Each year from late March to Thanksgiving, Jersey farmers show just why we own the nickname: The Garden State.
New Jersey is home to 9,900 farms, with a combined total of 750,000 acres according to the Department of Agriculture. State officials note: “New Jersey is one of the top 10 producers of blueberries, cranberries, peaches, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, apples, spinach, squash, and asparagus.”
For eight more weeks, through Sept. 25, area residents can find some of those goodies at the Bordentown Farmers Market on Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Carslake Community Center on Crosswicks Road.
Baker Emily Gaston enjoys Sunday mornings at the market; she loves the shady, intimate atmosphere and the customers who come weekly. A 2018 graduate of Hamilton’s Steinert high school, Gaston attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, where she earned a degree in baking and pastry arts. On her website she notes: “I am most proud of my internship at Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin Resort.”
She rotates her baked good offerings; one Sunday morning, Gaston sold Peanut Butter cookies, Salted-Caramel Chocolate Chip cookies and Lemon Crinkles. She also had strawberry scones and macarons, which are small French sandwich cookies made with almond flour and egg whites.
“I started this baking adventure on a whim,” Gaston said. The whim blossomed. “Six out of seven days, I am baking, experimenting and filling customer orders,” she said. Her creating is done at a shared space called Cherry Street Kitchen in Trenton.
At the moment, the whim is not a passing fancy. Gaston has begun cultivating a following, evidenced by the fact that two hours after the market opened, she was down to five boxes of cookies.
People can only find her baked goods on Sunday at the Bordentown Farmers Market and on Tuesdays at the Robbinsville Farmers Market. Pre-orders through Gaston’s site are made available at one of those markets.
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Daniela Ardzivian, the owner of Daniela’s Heavenly Cakes, once created jewelry from gems; now she creates gems from flour, eggs and other ingredients.
Ardzivian worked for Tiffany and Company in New York City as a gemologist and jewelry designer before her children were born. When she decided to end her commute to the city to stay home with them, she turned to baking to earn income.
“It used to be a hobby,” she said. “But my father owned a restaurant in Lakewood, and eventually he had me making desserts for him.” She has been baking for 10 years.
Ardzivian brought cookies to sell at the Bordentown Farmers Market, but her real passion lies in creating 3D cakes. Every bit of the presentation is edible. They are truly different kinds of gems.
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Vince Camiolo and his wife, Natalie Rockwell, of One Up One Down Coffee, serve coffee, and sell beans, roasted by Camiolo. The business name and logo pays homage to Camiolo and Rockwell’s border collie, Lance, who died on Thanksgiving Day in 2021 at the age of 13. Lance had one ear which stood up, and one which flopped down.
In addition to a presence at the Bordentown Farmers Market, the husband-wife team has opened a coffee shop and cafe at 750 Cass St. in Trenton. Camiolo, who started roasting beans as a hobby, did an apprenticeship with Rojo’s Roastery in Lambertville before flooding closed that location. He did some freelance roasting on the side, and when the Cass Street site opened up, he decided to turn the avocation into a full-time business.
“My approach is that everyone should feel comfortable coming to my cafe,: Camiolo said. “I want to be so down-to-earth that anyone can come in for coffee.”
Enjoy your coffee and beans any day in Trenton, or on Sunday at the market.
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Flower farmer Kelsey Ford graduated from Hightstown high school and headed to Rowan University with a dream. Majoring in environmental studies with a minor in biology, she wanted to become an agricultural researcher. But, she momentarily deferred the dream to learn about sustainable farming, which led to Ford’s Nest Farm, a half-acre flower farm in Chesterfield.
On her website, Ford says she never expected to grow up to be a farmer. Yet, she seemed destined. While growing up, she said she was always outside.
“I shelled peas in my grandma’s garden, picked raspberries off my mom’s bushes, danced barefoot through the woods, and ate fresh zucchini pancakes by the plateful,” she writes.
The advanced degree idea vanished the day she met a truckload of freshly cut flowers, and she was smitten. She learned her trade working on a flower farm for four years. Now, she has her own dream-come-true operation.
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Productive farms have rich soil; they often have rich histories. Such is the case of Abe’s Acres Farm in East Windsor. The farm was purchased years ago by Abraham Feldsher, a Jewish-Russian immigrant who came to America in the late 1800’s.
He worked the farm, which eventually passed to his daughter Rebecca, a pediatrician, and her husband Joseph Notterman. Their daughter had a son, Gabriel Siciliano, who now owns and operates the farm. Siciliano named the farm Abe’s Acres after his great-grandfather.
Siciliano comes from a long line of physicians; the name Feldsher means doctor. Siciliano thought he too might follow that path until his grandfather, Joseph, died in 2013. As a child, Siciliano spent many weekends learning from his gentleman-farmer grandfather.
The impact of Notterman’s death found Siciliano rethinking his life’s calling and purpose.
“I took stock of what I really wanted out of my life and made a list of things that interested me — versus what other people wanted me to be — and so things that fulfilled me were working outside, growing stuff, building things and more than that being able to not focus on any one thing,” Siciliano told a reporter for “The Delmarva Farmer” newspaper in 2019.
On a hot July Sunday, Siciliano’s farm had an array of vegetables: tomatoes, squash, and beets. There were blueberries, peaches, eggs, and jars of pickled peppers which sold out quickly. Asked what he likes the most about farming and he answers quickly.
“You get to eat the fruits of your labor; I like stewarding the land for the next generation, and I like giving back to the community,” he said.
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The vendors vary from week to week, but others that have been at the market this season have included Scrumptious Scrubs (handmade vegan soap — Hightstown), Hlubik Farm (Chesterfield), KJD Farm (Robbinsville), Joannie’s Joyful Creations (crocheted gifts), Berry Bus Food Truck, Honored Daisy (“tie dye, paint and magic”), Crumb Bordentown, Rainbow’s Ice Creamery (Ewing), Spice Sisters condiments, Crosswicks and Bloom (soy candles), The Soap is a Lye, Hen and Hatch Food Truck (Mount Laurel), Blue Fox Botanicals (plant-based skin care — Ewing), The Wheeling Gypsy (handmade pottery), Paperworks (handmade greeting cards), and Minnie’s Weenies Food Truck.
Bordentown Farmers Market. Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., rain or shine. Also featuring live music. Carslake Community Center, 201 Crosswicks St., Bordentown, NJ 08505.
Kelsey Ford, right, of Ford's Nest Farm in Chesterfield, helping a customer select a bouquet of flowers at the Bordentown Farmers Market, July 24, 2022. (Photo by E.M. Hume.),
Owner Gabriel Siciliano and staff member Clara Middleton of Abe’s Acre Farm. At the Bordentown Farmers Market, July 24, 2022. (Photo by E.M. Hume.),
