11/4/2022 - Week 22 - Fall is Metal

THIS WEEK’S HARVEST

Fancy Fall Salad Mix (with Arugula, Mustard Greens, Frisee and Radicchio), Little Gem Lettuces, Rainbow Chard, Bok Choi, Scallions, Leeks, Celery, Fennel, Cauliflower, Daikon Radishes, Murdoch Cabbage, Carrots, Asterix Red Potatoes, Cabernet Red Onions, Sweet Dumpling Winter Squash, Lorz Italian Softneck Garlic

We’ve got some big, beautiful frost-kissed Cauliflower in the share this week!

U-pICK

• Albion Strawberries: Gleanings

• Herbs: Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Tarragon, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Culinary Lavender, Culinary Sage, French Sorrel, Various Mints, 🌟Lemongrass (located near the picnic bench next to the far oak tree & strawberries, look for the tall grass and sign)

HARVEST NOTES

• Sweet Dumpling Winter Squash: This adorable little squash is a Delicata variety, bred to be adorable, round and squat. This one is new to us this year. Let us know how you like it!

• Lemongrass: Lemongrass is now available in the garden! Common in Thai cooking, the part that us used is generally the fat, fibrous lower portion of the stem (although with this fresh, garden lemongrass, even the tips of the leaves are delightfully fragrant). Harvest by following a blade of grass to the very base of the plant where it meets soil/root system and snap a stem off from there. In Thai soups this fibrous bottom-stem is smashed and cooked into the soup, imbuing it with that incredible lemony-flavor.

The flower garden is winding down and it is time for cover crop — slowly but surely over the next 3 weeks we will start transitioning our annual flowers to bed for the winter.

WHEN DOES THE CSA END?

Our 2022 harvest season runs until the first week of December. The last Saturday pickup will be December 3rd, and the last Tuesday pick-up of the year will be December, 6th.

WHEN CAN I RESERVE MY SPOT FOR 2023?

We are deep in the planning phases for next season, rest assured, current members will be given the first chance to reserve a spot in 2023 CSA program!

Grace and Ashlynn take down the tomato trellises on Thursday’s frosty morning. Until next year, dear tomatoes!

FARMER’S LOG

Another busy week in the books! This week, like last, had at it’s center carrots, carrots, carrots and cover crop, cover crop, cover crop!

Thanks to another group of volunteers on Wednesday, we harvested another 1,500 + lbs of carrots, now stored safe in our cooler.

On Thursday, Ashlynn, Grace and Kayta got to work taking down the tomato trellises on one of the coldest mornings we’ve had on the new farm! David spent most of the week on the tractor highly caffeinated and listening to Metallica in the headphones (a great combination, in turns out, when you’re racing the rain and need to speedily spread compost and cover crop seed.)

Just like that the farm is quickly transitioning into it’s winter clothes….

Here’s a pretty heavy metal poem by Mary Oliver about the changing of the guard.

Master of Puppets is by far the best metal album of all time…

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

by Mary Oliver

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends
into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

* * * * *

See you in the fields,
David & Kayta

10/28/2022 - Week 21 - The Season of Death

FARMER’S LOG

THE SEASON OF DEATH

Rise and fall. Light and shadow. Summer and Winter. Life and death.

Halloween is an extremely important time of year on the farm. It is the season of Death.

The roots of our Halloween lay in the ancient Gaelic Samhain festival. The Samhain festival marked the end of the harvest season (it means "summer’s end”) and the transition into the darkest half of the year. It was the time when shepherds brought their livestock, fattened on summer mountain pastures, back down for the winter for shelter or for slaughter. There were feasts. People opened their burial mounds (portals to the underworld) and lit cleansing bonfires. The borders between the worlds were thought to thin around Samhain and supernatural spirits and the spirits of ancestors were thought to walk amongst us. The spirits were to be appeased to survive the winter. Tables were set for them at the Samhain dinner. People wore costumes to disguise themselves from evil spirits and placed candles in carved turnips (in lieu of pumpkins) to frighten them off.

You can feel the Samhain in every nook and cranny on the farm these days — especially after this week’s frosts. How different the farm looks now from Spring’s jubilant green promise and Summer’s colorful cacophony! The life cycles of the plants that showered us with riches all Summer are now at an end. Their bodies hang drawn, gaunt and ghostly on their trellises or shriveled, mildewed, and desiccated in the rows, awaiting the final stab of killing frost or the furious whir of the flail mower.

The portal is open.

This week, with our major harvests nearly complete, we started in on the liminal work of the Samhain and mowed and spaded under large sections of Centerfield, transitioning our summer corn, pepper, and soft squash plants the Underworld, where they are now being devoured by worms and bugs. Those fields are now bleak and barren.

Great pregnant silences. Open portals

Beginning next week, we will broadcast cover crop seeds all over these fields. We will walk back and forth, processionally, ritually, tossing bell beans, peas, vetch, and grass seeds — little prayers — into the void.

