THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Spinach, Salad Mix (with Red-to-the-Heart Little Gems, Bel Fiore Radicchio and Frisée), Cegolaine Little Gem Lettuce, Chalupa Green Romaine Lettuce, Black Magic Dino Kale, Mei Qing Choi Bok Choi, Mokum Carrots, Corinto Cucumbers, Pickling Cucumbers, Costata Romanesco & Green Zucchini, Yellow Crookneck & Patty Pan Squash, Fennel, Fresh Softneck Garlic
U-PICK
Albion Strawberries | 2 pints per share: ATTENTION! The areas near the entrances are pretty picked on, don’t forget to branch out to the back areas to find the jack-pots!
Sugar Snap Peas | 1/2 pint per share: Read below for important tips on the first picking
Herbs: Italian, Purple and Thai Basil, Dill, Tulsi, Chamomile, Parsley, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Tarragon, Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Culinary Sage, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, Vietnamese Coriander, Shiso (Perilla), Catnip, Pineapple, Sorrel, Assorted Mints
Flowers!
HARVEST NOTES
Pickling Cucumbers: These adorable cucumbers will soon become u-pick for members interested in bulk pickling, but we couldn’t resist sharing them with you this week in the barn as they’re also delicious for fresh eating. We’re offering them alongside the first of our slicing cucumbers, which, like the first pancakes, are ugly and delicious. Feel free to mix and match them in any recipe calling for cucumbers.
Don’t forget to visit (with a pair of clippers) the two beautiful beds of sunflowers in the new north section of the garden!
EASY CEASAR DRESSING
From Smitten Kitchen
This super-simple Ceasar dressing comes together quickly and works well on any greens — try it on both this week’s gorgeous salad mix and sweet Romaine hearts. We’ve scaled the recipe up here to make a full pint of dressing — enough for several days of generous salads, but if you’d rather make a smaller amount, check out the recipe link above. As with all dressing recipes, using high quality ingredients — particularly olive oil and mayonnaise — will make a big difference.
1/2 cup mayonnaise
4 small garlic cloves, minced
4 teaspoons worcestershire sauce or 1 to 2 anchovies, minced
4 teaspoons smooth dijon mustard
1/4 cup lemon juice or champagne vinegar
1 cup olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Whisk all the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until smooth, or measure directly into a pint jar and shake til smooth. Don’t skimp on the salt and pepper; they’re going to wake the whole thing up.
Flower Power Hour!
Please join us for the 2nd Annual Flower Power Happy Hour with Flower Ambassador Cassidy Blackwell and Farmer Kayta on Tuesday, July 16th!
5:00 pm: Garden Tour with Kayta — been wondering about the names of a certain flower that you’ve fallen for? Bring any questions and curiosities and we’ll try to answer them.
6:00 pm: Arranging led by Cassidy with creative prompts and floral inspiration to help you make your most artful arrangements!
Bring your clippers if you have some, your fave flower vessel and a cup to drink out of and let’s enjoy the gorgeous garden vibes! Non-alcoholic beverages will be provided.
VOLUNTEER WEDNESDAYS
Have a hankering to ground down, get some dirt on your hands and work with us farmers on a nice cool morning? Join us for the following volunteer days in July. Kids welcome!
July 10th, 7:00 am - 10:00 am
July 24th, 7:00 am - 10:00 am
Music Classes on the farm!
Farm member, Hanna, will be hosting Music Together classes for 0-7-year-olds and the people who love them on the farm this summer. Classes will be Thursday mornings at 9:30 and 10:45 starting July 11th and running for 6 weeks. Find out more and sign up here: www.MTofWestSonomaCounty.com.
FARMER’S LOG
HALF-YEAR IN THE REARVIEW
At this point in our farming year — with half the year in the rearview and so many of our crops planted and growing vigorously — we can take a moment to take stock, look back on the hands we’ve been dealt, and tell some stories.
