2025 CSA Sign-ups Now Open!

Dear friends,

We’re delighted to announce that sign-ups for our 2025 CSA program are now open to returning members and folks on our waitlist.

2025 is going to be a wonderful year on the farm! The 2nd year of our mega strawberry patch; leisurely picnic and playground hang outs; new flowers and crop varieties to delight and inspire.

We hope in the year ahead you’ll let West County Community Farm be a weekly source of grounding, connection, and nourishment.

If you have been on the waitlist and have never been a CSA member before, please read the CSA page and FAQ page on our website before signing up. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

We expect high demand for the upcoming season so we recommend signing up within the next couple weeks to ensure your spot. We will open sign-ups to the public on February 21st.

See you in the fields!
David & Kayta

Harvest Week 26 - Treasure

THIS WEEK’S HARVEST

NOTE: This is the last week of our 2024 CSA Program. The last pickup is this Tuesday, December 10th.

BULK WEEK: Pick-up will be a little different this week: We will be offering larger than usual quantities of potatoes, beets, and winter squash so that you can fill your larders and eat from the farm on into the Solstice. We recommend bringing an extra tote bag this week!

Pennsylvania Dutch Butter-Flavored Popcorn, Bintje Potatoes, Marina di Chioggia Pumpkin, Delicata, Jester or Butternut Squash, Assorted Cabbage, Red Cabernet Onions, Leeks, Garlic, Celery Root, Bolero Carrots, Multicolored Beets, Multicolored Daikon, Purple-Top Turnips, Dandelion Greens, Dazzling Blue Dino Kale

HARVEST NOTES

• Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Flavored Popcorn: Quite the name, huh? An excellent popper, it transforms from skinny yellow kernels to beautifully round, brilliantly white popcorn — and it really tastes like butter! Pro-tip: make sure that you store your popcorn in dry conditions, as moist popcorn won’t pop.

  • Making your popcorn: The trick to stovetop popcorn is to use a thick-bottomed pot like a dutch oven, which will distribute the heat evenly and prevent burning. Turn the stove on to medium high and pour in a generous amount of high-heat oil — enough to cover the kernels halfway up. Heat the oil a little bit before pouring in the kernels, then put a lid on and enjoy the fireworks! We like to shake the pot a bit to keep the kernels evenly hot so that each kernel will have time on the heat but not enough to burn. The popcorn is popping perfectly right now, but if you find that your first batch of popcorn isn’t popping well, try drying it out by leaving it in your kitchen for a few days or putting it in a 200 degree oven for awhile.

• Marina di Chioggia Pumpkin: (aka Sea Pumpkin or Suca Braca, "warty pumpkin") is an Italian heirloom from Chioggia, Venice. This is our favorite pumpkin for eating, flavorful, smooth and versatile. It can be utilized in any recipe where a traditional pumpkin or pumpkin puree is called for. It’s excellent in pies, muffins and quick bread; makes an ideal filling for pasta such as ravioli and tortellini; and can also be used to make gnocchi. The pumpkin itself will keep for up to six months when stored in a cool, dry, and dark place. We love the diverse bounty that can be made from this pumpkin! Here’s a roundup of a few of the recipes we’ve fallen in love using Marina di Chioggia in over the years:

  • Pumpkin Gnocchi: When we have the time we love to make a big batch of gnocchi (check out this recipe ) for the freezer so that we have many incredibly fast and delicious meals to look forward to.

  • Pumpkin Parmesan: This twist on traditional eggplant Parmesan is truly greater than the sum of its parts. The melding of savory cheese, delicately sweet pumpkin and toasted breadcrumbs is unbeatable. Find the recipe here.

  • Savory Stuffed Pumpkin with Sausage and Gruyere: This recipe is a real showstopper — a dish to organize a party around and the epitome of cozy winter cooking. Aromatic, cheese-and-sausage-filled bread pudding is baked inside a pumpkin and then carved into slices. Check out the recipe in last year’s newsletter here.

SIGNING UP FOR 2025

We will open sign-ups for our 2025 CSA program in January. Returning members will receive an email and the first chance to sign-up to reserve a spot before we open it up to folks on the waitlist. We expect demand to be high for next season to please sign-up soon upon receiving the email!

