8/30/2019 - Week 11 - "The Peace of Wild Things"

THIS WEEK'S HARVEST

Heirloom & Slicing Tomatoes (See Week 9’s newsletter for variety descriptions), Jimmy Nardello & Bell Type Sweet Peppers, Eggplant, Walla Walla Sweet Onions, Italian Late Softneck Garlic, Cabbage, Siberian Kale, Rainbow Chard, Easter Egg Radishes, Striped Armenian Cucumbers, Olympian Cucumbers, Summer Squash and Zucchini, Rainbow Carrots, Sarah’s Choice Cantaloupe Melons, Spicy Mustard Mix, Little Gems and Mixed Head Lettuce

U-PICK

• 🌟Dragon Tongue Green Beans: See below for tips

• Strawberries

• Husk Cherries See week 8’s newsletter for harvest tips

• Cherry Tomatoes: No limit this week! See week 7’s newsletter for varieties

• Frying Peppers: Shishito, Black Hungarian, Padrón / See Week 2's newsletter for harvest tips

• Jalapeños: Located below the frying peppers

• Herbs: Italian Basil, Tulsi Basil, Thai Basil, Purple Basil, Italian Parsley, Rosemary, Lemon balm, Lemon Verbena, Perennial Cilantro, Annual Cilantro, French Sorrel, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Shiso, Tarragon, Oregano, Thyme, Chamomile, Mints, Dill, Anise Hyssop (*New Italian, Thai, and Purple basil plantings on the west side of the garden.)

• Flowers!

NEW CROP NOTES

• Walla Walla Sweet Onions: A delicate, sweet, fresh-eating onion developed in Walla Walla Washington. These are a delicacy. Try them in a way that you can show them off: Lightly grilled in a good burger or raw in a salad with a delicate dressing. They are so mild, some people even eat them raw like an apple! (We haven’t tried it, let us know how it goes!) Read more about Walla Wallas here.

• Dragon Tongue Green Beans: These are juicy, cream colored heirloom green beans with purple stripes. Eat them raw or cooked. They are located on the farm in the field to your left if you’re standing at the head of the cherry tomato beds. Please be extra careful (especially with kiddos) not to step on the beds next to them where we have growing leeks and fresh planted chicories.

• Jimmy Nardello Peppers: We’ve had these out a couple times, these are the long, thin peppers that look like hot cayennes. They’re not, they’re exceptionally sweet beauties. Our favorite pepper for eating raw or cooking.

PRESERVE TOMATOES

Pick-up your tomatoes for canning or preserving this week before they are gone! Each share may take a 15 lb (season limit) batch of tomatoes from the back table. You can take your 15 lb allotment all at once, or in smaller increments (7lbs this week, 8 lbs next week, for example). But get them now, because the late summer avalanche is almost over!

We’ll have a scale out for weighing. Please bring your own bag or box to take them home.

Preserving tomatoes… the easy way: A really yummy way of preserving tomatoes (sauce tomatoes, or heirlooms) that is slightly less involved than canning is… Halve the tomatoes and spread them on a baking sheet. Pour a little olive oil over them, and throw in some garlic and onions. Roast this concoction on on a low temperature until the water is reduced and the flavor concentrated. Take out of the oven and let cool. Put the saucy mixture into pint jars or bags and store them in the freezer for future use!

PESTO BASIL

Each share may take home two whole basil plants from the old planting. Just snip the plant at the base. (Make sure you’re in the old planting which has a white stake in it with a red flag.

BRAMBLE TAIL MILK HERDSHARE

As many of you know, this land is home to Bramble Tale Homestead, a grass fed raw milk herdshare and a true Sonoma County local food gem.

Raw milk — from healthy cows raised on grass — is a nutrient-dense and alive food, containing active nutrients, healthy fat & protein, immune factors, vitamins, minerals, enzymes & healthy bacteria. The Jersey cows are rotationally grazed through the grasslands of this diversified and collectively owned land, playing a vital role in the regeneration of the landscape by sequestering carbon & creating habitat for wildlife while feeding our community.

