Low Temperatures Threaten Local Crops

Dan Wilson checks frost damage at Hicks Orchard

Dan Wilson didn't get any sleep Monday night. When you own an apple orchard and the weather forecast calls for a hard freeze in early May, you know you're in for a restless night.

So Wilson and his staff spent the hours late Monday and early Tuesday tending to brush fires they set around the orchard to try to keep the air moving and cold from settling in.

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Low Temperatures Threaten Local Crops

Tomato Growers Told to Take Steps Against Blight

As farmers and home gardeners set out their tomatoes this spring, plant experts offered suggestions for preventing another outbreak of late blight, which destroyed millions of dollars worth of tomatoes in the eastern U.S. last year.

Chris Cashen said the tomato plants on his organic farm in the Hudson River Valley were taller than him last July when he discovered some collapsed on their trellises. Within weeks, 80 percent of his crop, which included more than a dozen varieties of cherry, plum, heirloom and hybrid slicer tomatoes, had died.

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Take Steps Against Blight

Farmers Markets Try to Become More Accessible

Residents at three apartment complexes in the South Wedge can get free transportation to the South Wedge Farmers Market. And several farmers market managers are asking the Monroe County Legislature to lower vendor permit fees to make prepared foods more readily accessible at area markets.

As farmers market season gets under way, these are some of the changes different market organizers are making to improve accessibility and boost their attendance.

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Farmers Markets Become More Accessible

Craft Distilling's Final Frontier: Bourbon

There are no rick houses at Tuthilltown Spirits, located just outside New Paltz, New York. There are no racehorses bucking in a nearby field. And there's certainly no bluegrass.

Yet this small operation produces the only commercially available bourbon made entirely outside of Kentucky. In fact, all the ingredients come from farms within a few miles of the distillery.

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Craft Distilling's Final Frontier: Bourbon