Apples-Over 35 different varieties!

Mutsu, Northern Spy, Golden Russet, Fuji, Granny Smith and many more including most common varieties. Variety peck baskets with at least 10 different labeled apples, along with printed apple variety descriptions, are available.  Also winter squash including acorn, butternut, hubbard and buttercup and popcorn on the ear.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: PROJECT FRESH COUPONS EXPIRED ON HALLOWEEN OCTOBER 31.  WE WILL NOT ACCEPT PROJECT FRESH COUPONS FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR AND 2009 COUPONS ARE NO GOOD FOR 2010.  ALL 2009 PROJECT FRESH COUPONS SHOULD NOW BE DESTROYED!  PLEASE TEAR THEM UP OR BURN THEM!

This year Halloween wasn't at all spooky for us!  In fact, there were more nice people down at Magicland Farms on Halloween than any other Halloween in our record books!  These nice people also purchased more apples, squash, potatoes, sweet onions, cabbage and, oh yes, a few pumpkins and other stuff, than ever before!  October has set new records for us and, I believe, so did September.  This is despite being one of the rainiest and cloudiest Octobers in memory!  September, of course, was absolutely beautiful with day after day of better than perfect weather with nearly 3 consecutive weeks of 110% of possible sunshine.  The year in total, though, was a bit less busy than last year (which, by the way, was our best year ever).  We believe there were four primary reasons for this downturn.  The first, and primary reason, was the lateness of corn ripening.  This year we started selling corn on July 24; about two weeks later than normal and a week later than last year.  While in general sales of sweet corn are less than a quarter of our total sales, during the last two weeks of a normal July this ratio jumps up to over 50%. The second reason was probably the late blight of tomatoes.  While we were successful in finally combating it and we always seemed to have enough slicing tomatoes for sale, during late August and early September we had very few canning tomatoes for sale which is the peak time for selling canning tomatoes.  The third reason was M37 road construction.  Most customers from up north use M37 (or at least need to cross M37) and for a long while there were extreme delays.  We were kept up to date on conditions from customers who some times needed to wait a half hour to get through the construction to get to our place.  We noticed for lengthy times that traffic traveling south on Gordon was practically non-existent.  The final reason was the simple fact that the economy and poor summer weather kept many summer residents from coming up to their cottages and campgrounds as frequently as in years past.  While this definitely had an effect, it wasn't as important, we believe, as the first three since this only affected the sales from the time corn starts to Labor Day and the sweet corn was the latest ever this year.

Last week a man came and showed us two aerial photos of the Magicland Farms sales area he took on Sunday October 18.   He asked if we were interested in buying them.  My first impression was no.  Then I thought that we could take digital photos of them and send them in the newsletter so all of you can see them. 

I had numerous questions directed to me concerning when we will be closing the market this year.  My answer was always "Right now it depends upon the weather."  We still have a good quantity of a large variety of apples (I believe we are only sold out of Stark's Jumbo and Honeycrisp.  Of course our summer apples such as Zestar and Paulared are long gone.) and a big supply of winter squash and a fair supply of potatoes and sweet onions.  As I mentioned before, if the daytime temperature stays at or below freezing we will have to close.  If the weather stays relatively mild we will try to stay open until the day before Thanksgiving.  WE WILL DEFINITELY BE CLOSED FROM THANKSGIVING THROUGH AT LEAST  FEBRUARY.  By the way, NOAA has just issued a revised November forecast and they are calling for above normal temperatures and normal precipitation.  Let's hope they are right..  Right now it looks like this week will be about normal with regards temp and rain and next week might just be warmer and drier than normal.  Let's hope so.

Have a wonderful week and we hope to see you down at Magicland Farms.