Spring Update

Dear members,

We’ve been sowing so many seeds thinking of you all lately that we thought it was high time to update you and give you snapshot of what’s been happening out here in the verdant Spring fields!

WHEN WILL THE CSA START?

After this abundantly wet winter our fields are just now drying out enough for us to start working the soil. Because of this, the season’s start will be a little later than previous years, with our goal being a first CSA pickup on Saturday, June 24th. The six months thereafter will, as usual, be an avalanche of free-choice, farm-fresh produce, flowers, strawberries and herbs… all for your culinary enjoyment!

Our amazing crew hard at work giving some love to the perennial herb and flower beds and prepping our annual beds.

HOW WILL I KNOW WHEN PICK-UPS START?

All our important CSA communications are sent via this email and posted on the Newsletters page of our website. We will send out a Newsletter announcing the first week of CSA pickups one week beforehand. The email will contain logistics (like how to find us) and a link to sign-up for an orientation time so we can show you around the farm so you can make the most of your harvest share this year!

CSA SHARES STILL AVAILABLE!

We still have about 5 slots remaining in our 2023 CSA program! If you know anyone who might be interested in signing-up, please encourage them to join! Because, there is really nothing better than spending a Sunday in a garden of flowers nibbling sun-warmed strawberries with your favorite people.

Thanks to contributions form our amazing community, we still have ample Share Price Assistance Funds available to help lower the cost for folks in need of a reduced price share.

A glimpse of the greenhouse, including the first cucumbers and cabbage of the season, hot peppers, tomatoes, and all of the year’s onions.

What's happeninG ON THE FARM?!

Those of you who live close by, or who’ve been picking up veggies from Winter Sister Farm over the winter have probably been following the spectacular drama of the Laguna’s endless rise and fall this winter. It was incredible to have a front row seat to its daily changes, and to the immense amount of water moving through the county. With our lower fields completely covered by water for much of the winter, we felt grateful to be a seasonal farm, with all our tools and materials safely tucked out of the way, able to sit back and enjoy the throngs of waterbirds who seemed so delighted by their newly-created habitat.

Top row (left to right): photos from January 5th and January 9th, Bottom row (left to right): March 10th, and March 15th

We used that rainy, inside time to craft a plan for a season that includes all of our favorite varieties, some exciting new experimental varietals, and an incredible crew and a fleet of new tools to help us pull it all off with a Spring baby in tow!

The greenhouse is filling up with the plants that will take us all the way through the end of the year. Tiny baby celeriac shares space with the first succession of tomatoes, and hot, sweet and frying peppers. This week, it feels like every time you turn around the baby sugar snap peas have grown an inch, and the onions get chunkier by the day. We’ve got some exciting additions brewing in the garden, including spectacular new varieties of Rudbeckia and fragrant Centaurea, just to give you a taste.

We are so excited for you to meet the crew, to get lost in the garden, and to sink into the seasons this coming Summer and Fall.

Until soon...

See you in the fields,
David & Kayta

Click here for an archive of past newsletters

2023 CSA SIGN-UPS REMINDER!

Dear friends,

We wanted to send you a quick reminder that sign-ups for our 2023 CSA program are now open to returning members.

We will be opening up sign-ups to the waitlist this weekend, and while we will likely not fill up immediately, we recommend signing up soon to reserve your spot.

We hope to enjoy another bountiful and buzzing harvest season with you this summer and fall!

See you in the fields,
David & Kayta

2023 CSA SIGN-UPS NOW OPEN!

Dear friends,

We’re delighted to announce that sign-ups for our 2023 CSA program are now open to returning members.

We hope you will join us for another season of free-choice harvest selection, abundant u-pick gardens, and soil-born magic.

We have a long waitlist this year of folks looking for a spot in the CSA. We highly recommend that returning members sign-up within the next two weeks to reserve a spot!

EMPLOYEES LOOKING FOR HOUSING

We have a couple of wonderful farmers joining our crew next year who are looking for housing in or around Sebastopol. If you have, or know of, any one-bedrooms, studios, or shared housing situations, please let us know and we’ll pass the word on to them!

WINTER UPDATE

Well, the big news for Kayta and I this coming year is that we are expecting a baby in May! 

We are beyond excited to welcome this little bean into the world and to be able to raise them in a community as special as this one.

To make room in our lives to become new parents, we have been planning an exciting year of growth for the farm. (To make space for a human baby, the farm baby must grow up!) To help relieve Kayta from fieldwork, and to lighten my load a little this coming year, we will have a larger and more experienced crew with us than ever before. There will be a couple of familiar faces and a few new ones. We can’t wait for you to meet them.

We also in the process of acquiring a larger tractor and are making some sorely needed upgrades to our field implements to relieve bottlenecks and increase the efficiency with which we prepare beds, plant, weed, and harvest.

Aside from these exciting developments, the winter has been relatively quiet on the farm. Ashlynn has been holding it down in the pack shed and garden, helping to prepare us for the season ahead and tending to the young sprouting garlic and strawberries, who are both just starting to spread their first leaves and find their feet.

The big rains of December and early January were consistently lighter than expected, so the Laguna flooding we experienced here was relatively normal and caused no damage to our equipment or buildings. We hope you all were spared the worst as well.

The other day, Kayta and I went on a magical evening walk. 

We strolled down Cooper Rd. To Winter Sister to see if we could distract Anna. Then we crossed the marshland between our farms and headed south to the garden. In the fields in the distance, ducks and marsh birds glided and pecked in the standing water. A big Blue Heron stood statuesquely on the banks of a pool, camouflaged in the blue twilight. 

Kayta stood in the middle of the garden, refreshed to be looking out at the physical space she had been planning in spreadsheets all day. I asked her what new flowers she was excited about seeing here next year. “Big ones,” she said, “the theme this year is big face flowers to bring contrast and vibrancy to all the small flowers.” She’s excited about a new, fragrant, large, white centaurea called “The Bride”; a new variety of sunflowers in classic colors; scented nicotiana grandiflora; and some quill-petaled Black Eyed Susan’s. 

My gaze couldn’t help but drift from the rows of last years flowers to her belly, poking so cutely out from her coat. 

It’s gonna be a beautiful year on the farm!

See you in the fields,
David & Kayta