Wooden-Bridge, NJ — Commuters on Route 17 in New Jersey are used to driving previous sprawling malls, big-box shops, and fast-food eating places.

However for 1 / 4 century, they’ve additionally been passing a small farm in Wooden-Ridge that’s lovingly maintained by Romolo Faustini, who turned 89 in August.

Whereas it could be small, this farm is the world to Faustini, who spends a lot of his day caring for the greens that may yield a veritable cornucopia of meals, together with corn, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkins, and tomatoes. Faustini’s fortunate household and associates are the beneficiaries of this bounty.

The nice-natured Faustini’s No. 1 enemy is pesky weeds, for which he has no tolerance.

Faustini will get assist from his son, Rick, and his grandson, Tim, who has launched new crops like potatoes to the combo and maintains an Instagram web page showcasing the bounty his grandfather’s toil yields.

However make no mistake: That is very a lot Romolo Faustini’s farm.

The farm started as a fruit stand, one among three maintained by the Faustini household. The household additionally had a farm down in Carlstadt. When it closed 25 years in the past, the household introduced 150 a great deal of topsoil and positioned it right here, permitting this slice of shaley grime to turn into a fruitful farm.

Faustini arrived as a younger man from Italy, turning into a bricklayer and beginning a household. However each time he wasn’t laying bricks, he was placing his inexperienced thumb to good use on the land.

“He farmed in Italy, when he was a child. He beloved the farm. However he got here right here and he stayed near his roots. Actually,” mentioned Rick Faustini, who operates the tractor on the farm.

“The machine cannot do it almost as nicely” as his dad, who cultivates the farm by hand, Rick Faustini mentioned.

Through the winter, the farm is rarely removed from Romolo Faustini’s thoughts.

Proper after Christmas, Faustini is already rising seedlings by the window, and by the month of Could, the worst of the chilly safely prior to now, Faustini begins one other season on the farm.

“It is like trying ahead to the primary day of college. He cannot wait to get on the market and begin working,” Faustini’s son mentioned.

And Rick Faustini desires to make one factor clear: This isn’t all for present. His father, with some aches and pains to point out for his 89 years, places in lengthy hours every single day, from 8 within the morning till 3:30 within the afternoon.

Good luck making an attempt to maintain up with him.

Says Rick: “On a Saturday, I will come and assist for 2 or three hours. And after hour two, I am shot. He is laughing at me and he retains on going.”

And do not anticipate Romolo Faustini to give up anytime quickly. The farm, it seems, is the key to his longevity and well being.

“I need to hold myself lively. I will go so far as I can. Once I cannot, then I will sit down and have a beer,” Faustini mentioned. “I need to present that I am nonetheless alive.”