The farm relies on 15 H2A tempo-rary guest workers, most of whom are related to their long-time field man-ager, David, who has been with the farm since 1993. David and the other workers are primarily from the same village in Mexico. Honey Brook Or-ganic Farm is one of the few organic farms in the area large enough to of-fer employment to a group this size on a yearly basis. They use a labor contractor to assist with the proper paperwork and other regulations. Lo-cal residents work primarily in non-production jobs, such as distributing shares and are not interested in field work.

One new concern is that of farmers — particularly those who made their money in other industries before buy-ing a farm — poaching workers with the lure of wages higher than their farm could absorb and still remain in business, Dudas said. These “gentle-men” farmers have monetary resourc-es, but need skilled farmworkers who know how to grow vegetables, and they have deep pockets, unlike most family farmers.

Honey Brook Organic Farm is ex-clusively a membership-based farm. CSA members enroll for pickup at one farm location, or can join the Boxed Share program and opt to have a pre-packaged box delivered to specific host locations in the region. Shares are available May-November, with a “Holiday Harvest” option, con-sisting of root vegetables, available to extend the season through December. Produce from both farm locations is included in all shares, and all mem-bers have access to U-pick crops.

Honey Brook’s CSA offers levels of membership: mini, individual and family. Larger shares can be split, al-lowing customers to tailor shares to best meet their needs. CSA members select from the harvest each week, choosing from the available vegeta-bles that best fit their needs, within given parameters. A CSA Handbook details how each share size is for-mulated and outlines the manner in which vegetables are equitably of-fered while allowing members to pack their own boxes.

The Boxed Share, available in four sizes, makes produce available to those outside of the immediate farm area. Drop points are organized by corporations or groups, and boxed shareholders pick up their boxes, packed on the farm without selection options, at host sites.

The years of experience Kinsel and David have producing vegetables for CSA members takes a lot of the guesswork out of planning share sizes, amounts per share and pricing the shares, Dudas said. Weather, diseases and pests can cause crop failures,

Peaches in the farm’s high tunnel growing system.

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but the farm is readily able to work around those issues to supply mem-bers with a diversity of products in their share each season.

“What you are offering changes, because you have these partial crop failures,” she said. “As long as they are getting a minimum of 20 pounds of produce in a family share,” mem-bers are satisfied and understand the unpredictability of farming.

Accurate farm records — acres planted to each crop and variety, planting and harvest dates, produc-tion issues and the amount of each harvested and put into the CSA shares — help in planning the next season’s production.

Customers are given a range of pounds of produce that will be in each size share every week, as well as a range of the type of items to expect in that share throughout the season. Du-das keeps in close contact via email and newsletters, alerting members if something goes awry. In 2016, for example, the first seeding of carrots was lost due to excessive heat just after direct-seeding occurred. Con-stant communication helps to manage expectations and avoid disappointed customers.

Dudas surveys members at the end of each season, asking about satisfaction with produce selections and soliciting input for changes next season. While she takes the replies se-riously, she cannot satisfy everyone’s particular needs. The surveys help to spot trends in customer preferences, so the farm can best fulfill the needs of most members. One recent change was decreasing the amount of head lettuce and planting salad mix leaf let-tuce, which members prefer.

Much has changed in farming since Honey Brook Organic Farm’s incep-tion in 1991. The CSA model was once a novelty, and the local food movement had not yet germinated. The farm, which for 20 years was the only certified organic farm in Mer-cer County, now competes with two other organic farms located on the same street, but its mission to produce certified organic food with a focus on environmental stewardship and af-fordability remains unchanged.

NEED MORE INFORMATION?For more infor-mation on Honey Brook Organic Farm, visit honeybrookor ganicfarm.com or call 609-737-8899.

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