The rising sun will welcome those seeds and good earth smells will loft up from the ground as it warms. Later on in the day, we will harrow those seeds under, the little old tiller we use to “kiss” the seed into the ground will whir like a little demon.

One can only marvel at the wisdom of ancient agrarian festivals, born from bone-deep relationship to the cycles of nature: How directly Death was confronted.

Those people knew.

They knew that from death comes life. They knew that death and life were only thinly separated. They knew that the rotting, decaying, destructive forces were the building blocks and the gateways from which life would spring forth anew in the Spring. They knew that the portals, the crossroads, needed to be tended.

This Halloween, while you’re out there gleaning the last of summer’s fruit, we invite you to cherish the ghoulish sight of the dying cherry tomatoes, sagging limply, skeletal, and vacant; and the blocks of bare ground — portals, awaiting cover crop seed.

Because death is just a doorway. And on the other side are verdant Spring fields, strawberry scented breezes, plump sugar snap peas, and bouquet after bouquet of Spring flowers.

See you in the fields,
David & Kayta

THIS WEEK’S HARVEST

Fancy Fall Salad Mix (with Arugula, Mustard Greens, Frisee and Radicchio), Little Gem Lettuces, Collard Greens, Purple Bok Choi, Scallions, Celery, Fennel, Cauliflower, Watermelon Radishes, Multicolored Beets, Sunrise Carrots, Fingerling Potatoes, Bridger Yellow Onions, Bonbon Buttercup Winter Squash, Lorz Italian Softneck Garlic

U-pICK

• Romano Beans: The frost nipped these plants but there are still gleanings

• Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkins: 🌟 Just take them! Saturday folks, please take another pumpkin or two for your Halloween festivities!

• Albion Strawberries: Gleanings

• Cherry Tomatoes, Frying & Hot Peppers: Gleanings (last week)

• Herbs: Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Tarragon, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Culinary Lavender, Culinary Sage, French Sorrel, Various Mints

HARVEST NOTES

• Bonbon Buttercup Winter Squash: A cute little buttercup variety with a light green belly button. Thick orange, bread-like, sweet, floral tasting flesh. We cooked up our first of the year a few nights ago and it was excellent. To roast, cut in half, scoop out the seeds, and roast cut side down at 400 degrees until you can poke a fork through the skin and the flesh is soft and creamy. Add dashes of water to the baking sheet while roasting to keep squash moist. Eat straight out of the shell with a spoon or use like you would any sweet winter squash (soups, stews, curries, pies, etc.).

• Watermelon Radishes: This is a hardy, dense, and gorgeous winter radish with a vivid magenta inner core. We love it on top of a green salads, rice bowls or highlighted as a small salad of its own — try ginger, garlic and lime or lemon juice on julienned or sliced watermelon radishes as a bright side dish.

FINAL TOMATO AND PEPPER GLEANINGS

We’d like to invite any and all to perform final gleanings on our Cherry Tomatoes, Shishito and Padrón frying peppers, Jalapeños and Hot Peppers. Time permitting, we will begin ripping all of these plants out as soon as this coming Wednesday.

LOGISTICS

Our 2022 harvest season runs until the first week of December. The last Saturday pickup will be December 3rd, and the last Tuesday pick-up of the year will be December, 6th.

• Saturday pick-up runs from 9:00am - 2:00pm

  Tuesday pick-up runs from 1:00 pm - 6:00 pm

  As always the farm and u-picking are open 7-days a week, sunrise to sunset.

FALL CARROT HARVEST CONTINUES this WEDNESDAY | 9 am - 1pm

Thanks to everyone who helped us out this last Wednesday. Join us again this coming Wednesday morning for part two of our great 2022 Fall Carrot Harvest, wherein we kneel on the soft dirt and top carrots into bags and chat!

These Bolero Carrots, sweetened by these recent frosts, will get sweeter and sweeter in storage and nourish us all through the Fall and winter. Join us for this fun, kid friendly harvest!

10/22/2022 - Week 20 - On Strawberries

THIS WEEK’S HARVEST

Fancy Fall Salad Mix (with Arugula, Mustard Greens, Radicchio and Frisee), Little Gem Lettuce, Mei Qing Bok Choi, Sugarloaf Chicories, Dazzling Blue Dino Kale, Celery, Hakurei Salad Turnips, Fennel, Carrots, Bintje Gold Potatoes, Sweet Peppers, Poblano Peppers, Summer Squash & Zucchini, Jester Delicata Winter Squash, Cabernet Onions, Lorz Italian Softneck Garlic

U-PICK

Please remember to check the u-pick board for updated weekly limits before going out to pick

• 🌟 Romano Beans: See Harvest Notes below for details

• Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkins: 🌟 Increased pumpkin limits! 2 pumpkins per share for shares without kids or 3 pumpkins per share for shares with kiddos.

• Albion Strawberries: beginning to wind down for the season

• Cherry Tomatoes, Frying & Hot Peppers: Gleanings (Last week!)