If you have friends or family who’d be interested in enjoying the farm experience with you next year, please encourage them to sign up for the waitlist on our website ASAP (and to mention you in the comments!)

preserving the harvest

Since we’ll be sending you home with an abundance of beets this week, we thought we should share a couple of our absolute favorite pickled vegetable recipes. They’re easy to make, and once you have them in your fridge, they can transform almost any meal into something delicious and vegetable filled.

Both pickles come from a favorite sandwich recipe of ours. It’s maximalist in every way (think thick-sliced feta, aioli, hard-boiled eggs, and an herby, pickled-vegetable-filled salad with olives and capers on homemade focaccia!), including a name drawn from Moby Dick (The Scuttlebutt). Even if you have no intention of making the sandwich (which you should) we highly recommend the pickles.

PICKLED BEETS & ONIONS

Recipe by Marian Bull for Food52

• 1 bunch beets (about 5 or 6)

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 2 large red onions, thinly sliced

• 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt, divided

• 2 cups red wine vinegar

• 2 cups water

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns

• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds

• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds

• 2 whole star anise pods, broken up

• 8 whole allspice berries

Roast the beets: Preheat the oven to 400° F. Put the beets in a roasting pan, add just enough water to the pan to evenly cover the bottom. Salt the beets with 1 tablespoon of salt and drizzle them with olive oil. Cover with foil and roast for about an hour, until they're tender when pierced with a knife. Let them cool, then peel the beets. Cut them into 1/4-inch slices and pack loosely in 2-3 heatproof quart jars with the onions.

In a saucepan, combine the red wine vinegar, water, sugar, and 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt, plus the peppercorns, coriander seeds, mustard, anise, and allspice. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt. Pour the brine over the beets and onions, then let them cool at room temperature. Transfer them to a plastic or glass container, cover them, and refrigerate for at least a day. They'll last up to 2 months.

PICKLED CARROTS

Recipe by Marian Bull for Food52

• 8 medium carrots, peeled and very thinly sliced into rounds or on a bias

• 2 cups apple cider vinegar

• 2 cups water

• 1 cup sugar

• 1/2 cup kosher salt

• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds

• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds

• 2 árbol chiles (or any of our hot peppers)

Place the sliced carrots in a heatproof quart jar. In a saucepan, combine the apple cider vinegar, water, sugar, kosher salt, coriander, fennel, and the chiles. Boil, stir, and pour over the carrots. Cool them, then store in the fridge for at least a day, and up to 2 months.

LIL’ WINTER MARKET

We’ll have two CSA members selling special handmade goods at the Saturday and Tuesday pickups this week!

Hanna Chort will be hosting a table of her creations, including wool rugs, herbal soaps, tinctures, and more! She will also have a table of discounted Eric Kent wines for purchase. She takes Venmo or cash.

Did you know Honeybees dance to communicate? Check out Swarm & Tender with Mariah McDonald for a sweet honey sale! Swarm & Tender is a bee-forward, eco-minded Sonoma County Honeybee Service that will have raw, local, unfiltered honey in beautiful glass jars ready for you to take home. With different “vintages” to choose from, this is the perfect way to add a touch of nature’s gold to your holiday gifts or treat yourself to something special. Cash (preferred) or Venmo accepted. Come by, support our local pollinators and help make this season a little sweeter.

Martha Stoumen's will have a new wine in the cooler! 2023 Post Flirtation red wine — available to WCCF members for $29 per bottle to enjoy at the farm or to-go. Post Flirtation is a fresh, lighter-bodied blend of Zinfandel and Carignan, and is celebrated as the most popular wine each year. Serve this wine with a slight chill (cool to the touch) to bring smiles to the whole family this holiday season. 

WINTER SISTER FARM

Gonna miss us this winter? Fear not, Winter Sister Farm, right next door has you covered! They will be running a farm-stand this winter, as well as their 2025 Winter CSA program. Check out their website for more info on obtaining the highest quality winter veggies, flowers, and herbs right here on Cooper Rd!

CALIFORNIA BILINGÜE

Have you been thinking about taking your Spanish to the next level? California Bilingüe, owned by CSA member Carlos Mayerstein, specializes in one-on-one customized Spanish tutoring. In 2022, they gave the farm a generous scholarship to help David improve his Spanish proficiency to help the farm connect more with the vibrant and skilled Spanish speaking agricultural community in Sonoma County. The program has been joyous, fun, and transformational for his Spanish and opened so many doors personally and professionally. We can’t recommend their program highly enough! ¡Aprenda más aquí!