Their herdshare program works similarly to our CSA where member-owners of the herd receive a portion of the milk produced by the herd each week. They also offer a value-add share (think yogurt, feta, and fresh cheese!)

It’s an incredible experience, trust us, we’ve been members for 5 years!

For more information email Aubrie and Scott: brambletailhomestead@gmail.com

VOLUNTEER WEDNESDAYS, 8:00-10:00 AM

Interested in some farm therapy? Come out on Wednesday mornings to help us tend the garden and farm together! Find us in the garden or out in the main fields on Wednesdays from 8:00am 'til 10:00 am. People of all abilities welcome, we’ll find something comfortable for you to do!

FARMER’S LOG

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

See you in the fields,

David & Kayta

Illustrations by Kayta from the Heart of Tracking by Richard Vacha from Mount Vision Press

8/23/2019 - Week 10 - Bodies, Faces, and Food

THIS WEEK'S HARVEST

Heirloom & Slicing Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Celery, Zoey Yellow Onions, Italian Late Softneck Garlic, Broccolini, Red Russian Kale, Amara Ethiopian Kale, Lemon Cucumbers, Striped Armenian Cucumbers, Olympian Cucumbers, Summer Squash and Zucchini, Rainbow Carrots, Sarah’s Choice Cantaloupe Melons (Kayta’s favorite), Esmee Arugula, Little Gems and Red Butter Lettuce

Summer harvests, Fall plantings… must be late August!

U-PICK

• Strawberries

• Husk Cherries See week 8’s newsletter for harvest tips

• Cherry Tomatoes: See week 7’s newsletter for harvest tips

• Frying Peppers: Shishito, Black Hungarian, Padrón / See Week 2's newsletter for harvest tips

• Jalapeños: Located below the frying peppers

• Pickling Cucumbers: LAST WEEK * 2 gallon season limit * See below for instructions

• Wild Blackberries See week 8’s newsletter for locations

• Herbs: Italian Basil, Tulsi Basil, Thai Basil, Purple Basil, Italian Parsley, Rosemary, Lemon balm, Lemon Verbena, Perennial Cilantro, Annual Cilantro, French Sorrel, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Shiso, Tarragon, Oregano, Thyme, Chamomile, Mints, Dill, Anise Hyssop

• Flowers! We have a new planting of cosmos and zinnias planted to the left of the cherry tomatoes.

TOMATO AVALANCHE!

On Tuesday we started distruting canning and 2nds tomatoes in bulk on the back table. We are running preserve tomatoes at a 15 lb season limit this year, meaning starting now, members may take 15 lbs from the back table total this season. You can take your 15 lb allotment all at once, or in smaller increments (7lbs this week, 8 lbs next week, for example).

Don’t wait too long though, the tomato avalanche will only last a few weeks! We’ll have a scale out for weighing, and a clipboard to check off if you’ve taken your share. Please bring your own bag or box to take them home.

PESTO BASIL

We are retiring our first planting of Italian basil which means it’s PESTO TIME! We each share to take home two whole basil plants from the old planting. Just snip the plant at the base. (Make sure you’re in the old planting. The new planting is located on the left side of the garden when facing the mountain.)

ThE LAST WEEK OF PICKLING CUCUMBERS

Last week’s heat wave precipitated the end of our pickling cucumber planting. If you have not picked yet there are still a few good quality cukes to be found out there.

Picking instructions: Bring something you can estimate 2 gallons with, or one of the white buckets below the sign-in table to pick into. Find the pickling cucumber bed out on the farm marked with yellow flags. They’re in the far left field near the corn. Comb through the plants gently, doing your best not to step on the vines or the adjacent bed. The ideal sized pickling cucumber is around 4 inches long and 1 inch thick. Bigger is great. Please don't pick them much smaller than this so they can size up for the next pickers. If you use the farm bucket, please transfer your cukes to another container and put the bucket back below the sign-in table.

