The farm is in need of pint baskets! If you have an abundance at home, please bring some back to the farm so that they can be reused throughout the season.
THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Bicolor Sweet Corn, Mini Purple Cabbage, Eggplant, Assorted Zucchini, Patty Pan & Crookneck Squash, Mojito Persian Cucumbers, Slicing Cucumbers, Lemon Cucumbers, Striped Armenian Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Poblano Peppers, Torpedo Onions, Bulk Carrots, Sarah’s Choice Cantaloupe, Assorted Little Gem Lettuce, Rouxai Red Oakleaf Lettuce, Escarole
U-PICK
Check the u-pick board in the barn for weekly u-pick limits.
Albion Strawberries | 2 pints per share
Cherry Tomatoes | 3 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!
Jalapeños | 2 peppers per share
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.
Beautiful new beds of Dill, Bachelor’s Buttons, Marigolds, and Amaranth in the North Garden
HARVEST NOTES
Bulk Carrots: We’ve just finished harvesting from our abundant 1st succession of carrots and the 2nd succession is right on their heels, so every share will be able to take home up to 3 pounds of carrots this week. We’re dreaming of carrot cake, carrot juice, and the delicious carrot pickles from the recipe below!
pickled carrots
These 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. 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. If you still have some beets hanging out in your fridge, check out the full recipe for delicious pickled beet & onions, too!
PICKLED CARROTS
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.
FARMER’S LOG
RE-THINKING COVER CROP
We are doing some fun experiments on the farm right now — experiments having to do with a paradigm shift in how we cover crop our fields here on the Laguna.
Cover cropping is an age-old practice, and one of the organic farmer’s primary tools for building soil fertility, organic matter, and soil biology.
Cover crops are usually seed mixes (often grasses and legumes) planted in fields and let to grow big and tall, not for human food, but to be incorporated into the soil later, as “green manure” that builds carbon in the soil and provides food for the all important microbe allies that live below. A healthy cover crop can pulse 8,000 lbs of biomass and 100 lbs of nitrogen per acre of ground. Cover crops are so named because they also cover and protect the soil against harsh winter weather.
Our lower fields (and cover crop) under water in March 2023
In climates like ours it is typical for farmer’s to seed cover crop in the fall, let it grow slowly all winter, and then to mow it and incorporate it into the soil when it is huge and flowering in the spring before planting.
We’ve learned these last few years that the Laguna is not typical.
The flooding we experience in our fields during a normally wet winter kills fall-seeded cover crops when they are small. Typical fall-planted cover crop seed can only really work here in a drought years.
Time for a paradigm shift.
The experiments Eric is spearheading in Highgarden (to the right of the strawberries) and in various places in our lower fields represent efforts to explore new summer and overwintering cover crop mixes and to generally shift our focus to establishing overwintered cover crops much earlier than October.
Auden and Ever in head high cover crop in an area of the farm that doesn’t flood (this year’s strawberry patch).
By seeding cover crops in June, July, and August — as soon as crops are harvested, or before Fall crops are planted — we hope to get solid stands of “green manure”, that can survive the winter inundations here.
I’m most excited about a mix of triticale and crimson clover (and possibly rye grass) that we’re now seeding into the fields plots that provided our first harvest shares.
If all goes to plan the grasses will grow tall and strong before the winter storms. Even if they are killed by flooding, their robust root systems will hold the soil and their stately stalks will cover the precious soil. The crimson clover, hiding out underneath, we expect to explode in leguminous glory in the spring.
Hats off to Eric for leading this charge — passionate and prudent farmer that he is.
Wish us luck and here is to robust cover crop stands!
See you in the fields,
David
CSA BASICS
Slow on Cooper Road! Out of respect for our neighbors and the many kids and animals that live on Cooper Rd., please drive slow (20 mph)!
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.
