The Pulse: Family farmer whose labors never end

The 9 o'clock bells from nearby Forest Grove Presbyterian are chiming as I climb into Fred Slack Jr.'s Chevy Trailblazer. He's wearing boots, jeans, an orange T-shirt, and a baseball cap. Already the sun feels hot, and the forecast calls for a week of 90-degree days. He's been up and working since 5 a.m. despite going to an Eagles game with a friend the night before.

"That was only the second night I've been out all summer," he tells me.

I'm not surprised. Fred's days run 14 to 16 hours this time of year. I know because every time I drive by his farm I see him working.

As an aficionado of his legendary Bucks County-grown tomatoes, I've long wanted to see the patch where he grows what the locals call "Freddie's." Slowly we wind down his gravel drive, past a farmhouse that is the centerpiece of a property that has grown crops for three generations of Slacks. In the rearview mirror is the open garage with a picnic table full of freshly picked tomatoes and a sign reading "$2.50 per pound." The honor box will have to cover until we return.

The tomatoes are named for Fred Sr., who passed almost two years ago at age 90 (mother Evelyn passed in 2012). Continuation of the family farming tradition is now solely in Fred Jr.'s 53-year-old hands, although in the backseat is 23-year-old Fred III, a student at Delaware Valley University. (Daughter Deanna is a student at West Chester University.) Today, Fred maintains 250 acres, approximately 60 of which are his. In the mid-1990s, Buckingham Township bought its first farmland conservation easement, protecting the Slack farm from development.

"I grew up grain farming," he says as he begins my tutorial. "Corn, soybean, wheat, and hay were the basics." He tells me he almost went under years ago. "I'm getting the same $5 for a bundle of hay that I was getting 30 years ago," he says. Pumpkins saved him.

"I was always infatuated with pumpkins," he tells me. "One year I grew 12 plants and got about 20 giants, for which people paid $100 to $200 apiece. Some of them ended up in New York City restaurants. The next year, I planted 40 acres of pumpkins. They took me out of debt."

While Fred has had a good run with sweet corn and strawberries, and is always experimenting with different crops, tomatoes are his constant: four types and certain experimental hybrids. It's been that way since his father and uncle grew them for Campbell Soup for two decades until Campbell's stopped canning in Camden.

We drive through a property dotted with farm equipment, some operational, some otherwise. He explains that he staggers his tomatoes into three plantings to maximize the selling season. Currently he has three two-acre tomato patches, each with about 4,000 plants.

Perhaps the best barometer of just how special they taste can be found 2.8 miles down the road at the Pineville Tavern, where they are dressed up with blue cheese and onions, doused with oil and vinegar, and sold as an $8 appetizer ($9 with mozzarella, $12 with chicken). This time of year, the sign in front of the tavern, established in 1742, touts the sale of "Freddie's."

"They're a tough crop to grow," he tells me as we drive into the first patch. Fred's process begins in February, when his "special" seeds are planted in greenhouses. In early May they are transferred to his soil. His first pick usually falls on his birthday, July 28. This year, depending on the frost, he thinks he'll have tomatoes into early October. When I tell him I see no irrigation, he says he's "relying entirely on Mother Nature. And right now, we're in a drought." Earlier in the summer he wanted water - now he worries that a heavy rain could damage his crop.

"All summer I've watched thunderstorms pass me by," he says. "This is the driest part of Bucks County."

The Chevy stops after a short distance and there they are - giant, red, ripe tomatoes, many with diameters in the five- to six-inch range. One of Fred's long, lean arms reaches under the green leaves. "That's a box filler, there's some real meat on that," he proudly tells Fred III and me. Fred shares that these are a new variety with which he's been experimenting. They'll next be picked and hand wiped before being sold fresh to wholesale and retail customers who come from miles. Clutching his produce, he scoffs at grocery store competitors that "sell the fakes from California," which, he says, get pumped with gas to look red when they aren't really ripe.

"Picking a tomato, red, right off the vine, and presenting it to the public, that's what I do," he says. "But before that happens, there are 1,001 things that can go wrong. Labor. Fungus. Splitting from a heavy rain. Weasels. Mice. I have to watch the plants every single day. Knowing your soil, that's the secret."

Fred feels the encroachment of major developers who are building nearby. Development has driven the deer to his land, where they eat his blossoms. ("They can devastate a pumpkin patch in minutes," he says.) He can't afford the fencing that would be required to keep them out. Nor does he have crop insurance. ("The book work is phenomenal," he says. "The businessman has all that done for him. Not me.") His reflections don't sound remorseful. Fred's a hard worker with no regrets.

"I love what I do. I can't see doing anything else," he tells me. "I'm my own boss. I'm outside in the elements. I love the dirt. I see beautiful moons. And even when I come home dead-ass tired, I like it."

We circle back to his garage just in the nick of time. "You can tell church has let out," he says. I see four cars pull off Forest Grove Road and fill his driveway. It's time for Fred to take over for the honor box.