Check out Kate Seely’s tried and true pickling cucumber recipe for pickling instructions.

BRAMBLE TAIL MILK HERDSHARE

As many of you know, this land is home to Bramble Tale Homestead, a grass fed raw milk herdshare and a true Sonoma County local food gem.

Raw milk — from healthy cows raised on grass — is a nutrient-dense and alive food, containing active nutrients, healthy fat & protein, immune factors, vitamins, minerals, enzymes & healthy bacteria. The Jersey cows are rotationally grazed through the grasslands of this diversified and collectively owned land, playing a vital role in the regeneration of the landscape by sequestering carbon & creating habitat for wildlife while feeding our community.

Their herdshare program works similarly to our CSA where member-owners of the herd receive a portion of the milk produced by the herd each week. They also offer a value-add share (think yogurt, feta, and fresh cheese!)

It’s an incredible experience, trust us, we’ve been members for 5 years!

For more information email Aubrie and Scott: brambletailhomestead@gmail.com

LEANNE’S LAVENDER

CSA member Leanne Sarasy will be selling her beautiful lavender products in the barn from lavender she grows just down the road!

She’ll have dried Grosso lavender bunches ($5), hydrosols ($5), bath soaks ($10), & dried sachets ($5) available. Please bring cash.

HEARTH FOLK SCHOOL

We’re rich in amazing neighbors here at Green Valley Farm + Mill. Our newest, the Hearth Folk School, offer workshops and series classes on skills such as willow basketry, hide tanning, fiber arts, woodworking, blacksmithing, timber framing, and more. Check out their website to learn more.

Upcoming classes include:

• Fiber Basketry: August 30th

• Beaded Earrings: September 1st

• Hide Tanning: September 4th - 8th

• Fiber Basketry: September 9th

NOTES & REMINDERS

• Dead heading: Whenever you are picking flowers, it is helpful to the plant and the garden to snip off any dead/wilting or spent flowers that you see. This allows the plant to focus on new blooms for next week!

• More Eggs in the Creamery: Aubrie set up a relationship with Green Star Farm, a wonderful West County pastured egg and meat producer, in order to meet more demand for eggs in the creamery. Let us know if you don’t know where to locate the eggs. Thanks, Aubrie!

• Pint Baskets: Please remember to return / re-use your farm pint baskets.

VOLUNTEER WEDNESDAYS, 8:00-10:00 AM

Interested in some farm therapy? Come out on Wednesday mornings to help us tend the garden and farm together! Find us in the garden or out in the main fields on Wednesdays from 8:00am 'til 10:00 am. People of all abilities welcome, we’ll find something comfortable for you to do!

FARMER’S LOG

Bodies, Faces, and Food

We have a great harvest for you this week with some scrumptious newcomers: Everyone's favorite melon (Sarah's Choice), everyone's favorite cucumber (Striped Armenians), celery, an exotic brassica bursting with flavor (Amara Ethiopian Kale), and a beautiful new variety of arugula.

It was a slightly weird week out here. On Tuesday, Anna tweaked her back. It was freaky at the time, but luckily, it seems it was of the less-serious variety. Anna's feeling strong again and was back in action today. 

Missing Anna for just a few days highlighted a couple things we already knew: 1.) Anna is completely integral to the functioning of this farm. And 2.) Small farms like ours are completely reliant on bodies. Healthy, happy, human bodies.

One of the things we love about the model of CSA we practice here is that it puts a face on those bodies. It allows the faces that eat the food get to know the faces that grow the food and vice versa.

But what's the deal with this crazy model with its upfront payment and free-choice and 2nd tomatoes and u-picking? Where did it come from?

Hear tell…

After World War II, agriculture changed drastically. The mechanization and industrialization of the war turned inward into industry and food production. Farms got bigger and more mechanized; family farms were put out of business; food importing, exporting, and shipping exploded; supermarkets became dominant; even rural communities began losing the neighborly connection to the sources of their food they had once taken for granted.