One of the great things about growing a huge diversity of crops is that no matter what hand you’re dealt weather-wise, usually someone is going to be loving life. There will be losers, but there will also be winners. Some crops will be just alive, but others will be thriving and living their best life. It’s different every year and it’s endlessly interesting to observe as a farmer.
So what has this year been like so far and how are our charges faring?
In a nutshell: 2023-2024 was very consistently wet winter with virtually no dry spells to speak of; the spring had some unusually strong rains; and the late spring / early summer has been very hot.
Whiplash, anyone?
While we got more overall rain over the 2022-2023 rain year (49 inches last year vs. 42” this year) this spring was much wetter. In 2023 it basically stopped raining around April 1st. This year we kept getting big rains throughout April and even a 2” downpour in early May!
The effect of these late saturating rains meant that our fields were too wet to till much, much later than our therapists would have liked.
Our tillage season, the spring period in which we take our fields from fallow cover crop to shaped beds for planting, is ideally spread out over a comfortable 6 to 8 weeks, from late March or early April to mid-May. This year, our two main vegetable fields were not dry enough to work until April 22nd and April 29th. This condensed our tillage season into a grey-hair inducing mad dash to stay one step ahead of our bursting greenhouse plants and planting schedule. Tristan made sure the tractor was constantly running and pulled many an early morning and long days.
Even still, pivots were necessary. We had to plant our first succession of carrots and cucumbers late and in a distant and untested field 530ft away from our nearest irrigation riser because it dries out sooner than our main fields. The cucumbers and squash have hated that field for unknown reasons (cursed?), and first carrots, which you are eating now, seem to think it is fine there.
The other effect of the wet winter and late saturating spring rains was a bad case of rust in our garlic and small garlic bulbs. Garlic thrives in places with nice sunny dry downs in the winter (think Gilroy). This winter was the opposite of that on the Laguna. So while we’ll have to suffer through another year of medium to small garlic bulbs, we’ll take what we can get. (Side note: Your farmers like growing gigantic garlic bulbs and are actively looking for a site to lease higher up on Cooper Rd., just to grow garlic.)
On the winners side of the wet winter/spring were the wild plants, the big oak trees, and the little froggies of the Laguna. The leaf-out of the oak trees this year was so thick the shade seemed palpably darker than year’s past. Deep dark. Similarly, the Pacific tree frog babies have been SO prolific this year. A sight for sore eyes after a decade of drought. This year will forever be known as the year of tiny frogs on the Laguna. There are 5 on every tray in the greenhouse.
After that long-wet winter and early spring, someone decided to turn the thermostat way up.
As you probably know, this current heatwave has set records around the Bay Area. But the one that caught us off-guard was the 97 degree day in early June.
Henry looping around to cover potatoes on Potato Day, May 30th.
We had just planted potatoes. Usually when you plant potatoes you worry about the soil being too cold or too wet for the plants to avoid fungus. Pushed to a rather late May 30th planting, we were content in our knowledge that our green-sprouted potato seed babies would be tucked into pleasantly warm soil.
Then it got hot.
A week later it was 97 degrees with soil temps probably approaching 120. Baked potatoes anyone? We lost a lot of seed potatoes that day — about 30% of our first planting — the leafless tubers unable to transpire their way out of that kind of heat. Luckily we had 30% extra seeds stored back in the cooler which we replanted and are growing beautifully. Pivot.
The sugar snap peas have also hated the unusually hot early summer and threw in the towel early.
On the winners side of this heat seems to be our heat-loving sweet corn, melons, and other nightshades. We shouldn’t count our eggs before they hatch, but the hot peppers, sweet peppers, and tomatoes all look very happy and, if it keeps being this warm, will come into fruit much earlier than last year.
There are many more tales of this half-year in the fields, but they will have to wait for another day. This sleepy farmer needs to hit the hay.
Stay cool out there!
David
CSA BASICS
Still need an orientation? Please contact us by email with a few days notice to set up a time for an orientation tour. We are available for tours during Tuesday CSA pickups from 1-6 pm and Saturday CSA pickups from 9 am - 2 pm.
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.
