THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
In a nutshell: Heavy bags of hardy roots and squash to send you off and stock up your larder.
Hopi Blue Cornmeal, Assorted Braising Greens, Celery Root, Assorted Radishes, Bolero Carrots, Beets, Kohlrabi, Bodega Red Potatoes, Bintje Potatoes, Assorted Onions, Lorz Softneck Garlic, Assorted Winter Squash
Your 2023 farm crew! Asa, Paige, Tristan, David, Kayta & Alice, Aisling and Anna.
HARVEST NOTES
Hopi Blue Cornmeal: This beautiful corn originates from the Hopi people of the Four Corners region. This a fresh corn flour, ground this week from whole kernels. We recommend eating it soon to savor its freshness and flavor, but if you don’t get around to it you can store it in the freezer to keep the fats fresh. Delicious in pancakes (check out Week 1’s Newsletter for our go-to Hopi Blue Corn pancake recipe), cornbread (recipe below), or as a beautiful purple polenta.
SIGNING UP FOR 2024
We will open sign-ups for our 2024 CSA program in January. Returning members will have the first chance to sign-up to reserve a spot before we open it up to folks on the waitlist and to the public. We expect demand to be high for next season to please sign up pronto to reserve your spot.
If you have friends or family who’d be interested in enjoying the farm experience with you next year, please encourage them to sign up for the waitlist on our website (and to mention you in the comments!)
WINTER SISTER FARM
Gonna miss us this winter? Fear not, Winter Sister Farm, right next door has you covered! They will be running a farm-stand this winter, as well as their 2024 Winter CSA program. Check out Winter Sister Farm, for more info on obtaining the highest quality specialty winter veggies, flowers, and herbs all picked up free-choice market style, on their beautiful farm here on Cooper Rd! Sign-up today!
Skillet Cornbread
Recipe by Yewande Komolafe for NYTimes Cooking
Our favorite new cornbread recipe is one we learned from our good friends at Winter Sister Farm. It’s moist and sweet and incredibly comforting alongside a bowl of soup or on its own slathered in honey.
Ingredients
(Yield: 6 to 8 servings)
8 tablespoons/115 grams unsalted butter, melted, plus more for brushing the pan
1½ cups/250 grams medium-coarse yellow cornmeal
¾ cup/114 grams all-purpose flour
¼ cup/55 grams granulated sugar
3½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
¼ teaspoon baking soda
2 cups/470 milliliters buttermilk (or 3/4 cup full-fat yogurt, 3/4 cup milk, 1/2 cup water)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
Preparation
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Butter the bottom and sides of a 10-inch skillet or cast-iron pan and set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk and eggs. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir until incorporated. Fold in the melted butter. Pour the batter into the prepared skillet and smooth the top.
Bake until the top is lightly browned and the sides pull away cleanly from the skillet, about 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely and serve warm or room temperature, or reserve to make cornbread dressing.
Local Honey & handmade gifts for sale this week!
We’re delighted that we’ll have a couple more pop-ups from CSA members selling handmade and hand-tended goods this week!
Please join Swarm & Tender on Tuesday the 19th for the final day of the magic CSA pickup.
There will be a limited amount of honey available in an array of glass jars and they can accept cash and Venmo.
Swarm & Tender is a Sonoma County Local Honey Bee Rescue, Education and Relocation business run by a couple of bee forward feminists doing their part to help support honeybees in a time of need.
After the ample rain last winter and spring, the hard working little ladies were able to produce an over abundance of honey this year, beyond what they need to thrive overwinter. Due to this bountiful honey production Mariah and Spencer were able to sustainably harvest a honey crop for the first time in a number of years.
They would love to share this liquid gold with you and yours this holiday season! Thank you for supporting local pollinators!
The Wool Witch will also be back hosting a table this Saturday. She will offer a mix of homemade soaps, tinctures, essential oil rollers and wool/alpaca rugs as well as local Eric Kent wine at 50% off! Come get your gifts, some made with herbs from our garden, or treat yourself!