FARMER’S LOG

Treasure

It was a bittersweet day today — the last Friday harvest of our 2024 harvest season. This coming Tuesday’s pick-up will be the last pick-up of our harvest season. 

Each harvest season is like a voyage, with us farmers and CSA members striking out together on a grand adventure. The community supported agriculture model that we practice here, that we ask you to practice here, is not a gimmick or a fad. It is a powerful and functional alliance between a community of neighbors and their farmers.

We are one crew on this voyage. And that bond allows us to farm this land well, to farm it intentionally, and to farm for the future in very real ways.

So what did we, as a community, just do? What did we accomplish together?

First and foremost it was our biggest voyage yet. We grew on 9.5 acres as regeneratively as we know how. We produced healthy, nutrient dense food for 460 Sonoma County adults and 180 kids. It was a bountiful year and our nets came up full — over 10,000 pints of strawberries, 14,000 lbs of onions, 20,000 lbs of winter squash — just to name a few figures. 

But the catch is never the most valuable part of a voyage. The real treasures are the intangibles: The memories you made, the wisdom you earned, and the friends and connections you made along the way. 

This year we welcomed 65 new households to the farm — many of whom said coming to the farm was the highlight of their week.

We sailed with with our biggest crew yet, numbering 8 on the payroll with support from a motley crew of craftspeople, ringers, and friendly pirates. We learned and grew as farmers together, taught each other new shanties, and had each other’s backs throughout the long voyage and the gales.

We raised $5,200 in share price assistance funds, which helped members of our community enjoy a harvest share they may otherwise not have been able to afford. We raised $2,500 to tend the wild ecosystem of the farm, which went toward the planting of more native shrubs in our northern border hedgerow and 20 oak trees saplings — part of a larger project to nurture the next generation of grandmother oak trees on this land.

It was a wonderful year of growth for the capability of the ship itself and for us as farmers. We mastered cut greens. It was the year of the onion. We upgraded our overhead irrigation system and our harvest truck to handle the bounty and paid down loans for our big tractor and new tillage implements. We expanded our joy factor with a much bigger flower garden and the new playground.

We took care of our most precious resource — our soil. We put down a whopping 96 tons of compost and seeded over 2,300 lbs of cover crop seed this fall. Those seeds sprouted well, and if the weather cooperates, they’ll be able to produce over 48,000 lbs of carbonaceous biomass in the spring that will feed our soil for years to come.

Finally, and perhaps most gratifying to us, the farm continued to become, more than ever before, a place where people spent time. Whether alone, with friends, or with family, it was a presence in your lives — a place to gather, to read, to hang out and let the kids run free. 

Seeing so many of you lingering in the garden, picnicking under the oak trees, and playing on the new playground was all the treasure we needed from this year’s voyage.

Our one hope for your experience of the farm this year is that it included moments of connection between this land, the bounty it provided, and your heart.

This connection is so important for human beings and so hard to find in the modern world. This connection bonds us, in loving interdependence, to this beautiful planet and to each other.

Thank you for joining us on the voyage this year and helping to build a place where that connection can be felt and lived.

And now for our customary parting words…

If, in the dark season ahead, you feel pent up, like you need to get out of the house and stretch your legs, come visit the farm and stand still for a moment in a field.

There you will find silence, broken only by the screech of a hawk or the singing of the redwing blackbirds. A coolness will emanate up from the wet soil, chilling your knees. Before you will lay the sleeping farm, the soft contours of the land draped in a blanket of green (or underwater!).

But listen closely...

For within that slumber next season churns. The cover crop stretches its living roots deep into the soil where subterranean creatures break down this year's crop roots and residue, processing them — like so many memories — into the raw materials that will make up next year’s picnics under the oaks, next year’s memories, next year's bounty.

Listen closely and you’ll hear the land dreaming.

Now, it is time for your farmers to rest, to reflect, and to do a little dreaming ourselves. Thank you all so much for the memories this harvest season. Here is to many more to come.

