THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Bicolor Sweet Corn, Caraflex Cabbage, Eggplant, Assorted Zucchini, Patty Pan & Crookneck Squash, Assorted Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Yellow Sweet Spanish Onions, Bulk Carrots, Sarah’s Choice Cantaloupe, Assorted Little Gem Lettuce, Romaine Lettuce, Bel Fiore Radicchio, Celery, Hakurei Salad Turnips, Arugula
U-PICK
Check the u-pick board in the barn for weekly u-pick limits.
🌟 Dragon Tongue Green Beans | No Limit - Take what you’ll eat or preserve this week!
Albion Strawberries | 2 pints per share
Cherry Tomatoes | No Limit - Take what you’ll eat or preserve this week!
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 | 5 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.
HARVEST NOTES
Sweet Peppers: We’re growing 2 kinds of sweet peppers this year:
Cornitos: We’ll have three colors of these delicious Italian peppers whose name means “little horns” after the Italian Corno di Toro “bull’s horn” peppers. They make excellent snacks eaten out of hand, sliced into salads, fried, and roasted.
Jimmy Nardello: As Baker Creek seeds tells it “this fine Italian pepper was grown each year by Giuseppe and Angella Nardello at their garden in the village of Ruoti, in Southern Italy. In 1887 they set sail with their one-year-old daughter Anna for a new life in the U.S. When they reached these shores, they settled and gardened in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and grew this same pepper that was named for their fourth son, Jimmy.” These peppers have thin walls and super-sweet flesh that makes them incredible for pan-frying and roasting.
Dragon Tongue Beans: Our next succession of beans is just getting started right next to where the Amethyst Beans were. Look deep inside and underneath the plants for the cream-colored beans with purple speckles. Deliciously sweet!
TOMATO INTRODUCTIONS
Welcome to peak tomato season everyone! It’s a couple weeks late from this cool, cool summer, but now all of our field tomatoes are fruiting happily and it’s time we introduced you. We hope you fall in love with some of them this year. Tell us which is your favorite!
Top row (left to right): Speckled Roman, Woodstock, Black Krim, Harvest Moon // Middle row: Black Prince, New Girl, Granadero, Cuor di bue Albegna // Bottom row: Goldie, Abigail, Aunt Ruby’s German Green.
Heirlooms & Slicing Tomatoes:
Abigail: This beautiful pink beefsteak was bred for the meaty, rich flavor of a classic Brandywine, but without the blemishes.
Aunt Ruby’s German Green: Green turning slightly to yellow when ripe, this tomato is our all-time favorite. First introduced by Ruby Arnold whose German-immigrant grandfather saved the seeds. You'll know Aunt Ruby's is ripe when it gives just slightly to the touch.
Big Beef: Like jeans and a t-shirt, a classic red beefsteak. Not pictured, but it’s big, round, and red.
Black Krim: A Russian heirloom with a bold, smoky flavor.
Black Prince: An Eastern-European Heirloom, Black Prince is one of the least flashy, but most flavorful tomatoes we grow. Perfect for slicing into a simple tomato salad. Can play beautifully with full-size and cherry tomatoes.
Goldie: David’s personal favorite. A mellow tomato — light on the acid. A good Goldie (dark orange when ripe) will taste like flowers and melons and goes down smooth and sweet.
Harvest Moon: A beautiful mid-size yellow tomato whose interior is marbled with red. A true beauty.
New Girl: Classic, early red slicing tomatoes.
Woodstock: A new variety for us this year. Johnny’s Selected Seeds says it “hits all the tomato flavor notes: sugary and rich, with plenty of acid. Green when fully ripe with a psychedelic swirling interior.”
Canning & Sauce Tomatoes:
Cuor di bue Albegna: This heirloom sauce tomato, whose name means “ox heart,” hails from the Ligurian coastal town of Albenga, just west of Genoa, in Northern Italy. Uprising Seeds, who we purchased the seeds from, says “Albenga was the tomato that we kept coming back to all season at the farm when it was time for a stew of white beans, kale, and roasted tomatoes, pasta e fagioli, or a just simple rustic pasta sauce.” Thanks for the recommendation, Laurel!
Granadero: Beautifully smooth little sauce tomatoes with great flavor.
