7/8/2021 - Space Walks

IN THE FLOWERS THIS WEEK

If the first month and a half of the flower garden were the lift off phase — the launch pad, the rockets pushing, then gaining speed, hurtling towards space — then we have now cleared the stratosphere. It is quiet now. We are surrounded by a galaxy of glittering stars; flowers flashing in and out of existence; each week a bed or two goes supernova… the full mass of its energy erupting in a blinding display of blooms just before the end: This week it’s the Lavatera, Nigella, and Agrostema in supernova. New star clusters flicker into existence: This weeks it’s the Marigolds, the Centaurea, and the Celosias. Bumble bees fly around us like space craft — landing on soft little moons to sleep each night.

It’s a great time of year in the garden. We hope you enjoy your space walks.

Pro-tip: It’s best to pick flowers (and herbs) when it is cool out. They’ll last way longer. The ideal time to pick is in the garden is in the morning before it heats up, or the evening. It’s also really helps to put your flowers and herbs in water immediately after picking. So bring a vase or water bottle for the drive home.

This Week’s Flower Challenge: Try making picking a mono-chrome bouquet this week like Kayta’s meditation on white below.

IN THE HERBS

• Oregano, Marjoram, Thyme, Chives & Garlic Chives, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, Chamomile, Tulsi Basil, Purple & Green & Bi-color Shiso (aka Perilla), Mints, Italian Basil, Purple Basil, Thai Basil, Cilantro, Dill, Anise Hyssop, Sage, Tarragon, and Vietnamese Cilantro, Culinary Sage

Pro-tip: The Cilantro and Dill are both looking like they’re about to bolt (go to seed) with the heat. They grow up so fast! We would appreciate it if you picked them hard this week to delay their seed phase.

This Week’s Featured Herb: Shiso (aka Perilla) is exploding in the garden now. It’s the perfect time to give this less common, delicious herb a try.

Shiso, in many cultivars, is eaten all over Asia. Each of the three kinds we are growing this year has a distinct flavor -- we recommend nibbling a little bit fresh to get a sense of which one you would like to use for what. Some ideas to get you started eating shiso:

• Try putting it in spring rolls!

• Try the green perilla simply chopped on a rice bowl

• Make shiso pesto, just as you would a basil pesto

• Try making this beautiful, bright red shiso juice from the Japanese purple shiso

• Make a shiso simple syrup out of any type to add to summertime beverages like lemonade or cocktails!

The Shiso bed below the dill bed.

NOTES & REMINDERS

• Confused? Ask us! If you’re ever confused about anything in the garden, don’t hesitate to ask us in person or via email. We love helping you use the garden!

• How do I find the herbs? All herbs that are ready to pick are marked with a colored stake with the name of the herb on it.

FARMER’S LOG

As you probably guessed last week, this section of the Newsletter — the Farmer's Log — is a journal of whimsical and practical musings from planet farm!

This week, we thought we'd offer a little compendium of past Farmers Logs for new members among us to get to know us better!

Did you know, Green Valley is really wild place? Read about it here, or hear tell of an Owl brood and the mysterious flight of the owlets, oak trees, or one quick little baby turkey!

Bumble bees asleep on flowers in the evening. Wouldn’t you?

Have you ever wondered about your farmers' super hero powers and their favorite Spice Girls, when they fell in love with farming, what they talk about in the field, or what a week in the life is like?

Ever wondered if there is a ghost on the farm?

Enjoy these stories from past years and we’ll see you next week for a new one.

See you in the garden,
David & Kayta

Click here for an archive of past newsletters

7/1/2021 - Plan F

Dear Members,

The cacophonous explosion of Summer in the garden is here.

Every time we walked through the garden this week it seemed to scream at us, “Hey Farmer! Look at me, it’s high-time for a Newsletter!” Even Nuthenroy the Gnome cast us a side eye today and he doesn’t even own a computer…

With this year’s vegetable production droughted-out, we wondered if we would continue our weekly Newsletter tradition. The truth is, it’s a ritual that connects us with you all, the garden, and ourselves — we couldn’t live without. And now, with the grip of June busyness fading, we can finally put pen to paper.

These weekly Newsletters you will now receive (until the garden stops its long explosion in October or Nuthenroy says we can stop) will be little verbal odes to what is happening on the farm; little windows into our world; little baskets of tales, tips, and tricks to help you enjoy your year in the garden to the max.

These Newsletter’s will be a little smaller than usual veggie filled tomes, but they’ll be sweet like dessert. They are purely for enjoyment (and inside scoops) and we hope they tickle your fancy like the way Minarda must tickle on a breakfasting Bumblebee’s belly.

Enjoy!