In reaction to this, people in Japan and Europe began forming groups around a single farms to sidestep the facelessness of food. (Legend has it that one of the first formal such arrangements was a group of Japanese women organizing with a local dairy farmer to get fresh milk... hey, Bramble Tail!). 

In Europe, these arrangements interwove with and were influenced by the work of Rudolph Steiner (an Austrian philosopher who inspired Waldorf Education and Biodynamic Agriculture). Steiner believed that good farming and good land stewardship were so important to our survival and well-being that maybe... just maybe... we should not subject our farms, farmers, and soils to the cut-throat forces of global capitalism, but steward them as communities and see to their good care so that they might provide for us in perpetuity. 

Lots of people agreed.

When it came to food and farms, Steiner thought we should be asking, "What do you need from me to grow me this apple while taking care of the soil, the tree, and yourself," rather than, "How cheaply can I buy this apple from you?"

From the former, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) was born. With the financial support of neighbors when they need it (Spring!) and in times of need, farmers can rest assured, care for their land and workers, and shower their communities with abundance.

CSA’s thrived in Europe and jumped the Atlantic in the 1980's. Nowadays, the term "CSA" has come to encompass a wide range of practices and relationships. In California, the term often refers to box-subscription retail service without much shared risk.

We love this more old school way. There is something magical about food and land and all the bodies and faces involved in the cycle coming together in the same place each week.

See you in the fields, 

David (for Kayta & Anna)

8/16/2019 - Week 9 - The Dog Days of Summer

THIS WEEK'S HARVEST

Heirloom & Slicing Tomatoes, Eggplant, Sweet Peppers, Tendersweet and Farao Cabbage, Purple Daikon, Cured Cabernet Onions, Italian Late Softneck Garlic, Dino Kale, Rainbow Chard, Lemon Cucumbers, Persian and Japanese Slicing Cucumbers, Summer Squash and Zucchini, Rainbow Carrots, Galia Melons, Baby Napa Cabbage Bunching Greens, Little Gems and Jester Summer Crisp Lettuce

U-PICK

• Strawberries

• Husk Cherries See week 8’s newsletter for harvest tips

• Cherry Tomatoes: See week 7’s newsletter for harvest tips

• Amethyst Green Beans: Gleanings

• Frying Peppers: Shishito, Black Hungarian, Padrón / See Week 2's newsletter for harvest tips

• Jalapeños: Located below the frying peppers

• Pickling Cucumbers: The end is near * 2 gallon season limit * See below for instructions *

• Wild Blackberries See week 8’s newsletter for locations

• Herbs: Italian Basil, Tulsi Basil, Thai Basil, Purple Basil, Italian Parsley, Rosemary, Lemon balm, Lemon Verbena, Perennial Cilantro, Annual Cilantro, French Sorrel, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Shiso, Tarragon, Oregano, Thyme, Chamomile, Mints, Dill, Anise Hyssop

• Flowers! The dahlias are starting to bloom, just up the hill from the gnome homes! Don’t forget to adda dahlia or two to your bouquet this week!

Bramble Tail Homestead Grass Fed Raw Milk Herdshare

As many of you know, this land is home to Bramble Tale Homestead, a grass fed raw milk herdshare and true gem.

Their herdshare program works similarly to our CSA where member-owners of the herd receive a portion of the milk produced by the herd, calculated weekly on a percentage basis. Actual amount will vary throughout the year as production changes, but for most of the year it is one gallon per week per share. (Half gallon per half share, etc) There is no milk for 6-8 weeks each spring before calving. Bramble Tail also offers a value-add share (think yogurt and cheese!)

Raw milk — from healthy cows raised on grass — is a nutrient-dense and alive food, containing active nutrients, healthy fat & protein, immune factors, vitamins, minerals, enzymes & healthy bacteria. The Jersey cows are rotationally grazed through the grasslands of our diversified and collectively owned land, playing a vital role in the regeneration of our landscape: sequestering carbon, creating habitat for wildlife & feeding our community. It’s an incredible experience, trust us, we’ve been members for 5 years!