• Herbs: Dill, Thyme, Oregano, Marjoram, Tarragon, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Vietnamese Coriander, Culinary Lavender, Culinary Sage, French Sorrel, Lemon Verbena, Cilantro, Tulsi, Various Mints, Catnip, Chamomile, Purple Basil, Genovese Basil, Thai Basil

• Flowers!

HARVEST NOTES

• Jester Acorn Winter Squash: A true gem. The sweetest Acorn squash we've ever tasted. A hard ribbed shell hides pudding-sweet flesh. A good Jester can be among the sweetest of all winter squashes. David's favorite. Try halving long ways, scooping out the seeds, and roasting at 400 until you can poke a fork in the skin and the flesh is soft and creamy. Add a dash of water to the baking sheet while roasting to keep your squash moist. Eat straight out of the shell with a spoon like pudding! Try adding butter, coconut oil, and/or maple syrup.

• Romano Beans: The last of our upick crops for the season is here and it was worth the wait. Romano beans are large, flat, Italian green beans with great flavor that really shines when cooked. If you're unfamiliar with Romanos, check out Christina Chaey's Bon Appetit article "Romanos are the Queen of Snap Beans and I Want to Eat Them All" for a glowing description and list of recipes she loves to use them in. Romanos are great in any of your favorite green bean dishes, or even subbed in for sugar snap peas. There’s a chance that the Romanos won’t be with us long as the nights are turning increasingly cold so make sure to take advantage of them while they’re here.

MORE JACK-O-LANTERN PUMPKINS!

There’s nothing sadder than a Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin without a home on Halloween night. We’ve increased the pumpkin limit to 2 pumpkins per share for shares without kids or 3 pumpkins per share for shares with kiddos.

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to help us this week with the Calico popcorn harvest! The harvest train keeps on rolling — please join us this Wednesday as we pull up hundreds of pounds of Fall carrots! This is a relatively chill harvest that entails chatting with us farmers whilst kneeling on the ground and pulling the tops off of carrots. Come join!

Fall Carrot Harvest
Wednesday, October 26th: 9:00 am - 1:00 pm

HOW TO USE ESCAROLE, SUGARLOAFS AND OTHER CHICORIES

In the Fall, we harvest a lot of chicories (a family of leafy greens including Dandelion, Frisée, Radicchio, Endive, and Escarole).

People who are unfamiliar with them are intimidated by chicories at first, not knowing how to use them, because they are bitter. But once you break on through to the other side, they is no turning back and they become a staple.

Chicories are pleasantly bitter, with a succulent, crunchy sweetness, especially near the base of the stems. They are thicker in texture and heartier than lettuce, and softer and more easily cooked than cabbage. Generally they can be used like you would any cooking green like Kale or Chard — you can sauté them, use them in omelets, casseroles, pastas, or raw on salad with a rich dressing. Their sweet bitterness offers a wonderful counterpoint to savory, fatty, and spicy flavors. For your Escarole or Sugarloaf Chicory this week try Utica Greens, a staple dish among Italians in upstate New York.

FARMER’S LOG

ON STRAWBERRIES

Of all the crops that we grow here on the farm, perhaps no other brings as much joy as our beloved strawberries.

We also sometimes wonder if they are the most productive crop on the farm. From early May through October they shower us — sometimes with a deluge, sometimes a trickle — with a nearly constant supply of sweet gifts. Everbearing, if you will.

Planted here in early December 2021 from crowns grown near Mt. Shasta our strawberry plants did not have an easy life this year. 

Planted into very wet soil (remember that storm last October?) our young strawberries were then beset by a huge natural population of “cutworms” — the larva of the large yellow underwing (Noctua pronuba) — who fed so voraciously on the vulnerable spring shoots of that we did not know if they would survive. Then came some phytopthora (a fungus with the Greek name “plant destroyer”). Then came some symphylans. And then came the deer! But whether undercut at the root, snipped at the stem, or chomped by a browsing ungulate, our strawberry plants just kept growing, flowering, and — thank the farm gods — fruiting. 

Ever beholds the wondrous Albion strawberry.

The resilience and vigor of our strawberry plants, and the amount of joy they produce, is no accident: These are Albion strawberries and it is in their genes.

The Albion strawberry is, in this farmer’s opinion, one of the greatest plant breeding achievements in human history. Introduced in 2004, the Albion strawberry is the current crowning achievement UC Davis’s strawberry breeding program. In a state that produces 90% of the nation’s strawberries and 2 billion in annual strawberry revenue, the UC Davis strawberry breeding program has been around for 100 years and is seriousness business. The Albion strawberry is the result of a century of the careful crossing of various strawberry strains to produce a plant with a combination of vigor, disease resistance, productivity, and taste.

And what all that seriousness has amounted to for us is, well… joy.

So as the days get colder and our strawberry season winds down and 4 pints goes to 1 pint, and 1 pint goes to gleanings, take a moment to stand in the strawberry patch with a crisp Fall berry in your mouth and to give thanks to the wondrous plants that have given us so much this year….

Thank the sun, thank the soil, thank the water — and thank the UC scientists!

See you in the strawberry fields, 
David & Kayta