Speckled Roman: An exceptionally delicious sauce tomato with a psychedelic dream-coat. Excellent for fresh eating in addition to processing.
PRESERVING THE HARVEST
Bulk Tomatoes are here! From now until the end of tomato season, bulk quantities of tomatoes, including sauce varieties and seconds (tomatoes that are blemished or overripe but still tasty) will be available in addition to the perfect ones!
There will be a 15 lb season limit on bulk tomatoes, meaning that each share will be able to take up to 15 pounds out-of-bag over the course of the season, in addition to whatever weekly tomatoes you’d like to put in your bag. Just like with the pickling cucumbers, the season limit applies to each share, meaning that members who are alternating weeks should coordinate as to how you want to divide your allotted 15 lb. You’re welcome to take them all at once or a little bit here and there, whichever you like! As always, we recommend taking your allotted quantity as soon as you’re able; it’s hard to predict how long tomatoes will be around for, and as we come to the end of the season the tomatoes available as bulk will include more seconds than early on.
PRESERVING YOUR TOMATOES
While canning and drying are also options, we’ve found that the easiest way to put up tomatoes is freezing. While you can simply pop them in the freezer without processing first, we particularly love halving them, drizzling with olive oil and roasting in a low-temp oven to concentrate the flavors. Or, if you have the time now and want to make a sauce that truly bottles the taste of summer, consider making fresh tomato sauce!
FRESH TOMATO SAUCE
For the simplest and most satisfying tomato sauce, we recommend sautéing onions and garlic in more olive oil than you might think you need. Then add tomatoes and salt to taste and cook down for 45 minutes to an hour until your sauce has reached the desired consistency and flavor. Depending on your preferred consistency, tomatoes can be peeled and de-seeded before cooking, or if you prefer a more rustic sauce, chop and them throw them in the pot seeds and all, or blend partially with an immersion blender. Heirlooms and cherry tomatoes will impart a notable sweetness to sauce, but will also require more cooking as they have a higher water concentration than sauce tomatoes.
For more detailed instructions, and some good ideas for variations on tomato sauces, check out this Smitten Kitchen post on Fresh Tomato Sauce.
FARMER’S LOG
LATE SUMMER’S RHYTHM
What happened this week on the farm? With a farm of this size and a crew of this awesomeness level, there are too many things that happen in any given week to even hold in one brain.
So many I’s were dotted and T’s crossed; so many bins were washed; so much admin was done; so many leaks repaired; so many veggies carefully picked and stored. The local hawks enjoyed hunting in the freshly mowed fields; the local turkey babes grew at least an inch.
Praying Mantis protectors in the sweet peppers, and a luscious new succession of dill and purple basil in the north garden, next to the Autumn’s Touch Amaranth.
But what happened?
Eric was busy pushing the early cover cropping project forward — seeding another section of Highgarden and setting up irrigation to cover crop Round Loaf Field — as well as keeping up with his usual bed prep and weed killing duties. Riley and Eric did great work on the Argus finger weeder on Wednesday afternoon. We planted fall scallions and lettuce in Farfield East, our last field block of the year.
We got 66 tons (132,000 lbs) of compost delivered — some of it mixed with limestone and some with gypsum. Our soils spoil us with melons and tomatoes and sweet corn so it’s important to spoil it! This compost will be spread with the cover crop seed as a final kiss and “thank you” to the soil before winter bedtime. It will feed the soil and in turn feed us next year.
Arabella headed off on a little vacation on Tuesday afternoon. Aisling was out a bit as well so Riley, Henry, Zaccai, and Kayta really held it down in the harvest realm. The harvests at this time of year are at their bulkiest (so many fruits!) so the team is at peak harvest buffness.
In the plant realm our storage onions are just a week or so away from flopping over their stems — a sign that they are ready to be harvested. The popcorn and Hopi blue flour corn are in the “R2” stage, with the silks drying out, the ears at, or reaching their full length, and the kernels full of moisture. Most of our beautiful winter squash are reaching full size and ready to start sweetening.
But the most magical spot on the farm right now might be in the North Garden, toward the west. All the new herb plantings (Dill, Basil, Cilantro, and Parsley) are lush and flourishing and they are surrounded by the new flowers, buzzing new Amaranth, Marigolds, Bachelor’s Buttons and Linaria.
Hope to see you there,
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.