For more information email Aubrie and Scott: brambletailhomestead@gmail.com

PESTO BASIL!

There is a new planting of Italian Basil located to the left and up hill of the picnic bench when you’re facing the hill. This means we get to retire the old planting which means it’s PESTO TIME! We invite members to take home two whole basil plants from the old planting. Just snip the plant at the base. Make sure you’re in the old planting.

2019 TOMATOes

Okay, all of of our field tomato varieties are present and reporting for duty. It’s time we explained who everyone is…

Top row R to L: Brandywine, Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye, Cherokee Purple, Big Beef // Middle row R to L: Speckled Roman, Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Black Krim, Green Zebra // Bottom row R to L: Estiva, Goldie, Amish Paste, Striped German

• Brandywine: A quintessential pink heirloom, “rich, loud, and distinctively spicy" according to Johnny's Selected Seeds

• Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye: Dark pink with green stripes, this sweet and rich tomato was developed by the tomato breeding specialists at Wild Boar Farms in Napa.

• Cherokee Purple: Another classic heirloom, particularly good for BLTs

• Big Beef: A classic red beefsteak

• Speckled Roman: A deliciously sweet paste tomato that's also good for fresh eating

• Aunt Ruby's German Green: A beautiful monster that is green when ripe, this tomato is Kayta's favorite for fresh eating. First introduced by Ruby Arnold who's German immigrant grandfather saved the seeds. You'll know Aunt Ruby's is ripe when it gives just slightly to the touch.

• Black Krim: A Russian heirloom often described as having a bold, smoky flavor. Black Krim and Cherokee Purple look quite similar, though Black Krim tends to have more pronounced green/brown shoulders.

• Green Zebra: A delightful miniature tomato, tart and beautiful. Ripe when yellow-green.

• Estiva: This is the standard red slicing variety that we have been enjoying for months, coming first from the greenhouse and now the field.

• Goldie: Our favorite orange tomato, sweet and fruity.

• Amish Paste: Classic paste tomato from Amish farmers in the Midwest. These tomatoes are not as distinctively elongated as other paste tomatoes and often blend in with red slicers.

• Striped German: Gorgeous, smooth, fruity giants.

LAST COUPLE WEEKS OF PICKLING CUCUMBERS

This heat wave has made the end of our pickling cucumbers imminent. If you have not picked yet, and would like to, now is the time. Please do so this week or next. They are not long for this world.

Picking instructions: Bring something you can estimate 2 gallons with, or one of the white buckets below the sign-in table to pick into. Find the pickling cucumber bed out on the farm marked with yellow flags. They’re in the far left field. Comb through the plants gently, doing your best not to step on the vines or the adjacent bed. The ideal sized pickling cucumber is around 4 inches long and 1 inch thick. Bigger is great. Please don't pick them much smaller than this so they can size up for the next pickers. If you use the farm bucket, please transfer your cukes to another container and put the bucket back below the sign-in table. Check the box next to your name that says you have picked.

Check out Kate Seely’s tried and true pickling cucumber recipe for pickling instructions.

HEARTH FOLK SCHOOL

We’re rich in amazing co-conspirators here at Green Valley Farm + Mill. Our newest neighbors, Hearth Folk School offer workshops and series classes on skills such as willow basketry, hide tanning, fiber arts, woodworking, blacksmithing, timber framing, and more. Check out their website to learn more.

Upcoming classes include:

• Fiber Basketry: August 30th

• Beaded Earrings: September 1st

• Hide Tanning: September 4th - 8th

• Fiber Basketry: September 9th

NOTES & REMINDERS

• Green Valley Road Closure: There is road work happening on Green Valley Rd. and the section is closed from the Sebastopol/Graton connection of the 116 through the Manzana processing factory. To detour, follow the detour signs and/or take Graton Rd., to Sullivan. Sullivan will connect you back to Green Valley Rd. You can also take Green Valley Road from the Forestville/Guerneville connection to the 116.