THIS WEEK IN HERBS

• Oregano, Marjoram, Thyme, Chives & Garlic Chives, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, Chamomile, Tulsi Basil, Purple & Green & Bi-color Shiso (aka Perilla), Mints, Italian Basil, Purple Basil, Thai Basil, Cilantro, Dill, Anise Hyssop, Sage, Tarragon, and Vietnamese Cilantro

It’s ALL happening in herbs this week — especially check out our annuals Parsley, Dill, Basils, and Cilantro, who are at their best on the West side of the garden.

Pro-tip: Tea blends abound in the garden: Sun tea, iced tea or dried tea for winter! Kayta’s been drying little batches of tea herbs (chamomile, lemon balm, mints, tulsi, calendula) in open brown paper bags in the kitchen.

This Week’s Herb Challenge: Try making a chimichurri sauce this week with all exploding fresh parsley, dill, cilantro and basil!

THIS WEEK IN FLOWERS

It’s that special time of year in the garden when a new flower variety seems to start popping each day — check out the Marigolds above the gnome homes.

Pro-tip: This is a great time of year to start collecting the abundant drying flowers so you have a nice stash to brighten up your home in the winter: Strawflower, Statice, and Gomphrena (pictured above) are all great for drying. Just hang them in a cool, dry place out of the sun with good airflow. You can use these same dry flowers in garlic braids in a few weeks!

This Week’s Flower Challenge: Try picking a bouquet that’s twice as big as the bouquet you picked last week! The plants will thank ye for it!

GARLIC FOR SALE SOON

Yes, that is a giant hoard of heirloom Italian garlic drying in our pick-up barn (sorry, vampires). And yes, we will be selling it… as soon as the stalks dry down a bit more (2-3 weeks) we’ll start cleaning it up and offering it by the pound! Stay tuned!

NOTES & REMINDERS

• Confused? Ask us! If you’re ever confused about anything in the garden, don’t hesitate to ask us in person or via email. We love helping you use the garden!

• How do I find the herbs? All herbs that are ready to pick are marked with a colored stake with the name of the herb on it.

• How do I find the flowers? All flowers (besides the ones in the hedgerow on the fence) are yours to pick. We do not label them because they label themselves!

• How to I harvest the plants? Most of the plants in the garden are properly harvested by cutting above a branching point no lower than halfway down the plant. (This stimulates the plant and allows the branch points you left below to grow!)

• How much can I harvest? Harvest an amount such that about ninety other shares could harvest the same amount — this will change by plant and by size throughout the life of each plant.

FARMER’S LOG

PLAN F

The first Farmer’s Log of each year is difficult.

The urge is to impart all that has happened over the Winter and Spring — an impossibility, especially with a Winter and Spring as crazy these were. At one point we had so many plans — Plan A, Plan B, Plan C… — that we almost went around the whole alphabet.

Whichever plan we are on now (F?) we are in a great place and feeling so grateful. We miss our vegetable friends dearly; our early morning harvests in the fog; conversations with the crew; the hustle and bustle of Tuesday and Saturday harvest pick-ups. But at the end of the day, we are doing what we love, tending a plants and Gnome Homes for you dear people.

Horticulturally speaking, it was a relatively easy Spring to farm with because it was so dry (ironically). Other years we’ve had to contend with Monster Storms as we worked the soil but this year the garden worked up nice and light. We are lucky that the garden is situated on a high hill though, as this Spring will be known to most farmers in our area as the Spring of late-frosts. Luckily we didn’t have a whole field of tomatoes out in the lower fields and only our Dahlia were singed.

In the Big News category, this Spring and Winter did not withhold! This drought-induced hiatus from vegetable farming has given us a window of opportunity to catch our breath and pursue some big moves for the long-term health of the Green Valley Community Farm sapling.

Firstly, Kayta and I have received approval from the Sonoma County Dept of Agriculture and the Cal Department of Food and Ag to grow a half-acre of cannabis as a row crop in our fields this summer. We’ll write more about that crazy process (and our decision to grow this crop) in next week’s Farmer’s Log. It’s a tale of paperwork, survival, and the love of farming.

And secondly, we’ve been in talks with the lovely Laurel Anderson and Scotty Mathieson (who founded Laguna Farm in the early 90’s) about farming their beautiful, water rich, Valley Oak studded land in South Sebastopol. So with any luck Green Valley Community Farm farmers and lovers shouldn't have to endure a drought year without farm fresh radicchios again. More on that in future newsletters too!

We’ll leave it at that for this year’s Winter and Spring re-cap.

We can’t wait to see what tales are in store for us in the garden and in this Farmer’s Log this quirky year.

Thank you for being our muses.

See you in the garden,
David & Kayta

Click here for an archive of past newsletters

5/4/21 - Strawberry U-pick Opening Thursday!

Dear members,

It’s strawberry time people! It’s only fitting how the strawberries always start to explode around Mother’s Day — and this year is no exception.

Starting this Thursday, our strawberry u-pick patch is open!