FARMER’S LOG
TREASURE
It was a bittersweet day today — the last Friday harvest of our 2023 harvest season. This Tuesday’s pick-up will be the last pick-up of our harvest season.
Each harvest season is like a voyage — with us farmers & CSA members striking out together on a grand adventure. The community supported agriculture model that we practice here, that we ask you to practice here, is not a gimmick or a fad. It is a powerful and functional alliance between a human community and their farmers.
We are one crew on this voyage. And that bond allows us to farm well; to farm intentionally; to farm for the future.
So what did we, as a community, just do? What did we accomplish together?
First and foremost it was our biggest voyage yet. We planted 8 acres and grew produce for over 390 Sonoma County adults and 170 Sonoma County kiddos. It was our most bountiful year and our nets came up full — 14,000 lbs of potatoes, 9,000 lbs of carrots, 8,000 lbs of onions — just to name a few figures.
But the catch is never the most valuable part of a voyage. The real treasures are the intangibles: The adventures you had, the lessons you learned, and the friends you made along the way.
This year we welcomed 85 new households to the farm — many of whom said coming to the farm was the highlight of their week.
We welcomed three amazing new crew members to our team who taught us new knots and new shanties and kept the farm in ship-shape throughout the long voyage, even in the gales.
We raised $7,200 in share price assistance funds, which helped members in our community enjoy a share they otherwise couldn’t have afforded. We raised $2,300 to tend the wild habitat of the farm, which went toward the planting of a 200 ft hedgerow of Elderberry, Toyon, Coffee Berry, Wax Myrtle, and other native shrubs on the northern edge of Highgarden.
We took care of our blessed soil. We put down 48 tons of compost and seeded 1,500 lbs of cover crop seed. Those seeds sprouted well, and if they continues to grow as well as they have, they’ll become over 40,000 lbs of carbonaceous biomass that will feed the soil for years to come.
It was a year of immense growth for the capability of our ship and within the business itself. We were able to take on loans to purchase some key pieces of equipment that drastically improved our efficiency in the field. We also built better digital and physical systems for capturing and communicating the information we use in the field.
It was your ship owners most work-life balanced year yet. The farm was able to support us while we brought our sweet Alice into the world and became new parents.
Finally, and perhaps most gratifying of all for us, the farm seemed to become, more than ever before, a place where people spent time. Whether alone, with friends, or with family, it was a presence in peoples lives — a place to gather, to read, to hang out with friends, to let the kids run free. We swore we’d never tell, but one evening Kayta and I stumbled upon a couple making out next to the flowering potato field as the sun set.
That single moment was all the treasure we needed from this year’s voyage.
* * * * *
Our one hope for your experience of the farm this year, it is that it included moments of connection between this place, the bounty it gave, and your heart.
This connection is so important for human beings and so hard to find in this world. Without it we are fragmented, lost. It ties us to this beautiful planet and to each other.
Thank you for joining us on the voyage this year and helping to build a place where that connection can be felt and lived.
And now for our customary parting words…
If, in the dark season ahead, you feel pent up, like you need to get out of the house and stretch your legs, come visit the farm and stand still for a moment in a field.
There you will find silence, broken only by the screech of a hawk or the singing of the blackbirds. A coolness will emanate up from the wet soil, chilling your knees. Before you will lay the sleeping farm, the soft contours of the land draped in a blanket of green.
But listen closely...
For within that slumber next season churns. The cover crop stretches its living roots deep into the soil where subterranean creatures break down this year's roots and residue, processing them — like so many memories — into the raw materials that will make up next year’s stories, next year’s voyage, next year's bounty.
Listen closely and you’ll hear the land dreaming.
Now, it is time for your farmers to rest, to reflect, and to do a little dreaming ourselves. Thank you all so much for the memories this harvest season. Here is to many more to come.
See you in the fields,
David for Kayta for Anna, Aisling, Asa, Paige & Tristan