• More Eggs in the Creamery: Aubrie set up a relationship with Green Star Farm, a wonderful West County pastured egg and meat producer, in order to meet more demand for eggs in the creamery. Let us know if you don’t know where to locate the eggs. Thanks, Aubrie!

• Garden gate: Sorry about the broken main garden gate to anyone who’s struggled opening it lately. The post is rotten and we’ll need to wait to winter to fix it. Remember, if you don’t feel like messing with it you can always access the garden from the easy little gate behind the greenhouses.

• Pint Baskets: Please remember to return / re-use your farm pint baskets. We’re getting low!

VOLUNTEER WEDNESDAYS, 8:00-10:00 AM

Interested in some farm therapy? Come out on Wednesday mornings to help us tend the garden and farm together! Find us in the garden or out in the main fields on Wednesdays from 8:00am 'til 10:00 am. People of all abilities welcome, we’ll find something comfortable for you to do!

FARMER’S LOG

The Dog Days of Summer

The sun beats down, the hills are bleached gold, and the wind blows hot… the dog days of summer are here.

The term “dog days”, for the late summer, traces back to the ancient Mediterranean, where people connected the night sky return of the brightest star, Canis Majoris (aka Sirius, aka “Orion’s Dog”), to the sultriest days of late Summer when, as Virgil said, “the Dog-star cleaves the thirsty ground.”

As Marin naturalist and tracker Richard Vacha brilliantly observes of our Mediterranean climate in his book The Heart of Tracking, the early dog days can be a raucous, frolicking time for wild canines as they feast on the fattened prey and tree fruit of the summer and as pups leave the den and come into their own. (The wild origin of the naming of the star?)

But as summer wanes, the dog days turn into a scarce time, a spent time.

“For an animal,” Vacha writes, the late-Summer-early-Fall “can be as tough to endure as an East Coast winter. Food is scarce, water is scarce, and green vegetation is crowded into riparian corridors, drawing the animals that depend on these resources closer together. The animals who prey upon them have shifted correspondingly. Territorial patterns are all in great flux as the expansive cycle of the summer season slowly winds down.”

On the farm, this shift into the dog days —their abundance and scarcity — has been clear.

Our harvests are heavy with fruit: Tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, squash, eggplant and peppers all laid out next to the first full, cured onion bulbs. The wild blackberries are laden. In the garden the first flowers and herbs are following the wild grasses, tapping out and throwing seed, making pods. Even our giant pumpkin, Dr. Pumpy, is calling it quits — a little earlier than expected (thank you heat wave?)

In our staple field crops, if July was an outward explosion of verdant green growth, August is a hunkering down, a drawing nigh, a focused inward stare toward the serious work of setting fruit, bulging bulbs and tubers, and making seed. The corn is silking and forming husks as pollen and spent flowers rain down from tassels above. The jubilant winter squash flowers have wilted and metamorphosized — green and gold orbs now swell in the shade of sun battered leaves. The potato flowers are wilting as well, as the plants look to their secrets swelling below in the black earth.

And as the wildlands are scorched to gold more of her inhabitants turn to the farm — a watered green oasis — for succulent meals. The wild turkeys and their fluffy feathered young regularly visit the fields now, snipping off hydrating bits of lettuce and chicories, as the bolting sun takes snips too. (The turkeys and cleaving sun are both are to blame for last weeks lean lettuce and greens harvest.) Hungry-thirsty rabbits raid the melon rows every night to savor sweet liquid honey. A gopher gobbled up last week’s bok choi succession (but spared us this week’s baby Napa cabbage). 

The sweet relief of the first Fall rains will come to us all soon. Until then, keep cool, move slow, and enjoy the abundant fruits of these hot, languid, dog days of summer.

See you in the fields, 

David and Kayta

“Fox in a Coyote Bush” illustration by Kayta from The Heart of Tracking by Richard Vacha from Mount Vision Press