See you in the fields,
Your farmers

Harvest Week 25 - Belonging

THIS WEEK’S HARVEST

Purple Majesty Potatoes, Black Futsu Winter Squash, Purple-Top Turnips, Storage #4 Cabbage, Yellow Elsye Onions, Leeks, Garlic, Celery Root, Bolero Carrots, Multicolored Beets, Rainbow Chard, Black Magic Dino Kale, Giorgione Castelfranco Chicory

HARVEST NOTES

• Purple-Top Turnips: The most classic turnip. Sweet with just a hint of pepper. Delicious in soups and stews, roasted, or in the Miso-Glazed Turnips recipe that we sent out earlier this season. Or, for something slightly different, check out this Yotam Ottolenghi recipe for Roast Turnip, Potato and Garlic with Harissa and Orange — charmingly, part of a round-up of recipes on “less fashionable vegetables” (poor turnips!) — which also includes a mouthwatering recipe for a Kale and Swiss Chard Tart that we have our eye on.

• Purple Majesty Potatoes: These fancy potatoes are new to us this year. They’re a beautiful purple inside and out, full of antioxidants, and particularly suited to roasting.

• Black Futsu Winter Squash: A beloved Japanese delicacy, this bite sized, mini Butternut relative has bright orange flesh with unique fruity flavor and edible skin with a gorgeous frosted look.

Scenes from last week’s water world: Looking out at Centerfield between the two big oaks and one of a few garter snakes we saw swimming very competently through the floodwaters.

CELERY ROOT RÖSTI WITH CAPER AND CELERY SALSA

Recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi

This is a dish for any time of the day: for brunch (with some crisp bacon, maybe?), or for a light meal or first course. Makes 10 rösti, to serve two to four.

Note: if you’re in need of some additional Celery Root inspiration, check out Ottolenghi’s other mouth-watering recipes here.

INGREDIENTS

1 celeriac, peeled and coarsely grated
1 small desiree potato, peeled and coarsely grated
1 shallot, peeled and thinly sliced (use a mandolin, if you have one)
1 tbsp lemon juice
Salt and black pepper
½ tsp each coriander seeds, celery seeds and caraway seeds, toasted and finely crushed
½ garlic clove, peeled and crushed
2 eggs, beaten
2½ tbsp plain flour (all-purpose)
Vegetable oil, for frying
100g sour cream, to serve

For the salsa:
½ small shallot, peeled and very finely chopped
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
10g basil leaves, finely shredded
10g parsley, finely chopped
15g capers, roughly chopped
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon, plus 1 tbsp juice
1½ tbsp olive oil

Celeriac rösti — photo from The Guardian

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine the celeriac, potato, shallot and lemon juice in a medium bowl with two teaspoons of salt, then tip into a sieve lined with a clean tea towel or cheesecloth. Set the sieve over a bowl and leave for 30 minutes, for the liquid to drain off. Draw together the edges of the towel, then wring it a few times, to get rid of as much water as possible. Transfer to a clean bowl and combine with the spices, garlic, eggs and flour. Using your hands, form the mix into 10 6cm-wide patties, compressing the rösti as you make them, to squeeze out any remaining liquid.

Put all the salsa ingredients in a separate bowl, add a generous grind of pepper and mix to combine.

Pour enough oil into a medium-sized nonstick frying pan to come 1/2 inch up the sides. Put the pan on a medium heat and, once the oil is very hot, fry the rösti in batches for seven minutes, turning them a few times, until crisp and golden-brown all over. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen towel and keep warm while you cook the rest of the rösti. Serve at once with the salsa and a spoonful of sour cream. 

Our volunteer coordinator rockstar this year, Rose Brink-Capriola, in the garden. Thank you for everything this year, Rose!

CALIFORNIA BILINGÜE

Have you been thinking about taking your Spanish to the next level? 

We wanted to give a quick shout out here to an incredible local Spanish school, California Bilingüe. Owned by CSA member Carlos Mayerstein, California Bilingüe specializes in one-on-one customized Spanish tutoring. In 2022, they gave the farm a generous scholarship to help me (David) improve my Spanish proficiency to help us connect more with the vibrant and skilled Spanish speaking agricultural community in Sonoma County. For me, California Bilingüe’s program has been joyous, fun, and transformational for my Spanish and opened so many doors personally and professionally.  

Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced Spanish speaker, I can’t recommend their program highly enough! ¡Aprenda más aquí!

WHEN DOES THE CSA END?

