We need your help! Please remember to sign-in at the front table when you come to CSA pickup. It helps us determine how much food to harvest to ensure every pickup is abundant. Thank you!
🎃PUMPKIN PATCH NOW OPEN!🎃
Spooky season is here and your Halloween pumpkins await you! The pumpkin patch is located in Creek Field —to find them, continue on past the north end of the garden (farthest from the barn) and look to your right after the grassy berm.
🌟 SEASON LIMIT: 2 per share, or 1 per child for households with more children. Note: We have enough pumpkins that households that are alternating weeks can also take 2 per share or 1 per child!
THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Spinach, Green Little Gem Lettuce, Green Oakleaf Lettuce, Lacinato Rainbow Kale, Dandelion Greens, Fennel, Assorted Zucchini & Summer Squash (last week!), Carrots, Cipollini Onions, German Butterball Potatoes, Napa Cabbage, Daikon Radish, Scallions, Sweet Peppers, Bulk Tomatoes
U-PICK
Check the u-pick board in the barn for weekly u-pick limits.
Albion Strawberries: ✨1 pint per share✨
Cherry Tomatoes: Gleanings | There are still cherry tomatoes to be had, but they are starting to wind down (particularly the Sungolds! — branch out to other varieties if you want to harvest more.)
Goldilocks Beans: No limit — take what you’ll eat!
Frying Peppers:
Padrons: No limit — take what you’ll eat!
Shishitos: No limit — take what you’ll eat!
Hot Peppers:
Jalapeños: No limit — take what you’ll eat!
Thai Chilis: 15 peppers per share
Habaneros: 3 peppers per share | Look for the orange peppers hiding low down under the plant.
Ot Hiem Pepper: 15 peppers per share
Herbs & Edible Flowers: Husk Cherries, Lemon Bergamot, Dill, Cilantro, Purple Basil, Thai Basil, Lemon Basil, Italian Basil, Tulsi, Parsley, Chamomile, Calendula, Nasturtium, Pansies/Viola, Garlic Chives, Tarragon, Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, Vietnamese Coriander, Shiso/Perilla, Catnip, French & Culinary Lavender, Sorrel, & Assorted Mints
Flowers galore!
Your pumpkin babies away you!
HARVEST NOTES
Kimchi Week! After an intense couple of years of pest pressure, we are excited to welcome back Kimchi Week — when we harvest Daikon Radish, Napa Cabbage and Scallions! We’ll include a recipe below for classic mak kimchi, where the cabbage is chopped before being seasoned. For a more mellow, version without red pepper, that’s also vegan, check out this white Kimchi recipe shared with us years ago by Robin Kim.
Dandelion Greens: We think these succulent Italian dandelions are the perfect bitter green. As with chicories, they pair well with rich, sharp flavors. For a simple and delicious side dish, try sautéing with olive oil (or bacon fat), plenty of garlic and a dash of red wine vinegar and salt. Or check out this recipe for Chickpea Pancakes with Dandelions and Caramelized Onions from a past newsletter!
THANK YOU!
Thanks to everyone who came out for a Potato Harvest Party for the ages. It was a beautiful and fun day for us farmers. We were so happy to get to meet and work with so many of you and your hardworking kids (wow)! Together we harvested almost 3000 lbs of German Butterball and Masquerade Potatoes.
KIMCHI RECIPE
Adapted from Amy Kim of Kimchi Mom, via Steamy Kitchen
INGREDIENTS
7 pounds of napa cabbage
about 1/3 cup kosher salt
1 cup sweet rice flour (Mochiko is a popular brand)
2 cups water
3/4 cup red pepper flakes, medium coarseness
1/4 cup chopped saewoo jjut (salted shrimp)
3 tablespoons fish sauce
A scant 1/2 cup sugar
5-7 stalks green onion, chopped
2 ounces ginger (2-inch long, 1-inch diameter piece), minced
8-9 medium garlic cloves, minced
3 medium carrots, julienned
1 medium-sized daikon or 1 small mu (Korean radish), thinly sliced in 2-inch sections
water
DIRECTIONS
Preparing the sweet rice flour paste:
Whisk together the sweet rice flour and water in a small saucepan. Keep whisking the mixture until bubbles form on the surface, then take the saucepan off the heat and set aside to cool.
