THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Mustard Mix, Flashy Trout Back Lettuce, Rosaine Little Gem Lettuce, Lady Murasaki Bok Choi, Fennel, Celery, Loose Multicolored Beets, Assorted Zucchini, Patty Pan & Crookneck Squash, Pickling Cucumbers (last week!), Lemon Cucumbers, Persian Cucumbers, First of the year’s Tomatoes, Fresh Torpedo Onions, Carrots, Galia Melons, New Potatoes
U-PICK
Check the u-pick board in the barn for weekly u-pick limits.
Albion Strawberries | 2 pints per share
🌟 Cherry Tomatoes | 1 pint per share | check out harvest note below on this year’s varieties!
Amethyst Beans | No Limit - Take what you’ll eat or preserve this week!
Purple Sugar Snap Peas | 1 pint per share
Frying Peppers:
Shishitos | No Limit - Take what you’ll eat or preserve this week!
Padróns | No Limit - Take what you’ll eat or preserve this week!
Herbs & Edible Flowers: Husk Cherries, Italian Basil, Purple Basil, Lemon Basil, Purple Basil, Dill, Tulsi, Parsley, Cilantro, Chamomile, Calendula, Borage, Nasturtium, Pansies/Viola, Stridolo, Lemon Bergamot Bee Balm, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Tarragon, Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Culinary Sage, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, Vietnamese Coriander, Shiso/Perilla, Catnip, Pineapple Sage, Sorrel, Assorted Mints
Flowers! Too many to list! Feel free to pick the sunflowers along the edge of the parking area in addition to everything in the garden.
Double Click Rose Bon Bon Cosmos and Shimmer Celosia in the garden.
HARVEST NOTES
First of the year’s Tomatoes: This week we’re bringing you the very first sampling of this year’s field tomatoes. As David wrote last week, it’s been a cold, slow season so far, so this week there’s only enough for everyone to have a little preview. We’re hoping this week’s warm weather brings on the tomatoes in more abundance soon!
Flashy Trout Back Lettuce: We hope you’ve been enjoying the procession of different lettuces so far this season. We wanted to highlight this week’s Austrian heirloom — it’s a sweet romaine with a buttery texture and gorgeous red flecked leaves that’s making us excited about salads all over again.
ROASTED BEET, PISTACHIO & FENNEL SALAD
From Dishing up the Dirt
Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour | Serves: 4
BEET SALAD
1 bunch of beets, greens removed (save for another use) and roots scrubbed
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil (for roasting)
1 large fennel bulb, fronds and stalks removed
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/4 cup roasted pistachios, chopped
4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
CITRUS VINAIGRETTE
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup lime juice
1 Tablespoon honey or maple syrup
1 teaspoon unrefined salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
PREPARATION
Preheat the oven to 400F. Rub the beets with olive oil and place them in a Dutch oven or casserole style dish. Generously sprinkle salt and pepper over the beets. Pour in about 1/4 cup of water into the pan. Cover with a lid and place in the oven for 50-60 minutes or until fork tender. Timing will depend on the size of your beets.
Meanwhile, use a mandoline or sharp knife and shave the fennel into very thin pieces. This works best if you slice your fennel bulb in half and then into quarters and work with quarters to achieve this.
After your beets have roasted wait until they are cool enough to handle and slide the outer peel off. Then slice your beets into 1/2 inch pieces. Add the beets and sliced fennel to a large serving bowl. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Drizzle the veggies with half of the dressing and toss until everything is evenly coated. Add your pistachios, cilantro and goat cheese. Drizzle with more dressing to taste and serve.
FARMER’S LOG
On Limits and the Enjoyment of Life
As our harvests transition away from the delicate greens of early summer into the colors and flavors of peak summer, we are reminded of some of the reasons why we love eating seasonally from the farm.
Nothing dictates what is on our tables more than the tilt of the Earth. As you’ve seen, the shares of mid-June are very different from those of late July. The spring, with its soft waxing light, grows tender, almost translucent, baby-soft greens. While the hard summer sun condenses itself into weighty, colorful, sweet fruits. Mentally compare a silky, soft, watery Spring strawberry to the sun-hardened, acid-sweet strawberries this week.
Another cool thing about eating from the farm is that we get to experience the full arc of plant growth — from fresh onions to cured onions; from baby Spring to deep orange Fall carrots kissed by frost. In supermarkets, most produce is harvested at one standard stage of a few standard varieties. Here, life is happening, and we pull it out of the field for you to taste.
We also love that this model allows us the chance to distribute less-than-perfect produce and to share over-abundant harvests with members. You’ll experience this more as the season goes on. Ancestral cultures were scrupulously efficient in their use of food because they had to be. There was a use for everything. And it was a duty to preserve the abundance of Summer. In this spirit, we will put out the 2nd tomatoes, split and cracked, but still perfectly good (sometimes even better) sliced on a BLT.
But perhaps our favorite thing about this model is an unsung hero: Limits.
Yes, limits. Not having something. “Limit: 1 per share.”
“What!?”
We live in a time and a place where we can get just about any food, anytime, en masse, if you can afford it. Tomatoes in January. Melons in the February. Mangos in Sebastopol.
We have conquered seasons. We have conquered limits.
But have we also conquered one of life’s simplest pleasures? What is the fulfillment of desire without the longing that precedes it?
This week, we will cherish the year’s first slicing tomato. A satisfaction further delayed by this unusually cold Summer. That first slice of vine-ripened tomato on an open faced sandwich (with a little basil, olive oil, and salt) will bring back a flood of memories from last summer, and summers before that, and we will smile at our loved ones at the table in our shared remembrance and shared enjoyment of this thing that we have now, but did not have for so long. It will bring us together. Perhaps your first bite of Kabocha squash will unlock a similar smile this Fall.
In most (or maybe all) rooted cultures there are festivals celebrating the return of foods. In Southern France there is a plum festival and a Spring festival marking the return of the egg, when the hens start laying again. (What is life without eggs?) In Sebastopol, we have the Gravenstein Apple Fair this weekend.
Limits, scarcity, the lean times — they help us appreciate, like really appreciate, what we have and where we are, maybe even who we are.
Life's fleeting nature is really it's spice — and so it goes for food, we'd say.
In a few short weeks, we will be rich in tomatoes. We will take for granted their spiced-earth smell and the way they tie so many meals together. We may even grow sick of tomatoes. But not this week. This week we will hold up the year’s first tomato and rotate it around with our fingers — impossibly red, impossibly perfect — and it will shine back at us and remind us how impossibly lucky we are.
See you in the fields,
David
CSA BASICS
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
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.
2025 CSA program dates: Our harvest season will run from Saturday, June 14th through Tuesday, December 9th this year.
Where is the farm? The member parking lot is located at 1720 Cooper Rd., Sebastopol, CA 95472.
Slow on Cooper Rd. Out of respect for our neighbors and the many kids and animals that live on Cooper Rd., please drive slow (20 mph)!
