By: Community Magazine | July 14, 2023 | | Colts Neck
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PHOTO COURTESY OF: The Fir Farm
Founded as a family Christmas tree farm, The Fir Farm in Colts Neck has been a Monmouth County institution for over four decades.
Overseen by brothers Bob and Mickey Clark for the past 20 years, The Fir Farm has expanded in recent years to growing hops and raising honey bees.
“For us it’s all about the farm,” Clark shared, “we love being farmers, beekeepers, and hop growers.”
The 23 acre farm opens for Christmas tree sales on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, however operating the farm is a year-round undertaking. From planting their crops, to caring for their bees, to harvesting and marketing their product, the Clarks have turned the management of The Fir Farm into a labor of love that they find to be very fulfilling.
The Pursuit of “Hop”iness
The Fir Farm is the largest commercial hop farm in the state of New Jersey. Quick to admit that they are big fans of the craft beer industry, the Clarks began growing hops in 2015 as the industry was just beginning to take off here in the state. “We started by doing a small field of hops to see how it would go,” Clark says, “it went very well that first season so we expanded, and we’ve continued to expand each year.”
In the years since they have been proud to offer their hops to some of the biggest names in beer in the Garden State, among them Monmouth County favorites Alternate Ending in Aberdeen, Twin Lights Brewing in Tinton Falls, and 3BR Distillery in Keyport. The farm’s hops are even used by two ice cream parlors, The Bent Spoon in Princeton and Amici Gelato in Asbury Park, for some of their signature frozen recipes.
As Bob relates, “there’s no feeling like when you do all this work all year long, and you grow a good crop of hops and a local brewery uses them for a beer, and then you go to that brewery to try it with friends or family or a crowd of people who helped you pick them and you all get to celebrate together drinking something that was produced on our farm.”
Farming hops can be challenging work, and the Clarks are fortunate to have a strong team of volunteers who assist with harvesting their hops each summer. On the first and second Saturday in August, the farm will host the ninth iteration of Hop Harvest Fest, where volunteers are invited to pick hops for the farm while enjoying a barbecue, beer from partnering breweries, and music performed by local bands. The Fir Farm’s festival, the only hop-picking agrotourism event in the state of New Jersey, recruits nearly 100 participants each year to join in the festivities.
The farm is always looking for new volunteers and Monmouth County residents interested in participating in Hop Harvest Fest 2023 on August 5th and August 12th should stay tuned to The Fir Farm’s social media pages for more information.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF: The Fir Farm
Busy as a Bee
In 2016, Bob and Mickey began raising honeybees after learning about the practice of beekeeping while attending agriculture seminars. The Fir Farm started out slowly, with just a couple of hives, but the apiary has grown over the past few years and now includes 25 large hives and about 20 starter or “nucleus colonies”. The farm employs organic farming practices, weeding by hand and avoiding harmful pesticides – opting instead for introducing beneficial insects like praying mantises, ladybugs, and lacewings to eliminate the pests that would otherwise prey on their crops.
The Clarks keep all the bees in the apiary on their farm, and they take special care to protect their bees from the harsh weather during the winter months. The bees get much of their nutrition right at The Fir Farm, where Bob and Mickey maintain a pollinator garden that includes elderberries, clovers, and other wildflowers that are perfect sources of food for the bees. As it turns out, the source of the bees’ nectar has a direct impact on the honey they produce – everything from the color to the flavor. Early spring honey is often lighter in color because the bees are sourcing their nectar from trees like locusts and maples. The later it gets into the season, more clover will find its way into the hives and the honey will start getting darker and the flavor will change.
“It’s always unique,” says Bob about the process of collecting honey, “when we harvest the box, we never know how it’s going to turn out.” He is quick to add that the honey from The Fir Farm is totally raw, not heated, filtered, or altered with supplements. As Bob puts it, “however it comes out, that’s the way it comes out!”