The last pick-ups of our 2024 CSA program are as follows: The last Saturday pickup is Saturday, December 7th and the last Tuesday pickup is, Tuesday, December 10th.

AND WHEN CAN I RESERVE MY SPOT FOR 2024?

We plan to open sign-ups in mid-to-late January 2025. 2024 CSA program members will be given the first chance to reserve a spot for 2025. Please encourage family or friends who would like to join to sign-up for the waitlist on our website.

FARMER’S LOG

BELONGING

We’re having a busy holiday week, so this week we’ll repost a Farmer’s Log from November 2022 — which resonates with how we’re feeling about the farm today.

I think I speak for the whole crew when I say it brought us great joy to be a part of your food lives and weekly routines this year — and great joy to think of the farm’s food, lovingly grown and handled here, on your tables. We hope you felt nourished and grounded by it this week.

 *  *  *  *  *

With the frost, the time of rest, gratitude, and reflection settles on the Laguna. 

It was a quiet day today on the farm. I was on the tractor, shaping next year’s garlic and strawberry beds over what was the tomatoes and u-pick peppers, when a perennial Fall question occurred to me:

“What does it mean to belong to a place?”

Big questions like this are perhaps never answerable. Or perhaps, if they are answerable, the answers are constantly changing. Or, perhaps the point is not in getting an answer, but in consistently asking the question.

So today on the tractor I wondered, “What does it mean to belong to this place?" for the first time on the new farm. I was struck by how different it felt from the last time I asked.

Though we just moved the farm a few miles across town this year, it was a big move. We uprooted from the place where we started the farm as a 30 member CSA 7 years ago and where we cut our teeth shaping fields, growing food, building soil, and trying to build community together. We made a lot of memories there. Every nook, cranny, and field in that valley was becoming a layer cake of memory for us — first harvests; getting engaged on the hill; getting married in the redwood barn; of meeting so many of you CSA members for the first time. 

A palimpsest (from the Greek “scraped again”) is a writing material or surface (like a slate tablet) used again after earlier writing has been erased. It’s a surface that is being continuously renewed, but the etches and marks of the past remain and build up.

A farm is a palimpsest for a farmer: The more years you’ve lived and worked in a place, the more the marks of memory build and layer depth onto the continuously renewing fields and landscape. This is why elders are the most revered members in any agrarian or land-based culture.

When you come to a new place, to a new farm in our case, the heaviest lifting isn’t physical — it’s mental. You have to learn the history of the place by talking to those who know it and by reading whatever clues the land can tell you. Then you just have live there and keep your eyes, your heart, and your mind open.

“Where should the garden go?”, “Where should we plant the garlic?”

You are bound to make mistakes — some big, some small as you build your memory and relationship.

One small mistake we made this Spring was shaping our tomato and u-pick beds too close to the drainage that separates that field from the garden so it ended up being hard to drive a truck comfortably around those oft-visited zones.

So today, as I was outlining 2023’s strawberry and garlic fields over 2022’s erased tomatoes, I gave us another 6 feet of leeway. Whenever I drove the tractor East, I could see the garden and the strawberry patch and was flooded with memories; of second-breakfasts with the crew under the oak trees; of picnicking and perusing the July flower garden with friends; the laughter of kiddos plucking strawberries in the morning.  

And in that reverie the question arose, “What does it mean to belong to this place?” 

I don’t know if I’ll ever know the answer — but I do know that those memories have a lot to do with it.

See you in the fields,
David & Kayta 

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CSA BASICS

When does the 2024 CSA end? The last Saturday pick-up this year is Saturday, December 7th and the last Tuesday pickup is, December 10th.

What time is harvest pick-up?:

• Saturday harvest pick-ups run from 9:00 am - 2:00 pm

• Tuesday harvest pick-ups will run from 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Oriented members can come to the farm any time, 7 days a week, sunrise to sunset, to u-pick and enjoy the farm.

Where is the farm? The member parking lot is located at 1720 Cooper Rd., Sebastopol, CA 95472.

Where is the food? The produce pick-up barn is just to the right of the solar panels and above our big greenhouse. You can’t miss it!

2024 CSA program dates: Our harvest season will run from Saturday, June 15th through Tuesday, December 10th this year.

Drive slow! Please drive slow on Cooper Rd. and in our driveway / parking lot area. Kids at play!

No dogs: Unfortunately, dogs are not allowed on the farm.