THIS WEEK’S HARVEST
Arugula, Salanova Gem Lettuce, Romaine Lettuce, Pink Ladyslipper Radishes, Purple Daikon, Carrots, Red Ace Beets, Sweet Corn, Celery, Assorted Zucchini & Summer Squash, Sarah’s Choice Cantaloupe, Poblano Peppers, Fresh Torpedo Onions, Early Girl & Heirloom Tomatoes
U-PICK
🚨 ATTENTION! With all the u-pick crops, the areas at the heads of each bed are significantly more picked over than the back — don’t forget to branch out to the back areas to find the jack-pots!
Albion Strawberries | 3 pints per share
Padrón Peppers | 1 pints per share | Note that as Padróns age, they are more likely to be spicy!
Shishito Peppers | 2 pints per share | While still most likely to be mild, even shishitos can have a little heat towards the end of the season.
Cherry Tomatoes | 4 pints per share
Amethyst Green Beans | Gleanings
HOT PEPPERS:
Jalapeños | 5 peppers per share | To find the hottest ones, look for “checking”, the delicate cracks in the skin that indicate the pepper has aged into its heat.
Thai Chilis | 3 peppers | Pick when red
Cherry Bomb Peppers | 3 peppers per share | Pick when red
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 & Husk Cherries!
Flowers!
We have reached peak u-pick cruising altitude.
HARVEST NOTES
Thai Chilis: These gorgeous little hot peppers can be added whole to soups or stir-fries for a milder heat or diced for a more intense heat. They also dry beautifully!
Cherry Bomb Peppers: Hot and sweet. These round, red peppers are perfect for stuffing and pickling. Since we’ll have limited quantities available this year, we recommend adding them to jars of other pickled vegetables to add a little heat and flavor.
Purple Daikon: Purple daikon are sweet and mild, with just a touch of spicy mustard flavor. Try slicing them raw to dress up your salad or crudités platter, adding them to kimchi, or making them into a quick pickle. For extra magic, toss them with a little acidic salad dressing or lemon juice and watch their color change to hot pink!
PRESERVING THE HARVEST
We have reached Peak Tomato Season! Bulk tomatoes will be available for projects, canning and preserving from now until the end of tomato season, but we recommend taking advantage as soon as you’re able to ensure you don’t miss the best of the season. Check out last week’s newsletter for easy ways to put them up.
FLOWER ARRANGING HAPPY HOUR!
Saturday, August 31st
10:00 am
Are you a new member looking for some tips and inspiration on flower picking and arranging?
Are you a seasoned flower-nerd and feel like sipping bubblies and arranging flowers with like-minded friends?
Join our Flower Ambassador Cassidy Blackwell in the garden next Saturday, August 31st, for our 2nd annual Flower Power Happy Hour!
Cassidy will be fresh off an intensive flower arranging workshop with the legendary Susan Ryhanen of SAIPUA at the Farm at World’s End.
Bring your clippers, your fave vase or flower vessel, a cup to drink non-alcoholic bubblies out of, and let’s arrange flowers together!
Cassidy, with pre-arrangment bucket in the barn at World's End.
WINTER SISTER FARM CSA SIGN-UPS OPEN!
Going to miss us this winter? Well you’re in luck! Our dear friends next door at Winter Sister Farm have got you covered for veggies all winter and spring. All memberships include diverse winter-hardy veggies such as broccoli, carrots, potatoes, onions, winter squash, lettuce, kale, chard, as well as access to a small u-pick garden with cold hardy herbs and spring flowers. Click here to get all the details on this wonderful CSA program and to reserve your spot today!
FARMER’S LOG
SPECIAL ARUGULA
The photo below, snapped this morning of Henry, Char and Sarah harvesting arugula, is significant to us in that those beds of arugula may well be our crowning achievement as farmers — as greens farmers at least.
Let me explain…
Here at West County Community Farm if we are anything, we are generalists. When we tally up the number of crops we grow, including varieties, the number reaches well over 200.
Being generalists is good for a number of reasons; it makes the farm biodiverse; it keeps the CSA share and (we hope) your experience here interesting; and it also keeps the farm interesting for us, tasks are constantly changing and rarely get too repetitive.
But being a generalist has its downsides.
All the crops we grow here are similar in that they loves good moisture, sun, and healthy fertile soil. But, if you drill down, they all have more nuanced irrigation, nutrient, and horticultural preferences. To truly specialize, many of the crops we grow also beg for specialized tools. The agricultural outfit that specializes in growing fat bulbous potatoes will look rather different in its weekly rhythms, techniques and tools than the outfit that grows perfect arugula.
Henry, Sarah and Char in the arugula Friday morning — photo by Aisling.
But we try here at West County Community Farm. Out of pride, or to avoid embarrassment, we try to act like specialists every year in a rotating cast of one or two crops, to fill the gaps in our knowledge or tweak techniques on things we feel we aren’t doing well.