The Clarks sell their honey on the farm and also at local gatherings like the Made in Monmouth event at Brookdale College. Such events give them the opportunity to interact with the public about their bees and their honey. “People will often ask us questions about different colors,” Bob notes, adding, “and we like that because it gives us the opportunity to talk about the process of where the honey comes from.”
Less than a month ago, The Fir Farm’s Dark Honey varietal was awarded second place in the International Black Jar Honey Tasting Competition, the world’s premier competition devoted to showcasing honey production. The competition is so-named because entrants’ honey jars are wrapped in black fabric to ensure a blind judging process. Competing honeys from several states and 40 countries are judged solely on the taste of the honey – as opposed to other competitions that judge based on moisture content, clarity, foam, and particles – with points being deducted for any defects found.
Bob is extremely proud of The Fir Farm’s recognition at the competition, noting, “there were entries from all over the USA, Canada, and the international community, but to see Colts Neck, New Jersey listed among other states and countries was just incredible.”
The competition is organized by the Center for Honey Bee Research of Asheville, North Carolina. The center’s mission includes educating the public about the role bees play in our agriculture and the environment as a whole. The Center for Honey Bee Research estimates that nearly 16% of flowers and plants are pollinated by honey bees, and that honey bees are responsible for pollinating nearly $20 billion worth of American crops annually. This is in addition to the $4 billion that the center says honey production contributes to the U.S. economy each year.
“Being a beekeeper is such a fascinating profession,” Clark says, agreeing that honey bees are a vital part of the ecosystem. “We’d be in big trouble without bees, they are so important to pollinating and so there are a lot of crops that would be in big trouble if there were no bees.”
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PHOTO COURTESY OF: The Fir Farm
Trees for the Troops
For the past ten years, The Fir Farm has proudly partnered with Trees for Troops, a program organized by the National Christmas Tree Foundation. Through this program, customers can purchase an additional Christmas tree to be donated to a military family. The trees are purchased at The Fir Farm and then the foundation coordinates with FedEx to have the donated trees brough to a nearby military base for distribution.
When the farm first sponsored the Troops for Trees event, they received just over 100 donations. The participations has skyrocketed to the point that last season they received over 300 donated Christmas trees.
“This is our tenth year doing this and each year it gets bigger and better,” say Bob, adding, “we are even starting to see people who aren’t looking to get a tree for themselves, they come to The Fir Farm just to donate a tree to a military family.”
Local companies and civic organizations have joined in on the program, with Bob stating that the American Legion of Union Beach regularly purchases a few dozen trees to be donated.
Customers who donate a tree have the opportunity to write out a message tag for the family who will receive it. Bob says that people frequently leave very personal, very loving messages of gratitude to the families of service members, often including memories from their own family members who served in uniform.
“Our father served in the Navy during World War II,” notes Bob, “and we are thrilled to be part of the Trees for Troops program that sends live Christmas trees to military families.”
The Clarks say that people have become so generous that they wanted to devise a way of recognizing customers and organizations who made a significant donation. Each year, The Fir Farm orders a special recognition plaque for anyone or any group who donates 10 trees or more. The plaques are hung out in the fields during the month of August so that Hop Harvest Fest attendees can view them, and then the plaques are given to the donors closer to the holiday season so that they can hang them in their homes or offices.
Trees for Troops Weekend is the first weekend in December, but those who are interested in donating a tree can reach out to The Fir Farm as early as the fall to help Bob and Mickey ensure that they have enough trees available for the program.
On Monmouth County
Bob Clark is very proud of the work he, Mickey, and their team are doing in Colts Neck. The hard work of being a farmer is very satisfying and the community partners are a pleasure to work with.
To his Monmouth County neighbors he advises, “get outside and have some fun this summer… we’d love to have you come visit the farm.”
For additional information about The Fir Farm you can visit www.thefirfarm.com or on Instagram at @thefirfarm
For additional information about The Center for Honey Bee Research, you can visit www.centerforhoneybeeresearch.org
To learn more about Trees for Troops you can visit www.treesfortroops.org
