Comments on: Crane Farm: The Little Farm Stand Preserves Basking Ridge’s Farming Past

By: Lisa Connolly McKinley

Lisa Connolly McKinley — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 21:53:19 +0000

I worked there in high school. It was so close to my house I could walk or ride my bike. I used to go out in the field with Mr Crane to cut the flowers. All the girls were afraid of him but he was very sweet. He would cut & I would hold the basket. We would talk about anything & everything. My friends would stop by in the summer to tell me where the party was going to be that night. Mr. Crane would give them peaches or apples. I really learned my math there because they had a wooden drawer with the money. No cash register that would tell you how much change to give. They had the best corn and it would sell out so fast. It was one of my favorite jobs ever.

By: Martha Guinivan

Martha Guinivan — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:01:25 +0000

We shopped there for our corn, veggies and fruit I remember, when I worked at Queen City Savings bank ( How's that for the old days ) Mr. Crane would walk to the bank with a brown paper bag. It was his deposit from the day before. I asked if he wasn't nervous carrying that kind of money in a paper bag He said no. If a local went past they'd know and would leave him, if an out of towner saw him they'd think he was just some old man carrying his lunch He was quite a guy

By: Marge Evers Nimeth

Marge Evers Nimeth — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 10:59:50 +0000

We have been going to Cranes Farm for years. I’m saying over 40 years. It will be a shame to see this close. I’ll have not where to go to get fresh vegetables and fruit in the summer. Also you can purchase bruised peaches to make peach pe. It’s a SHAME what is happening to our town. I know it is difficult to have a food stand because it’s difficult getting people to help. Was a great place for teens to work at during the summer. We will greatly miiss

By: Ruth Post Rillo

Ruth Post Rillo — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 10:56:41 +0000

I will truly miss this special little farm stand, along with Doris and Tyson.
They are such good stewards to Crane Farm, however I completely understand their decision. I hope someone will come along to carry on the tradition for them.
Thank you for your years of care, time, and exceptional dedication harvesting the fields and serving the community with your delicious fruits and vegetables, and also your beautiful selection of seasonal flowers.
My granddaughter loves coming in with me for the yummy chocolate chip cookies and we love the sweet homemade pies.
You will be greatly missed!

By: Tbc

Tbc — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:39:20 +0000

By: Craig Kampmier

Craig Kampmier — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 16:37:33 +0000

The wire handles of a bushel basket cutting into your fingers as Mr. Crane made you walk hurriedly backwards as he picked corn from the stalks and tossed them in the basket faster than you could say corn. “Yellow corn you want small kernels, white corn they need to be large.” Tomatoes, the stem always removed and placed in a peach basket upside down. If you don’t remove the stem, it puts a hole into the flesh of the tomatoes they are on top of…been observing tomatoes with stems and holes in tomatoes from them since the late ’60s, quoting Mr. Crane under my breath every time.

His Glads, perfection. Hoeing the rows of strawberry plants. Bending down to pick bushel baskets of string beans. E L M E R!!! Mrs. Crane would call out from the stand to the field to summon Mr. Crane. He grew Jet Star, Supersonic, and Ramapo tomatoes. All his seeds came from Harris Seeds in Rochester, New York.

The only place I have ever purchased seeds from, and the only tomatoes I have grown, plus one, Rutgers…my father grew. Mrs Crane, a pencil on her ear, taking it to write the prices on the back of a “Certified Farm Market” paper bag and adding them up to tell a customer their total.

Christmas trees, balled, were heavy and we delivered them in his pick up. A particular December Saturday it was a cold soaking downpour…saturated and returning from a delivery, Mrs. Crane sat you at her kitchen table with a bowl of steaming hot vegetable soup and a chicken sandwich.

At a dollar an hour, a $10 day, high standards, quality, hard work, and decent, caring human beings to work for. Colorful leaves framing the landscape, horses next door at the Astor farm…Somerset County Equestrian Stable, Harry Case, Stable Manager; planes taking off from the Somerset Hills Airport on Lord Stirling Road…sometimes a Bi-Plane (2-Wings ~ vintage from the teens or 1920s) would fly.

Warm sunshine on an autumn day. The thump thump of car tires running over the seams of concrete that was South Maple Avenue (Mud Street in the very early days of BR). Picking pumpkins for the stand, and Acorn squash among others. From up the water colored tree covered hill the air was filled with the music of the Ridge High School band…a football game. While much of those pleasurable moments have passed, they live within the soil and spirit of the Crane farm. Stand there, and you can feel it. Much like the story we had to read in school, Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” it was, in Basking Ridge, New Jersey the Garden State.