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Welcome, from Jeanne and Steve
Salad Mix in FieldThe mild weather made our more limited winter deliveries almost easy for us this year, with relatively few days of harvesting in heavy rain and muck, but it looks like winter storms are blowing in this week in force, just in time for our first spring harvests!

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starts in the greenhouse
As the greenhouse fills with starts and the first direct-seeded spring crops sprout in the fields, we’ve been thinking about how much easier it is to get organic seed than it used to be.

In fact, one of the encouraging trends that we have witnessed over the last fifteen years of farming is the development of a viable organic seed industry (no pun intended). We have always sought out organic seed, and certified organic growers are obligated to use organically grown seed when it is available, but it has not always been as available as it is now.

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I recently started playing in the Watsonville Community Band and the conductor likes to warm-up for every rehearsal and concert with a piece called In the Bleak Midwinter by Gustav Holst. This mid-winter has not been very bleak so far, but at last this week we got some rain and blustery winds, so we can feel like mid-winter is upon us at least momentarily! We’re still far below average rainfall for the year, however, and this storm has not really amounted to much.

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Usually it’s Steve who gets to try out new tools for the farm. But not this time.

We’ve been operating as a CSA farm now for a decade and a half, and a lot has changed in the world of technology since the mid 1990s. This week we are leaping into the present by launching our new on-line sign-up system.

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strawberry plantYesterday we planted the last of our strawberry plants for next year’s patch. Unlike last year, when there was a shortage of plants available, this year there were plenty and they are some of the nicest plants we have gotten in a long time.

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White Pelicans in SloughSteve and the crew are planting next year’s strawberries this week. Steve may write more about that process in the next newsletter, but right now he’s at a grower’s forum on Pajaro Valley water issues put on by EcoFarm and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers.

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This is the final week of the regular season CSA deliveries for 2011. But don’t let that stop you from getting your veggies! The Winter CSA starts in two weeks–if you are planning to sign up and haven’t yet, check the info below and sign up now.

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There are just three more weeks of regular season CSA deliveries and the summer seems to have gone by in a blur. This has been a busy year for us, and one with a lot of new projects and challenges. The two biggest changes we had this year were operating as a single farm CSA after 8 years in our Two Small Farms partnership, and getting our new Lewis Road farm up and running.

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The carrots in your box this week are the result of an experiment. No, they are not genetically modified or altered in any way—Mokum is a sweet, tender, relatively early variety in the Nantes class. They have, however, been grown in a field that was treated with mustard seed meal (the solids that are left after mustard seeds have been pressed for oil).

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It’s almost here — our 3rd annual Harvest Fair and Pumpkin Patch. The weather forecast is for Sunny and 68 degrees in Watsonville, so we’ll hold them to that! This event is open to everybody so tell your friends to come out too. Entrance fee is $10/adult, $5/child, 3 and under free.

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Summer at last! After an especially cold and foggy summer, here it is the second half of September and we are enjoying by far the nicest weather of the year. The eggplant, beans, peppers, basil, and squash are all loving it. So, you’ll be seeing more kinds of beans and peppers, basil, summer squash and eggplant soon.

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crops in fieldSummer at last! After an especially cold and foggy summer, here it is the second half of September and we are enjoying by far the nicest weather of the year. The eggplant, beans, peppers, basil, and squash are all loving it. So, you’ll be seeing more kinds of beans and peppers, basil, summer squash and eggplant soon. Tomatoes are also finally getting a break from the blight-inducing cool weather.

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For the past 14 years, we have been both farming and raising children. I’ve come to the conclusion that these two endeavors have a lot in common. Here are some of my basic tenets of farm-rearing.

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Nobody will ever accuse me of being the world’s most organized farmer.  There was a time, however, when I used to make stakes to mark where each variety of winter squash began and ended in the field at planting time. I can also remember once having made a map of the squash field. This year I did neither.

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Every year our little parent participation k-8 charter school in Watsonville agonizes over hard decisions as it faces budget cut after budget cut. How much more can we cut music, art, field trips, and physical education? How much more can we raise class size? Meanwhile conscientious teachers send home food logs, so the kids and hopefully their parents, can think about eating more healthy foods.

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On Saturday, Steve and I went to San Francisco for the memorial of a dear old friend, Miguel Wooding. Miguel was one of the most selfless, smart, and energetic people I’ve ever met. He had dedicated the past 20 years of his life to helping San Francisco tenants to stay in their homes and providing homes for those who were homeless. Miguel tragically lost his life when he was hit by a jet ski while snorkeling on vacation. His death leaves a gaping hole in so many lives, and even though we hadn’t seen him in 15 years, we still feel his loss as acutely as if we had been with him just yesterday.