This spring we had a couple rounds of arugula and radishes (which grow very similarly to arugula) that didn’t really work. Weed pressure was too high; uniformity over the health of the bed was bad. In the evenings, I would obsess over the Instagram account of a small farm in Oregon that has taken the opposite route and specialized in organic salad greens, including arugula. Their beds look like they had been made by an AI image generator: A perfect carpet of immaculate baby arugula, full coverage, not a weed in site. It became my White Whale.
From their account, I was able to piece together some of the things that they were doing that we weren’t — extensive stale bedding; rows spaced an inch apart to outcompete weeds; sprinklers with small nozzles at tight spacing for fine droplet sizes and excellent distribution uniformity; solid row cover.
We staked out a handfull of beds in Farfield in early July and shaped them up. We put our finest nozzled sprinklers on the risers surrounding them. We irrigated those beds deeply (without arugula seed). A week later, when the first weeds flushed, we flamed them good and dead. When the weeds flushed again, we flamed them dead again… and again. A month later, Asa, after killing a few more tenacious weeds with a hula hoe, put down more arugula seed per square foot than we thought possible. We covered it with our best row cover. We misted those beds nice and regularly, religiously, with those misty nozzles….
And voila.
After a couple months of grimy arugula harvests, let me tell you, harvesting that fairy tale carpet was sublime — the harvest knife seemed to flow through arugula shaped water; the bins filling, quickly, as if under an arugula waterfall.
I don’t think we’ll ever trade away the joys of being generalists — but specializing seems to have it’s perks.
* * * * * * *
See you in the fields,
David
Tomato Tart with Garlic and Capers
Recipe by Alison Roman, from her Newsletter
Alison describes this as “a quick, throw-together affair, [with] no crust that needed to be chilled or rolled out, nothing to delay me from having crisp, cheesy crust with a simple layer of softened, jammy, garlicky tomatoes as soon as possible. I’m happy to report that this one, with its peppery crust (which I’ve been told tastes like a Cheez-It or “a refined Dorito,”) is worth the price of admission alone. An excellent and versatile vehicle for many savory summertime tarts, it’s tomatoes that it was truly born to be with, absorbing the juiciness without becoming soggy, staying crunchy and crisp against all odds.”
Makes one 9-inch tart, serves 4—6
FOR THE CRUST:
6 tablespoons/3 ounces/85g unsalted butter
1 cup/145g all-purpose flour
¼ cup/45g coarse or medium grind polenta or cornmeal
1 cup/50g lightly packed finely grated parmesan cheese
1½ teaspoons/6g kosher salt
1 teaspoon/4g sugar
Freshly ground black pepper
for the tart:
2 pounds/900g small tomatoes, thinly sliced: try to pick the ones that are on the small side (think golf ball or tangerine), and throw in a few Sungolds, cherry, or grape tomatoes for good measure and textural contrast.
2–4 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons capers (optional), roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar, red wine vinegar, or white wine vinegar
Herbs/parmesan, for serving
1. Make the crust: Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. In a small pot or skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Whisking occasionally, scrape up the browned bits as they form and continue to cook the butter until it smells like popcorn, 3–5 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
3. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, polenta, parmesan, salt, and sugar. Add 2 tablespoons water, plenty of black pepper, and pour the butter over. Using your hands, mix until well combined. The dough will be slightly sticky, but that’s okay
4. Press the dough into a 9-inch tart pan or regular (not a deep-dish) pie plate, at first making sure the sides are evenly packed, then press a nice, even layer on the bottom. Prick all over with a fork or tip of a knife.
5. Bake until golden brown on the sides and, most important, on the bottom (this is your chance to crisp up the bottom!), 20–25 minutes.
6. Set the crust aside and leave the oven on. (You can bake this shell ahead of time, if you like. Store it wrapped well at room temperature for up to 2 days.)
7. Assemble the tart: Arrange the tomato and garlic slices onto the parbaked shell in a nice, even layer, seasoning with pinches of salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes as you go. Top with capers (if using), then drizzle everything with 2 tablespoons olive oil, seasoning again with salt and pepper.
8. Place the tart pan on a sheet pan, return to the oven, and bake until the tomatoes are jammy and starting to brown and caramelize a touch on top, 55–60 minutes.
9. Remove the tart from the oven, splash with the vinegar, give it another drizzle of olive oil and let cool slightly before slicing. Serve with grated/shaved parmesan and some fresh herbs on top, if you’d like.
**The tart is best baked and enjoyed the day of, but is still excellent at room temperature the next day.
CSA BASICS
Drive slow! Please drive slow on Cooper Rd. and in our driveway / parking lot area. Kids at play!
No dogs: Unfortunately, dogs are not allowed on the farm.
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.