See below for logistics:

NEW MEMBERS:

If you are new to the farm this year, let’s get you oriented! We will be hosting orientations for the next couple of weeks at the times below. We’ll orient you to the garden and the strawberries and go over farm u-pick etiquette and safety guidelines. Ideally everyone participating in your share can attend one of the times below. If you can’t attend one, please reach out to us to schedule an orientation time. Please note — all new members must receive an orientation before coming to u-pick.

Orientation tours:

• Thursday, May 6 @ 6:00 pm

• Friday, May 7 @ 6:00 pm

• Saturday, May 8 @ 10:00 am

• Thursday, May 13 @ 6:00 pm

• Friday, May 14 @ 6:00 pm

• Saturday, May 15 @ 10:00 am

Where is the farm? The member parking lot is located at 13024-E Green Valley Rd. Sebastopol, CA 95472. The "E" is important! Google maps will send you to the first driveway of the property, 13024 Green Valley Rd., that is not the right one. If you’re coming from Graton/Sebastopol, keep going a few driveways down (or turn back if you're coming from Guerneville) and look for our fishy logo and sign at 13024-E Green Valley Rd. It’s right across the street from the big Mt. Gilead bible camp sign.

Parking: After entering the gravel driveway, find a place to park on in gravel lot directly ahead of you. Please park on the peripheries in a way that leaves central avenues for entering and exiting cars. Please do not block the bay of the big open barn. 

Where to I meet up for orientation? Our barn is in the middle of the cluster of old mill buildings to your right as you drove in. Just head towards those big greenhouses to your right and you can’t miss us.

What should I bring?:

• A face covering / mask

• A small basket for strawberries

• Water / sun hat / picnic supplies if you plan to stay awhile

• Cash for add-on goodies in the Green Valley Marketplace!

RETURNING MEMBERS:

If you are a returning member, go for it! The strawberries are located on the farm in the same place as last year, on the little hill above the vegetable fields. Weekly u-pick limits will be posted on the u-pick board in the barn and on a sign in the field. Please bring your own pint basket(s) and/or a container for your strawberries. We will have some new pint-baskets in the pick-up barn if you need to resupply.

See below for our 2021 COVID-19 practices.

NOTES ON THE STRAWBERRIES:

How many can I pick?: This week, the u-pick limit is 4 pints per share, and it will change each week as the plants grow and flush throughout the year. Each week we will post the strawberry u-pick limit in the barn and on a sign near the strawberries. Please mind u-pick limits when you are picking strawberries to ensure every share gets an equal share.

What is a pint? See the picture a below. A pint is the green guy on the left, a two-pint container is the guy on the right. We will have a limited amount of new pint containers for members in the barn. Please re-use and pick into re-usable larger containers like a basket.

Sticky strawberries: Our 2nd year strawberry plants are having a little battle with lygus bugs and greenhouse white flies, common and harmless (to us) pests of organic strawberries in California. As a result the plants are producing a lot of “honeydew”, i.e. they are sticky. This stickiness is a little gross but not harmful to humans — just wash off at home and cheer on our strawberry plants!

Old strawberries: If you have the time while you are picking, help out our strawberries (and farmers) out by picking off any old or moldy strawberries you see and tossing them into the cover crop. This is hygienic and will clean up and invigorate the plants.

FLOWERS & HERBS:

The flower and herb garden explosion is always about a month behind the first strawberry explosion, but there are some goodies to be found in the garden.

Herbs: In the herb world the Oregano and Thyme never look better; Mints, Rosemary, and Culinary Lavender are starting to pop in. As usual, we will put signs on the herbs ready to pick. Please refrain from picking unmarked herbs.

Flowers: Check out those spring Statice, Foxgloves, Scabiosa, Craspedia, and Penstemon. Small bouquets for now please while things get going.

CAREFUL! This is also the time of year where there are tons of vulnerable young seedlings around the garden. Please watch your step and train your kiddos not to walk on beds!

2021 COVID GUIDELINES:

As vaccinations increase, we can relax our farm COVID rules. All members and guests will be required to follow these protocols while on the farm:

1. Wash your hands and the hand-washing station before u-picking

2. Bring a mask, and have it ready.

3. If you are closer than 6 feet than someone who is not in your family / pod, please pull the mask up, otherwise masks are not required outdoors on the farm.

4. Masks are required in all indoor settings on the farm (the bathroom, Marketplace, Bramble Tail creamery, etc.)

5. No hand-to-mouth: Do not eat or taste your strawberries or herbs while u-picking. Please enjoy after you are done u-picking for the day.

SHARES STILL AVAILABLE:

A few shares are still available for our Strawberry, Herb & Flower Garden program if you have any family, friends or neighbors who might be interested. Please spread the word!

Please reach out if you have any questions, and we can’t wait to see you all in the fields and garden!

David & Kayta