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Even while we are just getting started on harvesting some of our summer crops, August is a sprint for the finish line production-wise. This week the very last of our successive plantings will go into the greenhouse. And through the middle of next month, we will be making the last plantings of the crops that we seed directly into the field, like carrots, beets, scallions, parsley, cilantro and snap peas. Relative to our spring and early summer plantings, these last plantings will be larger.

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When it comes to storing your produce, one thing that is really helpful to know is which parts of your refrigerator maintain what temperatures. Every refrigerator is a little different. Most units have drawers for vegetables (I know them as “crispers”. Since having kids, no drawers have been large enough to hold my weekly vegetable haul.). Outside of the drawers the internal temps will vary from place to place, with the lower parts of the refrigerator being the coldest.

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Here it is August already. Steve wants to write some articles about specific things happening on the farm right now, but we can’t pull him out of the field long enough to do it. This past week he has been out at the Lewis Road farm quite a bit, planting avocado trees, meeting with designers to set up his hoophouses on the terraces, and getting a load of mustard seed meal to help fight root knot nematodes. The mustard seed meal is proving itself to be a good fertilizer as well as fighting soil diseases and pests.

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The farm is in full summer swing now. There are yummy summer vegetables (beans, peppers, cucumbers, and eggplants) growing nicely. The apples (and even some pears this year) are formed on the trees and starting to size up. The blueberries have slowed down, but we’re still able to put a few in the mystery shares each week. The strawberries are plugging along nicely. In this year of learning about our new Lewis Rd. farmland, we decided to not take a chance with the tomatoes. The Thomas Farm has been growing wonderful organic tomatoes for decades, so we asked Josh if he would plant enough to supply our CSA for this summer.

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“Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.”
H. Jackson Brown Jr.

patrick and joshFor the past few years, we have been getting flowers for the CSA from Steve’s cousin, Josh, at the Thomas Farm in Corralitos.

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summer squashThe heat we have received this last week has really pushed things along. Over the next few weeks we have beautiful blocks of celery, broccoli and cauliflower that will be ready for harvest, as well as a new field of summer squashes that is now in bloom. Over the next few days we will go through and “blanch” the cauliflower plants by pulling the outer leaves together over the top of the plant and tying them together with rubber bands.

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mockingbirdThe other morning I awoke to someone calling cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, outside our bedroom window. My husband and I looked at each other and started laughing uncontrollably. It was our neighborhood mockingbird and I swear, it was a distinct “cheeseburger” that was being sung.

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duck nest in blueberry patch“Be careful not to disturb the nest between the blueberry rows–there are 9 duck eggs in there.” I told my berry-picking crew. “No”  Gabriel said. “Once! There are eleven.” The clutch of eggs that a mother mallard had laid in the middle of an aisle between rows of blueberry plants has finally hatched. Although we didn’t see it, the mother undoubtedly led her ducklings in single file down to the slough, a few hundred yards away.

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The Yurt OfficeSteve’s working in the field outside my office window. Now, my “office” at High Ground Organics is a marvelous yurt that overlooks the apple orchard that overlooks the potato field that overlooks the Harkins Slough. I can’t imagine a lovelier place to work. I look out my window and see the tractor is discing up a little wedge of land in front of the apple trees.

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High Ground blueberriesSome of you will be receiving the first blueberries that we have picked this year (don’t worry, there are plenty more to come, and we will rotate packing days to be sure that everybody gets some in the next few weeks). Of the four varieties that we planted, Southmoon is the clear favorite so far.

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blueberry nettingIt’s hard to believe it’s June already, and the windy, cool days and periodic rainstorms don’t help. Everything seems to be growing slower than expected this year. The first of the blueberries are ripening at last. Of course, the birds found them right away! We’ve had to cover the rows with bird netting to keep them from eating every berry as it turns blue.

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One night many years ago, Steve couldn’t sleep and got up to read in the living room. All was quiet in the house; except… what was that humming sound? The sound seemed to be coming from the floor. He put his ear on the floorboards and the humming grew louder. That’s how we first discovered that we had a hive of honey bees living under our floor.

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starts in the greenhouseWe had a good productive week here on the farm. We listed the last twelve or so acres of un-planted ground up into beds. We’ve been laying down drip tape in the blocks that we will be planting our winter squash into later this week. And we have been planting out lots and lots of transplants—lettuces, broccoli, cabbages, fennel, celery, cauliflower, chard, kale, and peppers.

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The lovely little oakleaf lettuces in your boxes this week are two varieties that are new to us this year. We are so pleased with them that we will probably put them in our regular lettuce rotation. Let us know what you think.

This week’s fava beans (part of the mystery) are all from our Redman House field. It has been a while since I last grew favas, and I made the mistake of planting them too close together in the rows. The plants grew beautifully (a little too beautifully) but because they were spaced so closely together, the patch became a jungle-like thicket that is a real challenge to harvest.

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