Preparing the cabbage:
Starting at the base of the stem, cut the cabbage about one-third of the way down. Then pull apart the cabbage halves to completely separate them. Do the same with the halved portions - cut and pull apart. Repeat for all the cabbage heads. Give the quarters a quick rinse under running water and shake off any excess water.
Trim the core at a diagonal. Cut the quarters into 2-inch wide pieces and place in an oversized bowl (I used a 12 qt. bowl) or use a couple of large bowls. Sprinkle generously with salt. Alternate layers of cabbage and salt. Once all the cabbage is cut, give the cabbage a toss and sprinkle more salt on top. Place a weight (like two dinner plates) on top of the cabbage.
Let the salted cabbage sit for at least 3 hours, tossing after the first hour. Don't worry if you go over!
Preparing the sauce:
When the cabbage is close to being ready, prepare the red pepper sauce. In a medium bowl, mix kochukaru (red pepper flakes), water, saewoo jjut, fish sauce, green onions, sugar, ginger, garlic, rice flour paste, and about a 1/2 cup water. Mix thoroughly. Taste. It should be balanced – not too salty, not too fishy, not to spicy and not too sweet. Adjust seasonings as needed. Add in a bit more water if needed to bring the consistency to that of a thick batter. Mix in carrots and radish. Set aside.
Once the cabbage is ready (the volume of the cabbage should have decreased, and it should be a bit wilted), rinse it under cold running water and let drain in a colander.
In a large bowl, add the sauce to the cabbage. Thoroughly mix the sauce and cabbage and make sure every piece of cabbage is coated with the red pepper sauce. Taste. If it needs more salt, add a bit of fish sauce. But you don’t want it to be too salty.
Transfer the cabbage mixture into a large glass jar. Press down on the cabbage as you are filling the jar. Leave about 1-inch of space from the top.
Don’t throw the empty bowl in the sink just yet! Pour about 1 cup of water into the bowl, add about a teaspoon of salt to start, and stir. Swirl the water around to make sure you get all the remaining pepper mixture. Taste. Again, you don’t want it too salty – just a hint of salt. Fill the jar with the water until it barely covers the cabbage.
Press down on the cabbage again and make sure the liquid has made its way throughout the jar. Close the lid tightly.
Leave the jars at room temperature for about a day, away from direct sunlight. I leave mine out for about 24-30 hours. This is when the magic happens. You may want to place the jar in a shallow bowl or plate in case there is leakage.
After those 24 or so excruciating hours, sample the kimchi. There should be a slight tang. At this point it is ready to be refrigerated. You can eat the kimchi right away, but I prefer to wait at least a week to indulge. The kimchi will continue to ferment at a much slower pace in the refrigerator and will keep for about 4 weeks. The kimchi will turn really sour at this point and if you have any left in the jar, it will be perfect for jigae, fried rice, ramen or jun.
FARMER’S LOG
a RICH MASH
This week was all about harvest. We're in the thick of our fall harvest push — with macro bins of storage crops pouring out of the fields — and we are about to begin the liminal shoulder-season work of strawberry planting, compost spreading, and cover cropping before the rains.
We harvested about two-thirds of our potato crop over the weekend — 3,000 lbs of gorgeous tubers on Saturday (thanks to a gaggle of member volunteers at our Potato Harvest Party) and another 6,000 lbs on Sunday (along with a couple of macros of celery root). On Tuesday and Wednesday we brought in 17 macro bins of winter squash. The next round of late-curing winter squash is being clipped as we speak. We chipped away at a bed of fall carrots yesterday, and another 6 beds await.
We'll leave you this evening with the carefully and lovingly placed words of Mary Oliver.
Harvest, harvest, harvest! Shanga, Riley, and Arabella in the fall carrots
Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness
by Mary Oliver
Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends
into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out
to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married
to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do
if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on
though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.
* * * * *
See you in the fields,
David
CSA BASICS
Check out our Brief Membership Guide: A quick-reference on the essentials of being a member.
Harvest pick-up times:
Friday harvest pick-ups run from 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm
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
U-pick hours: Oriented members can come to the farm any time, 7 days a week, sunrise to sunset, to u-pick and enjoy the farm.
2026 CSA program dates: This year’s harvest season will run from Friday, June 12th through Tuesday, December 8th this year.
Where is the farm? The member parking lot is located at 1720 Cooper Rd., Sebastopol, CA 95472.
Slow on Cooper Rd. Please drive slowly on Cooper Road — 20 mph. It's a neighborhood with lots of kids and animals who generously share the road with us.
