I can remember back to a time that I just didn’t get the appeal of fennel. This course, stringy, strongly scented vegetable didn’t seem worth the trouble to cook. But now I can honestly say that it is among my very favorite vegetables. I fully realize that there are many of our CSA members who still don’t “get” fennel, and if you are among these, you simply must try Jeanne’s recipe for roast fennel and onions.
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Kale is a type of cabbage that does not form a head from the central leaves.We grow three varieties of kale, green curly leaf or Scotch kale, Lacinato or Dinosaur kale, and Red Russian kale. Kale is high in beta carotene, vitamin K and vitamin C and calcium.
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Kohlrabi is an odd vegetable that I think is often bought more for appearance than for the desire to eat it. Looking like something from a science-fiction movie, they come in lovely deep purple or jade green, and the leaves come up from all over what seems to be the root.
Lettuce Rows
Lettuces grow exceptionally well here at our home farm near the coast. They love the cool foggy summer weather. We grow Red Leaf, Green Leaf, Butter Lettuces, Little Gem, and Romaine varieties and offer a mix of baby salad greens in our early spring boxes.
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The City of Watsonville is voting (already by mail-in ballot, June 4 actual election day) on Measure T, which would expand the city’s urban limit line. The proposal would pave the way (pun intended) for the development of 95 acres of farmland, with the stated goal of attracting big box stores like Costco. Included in these 95 acres of prime farmland is the ground we currently lease at the Redman House.
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We really enjoyed meeting those of you who came out for our farm tour on Saturday—it was a great group of folks with interesting questions (and engaged clever children)! In spite of the uninspiring weather, we enjoyed giving you a taste of how and where we grow your vegetables. It’s good for us to step out of our routines to reflect on what we do here and meet the people who keep us going. So thanks for coming out! Stay tuned for strawberry u-picks during the summer.
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The strawberries are playing tricks on us this year. A few weeks ago it looked like they were coming on strong, but after that first burst of fruit we’ve got a bit of a lull before the main crop really comes in. The plants are loaded with flowers, so this is just the calm before the storm and we should have the expected bounty of strawberries before too long. For now, we’ll keep it a mystery. You may instead get some of the first blueberries coming in, the very first summer squash of the season, or those wonderful Shiitake mushrooms from our friends at Far West Fungi.
It’s a beautiful time of year here on the farm with the apple trees in bloom, most of the fields planted into young crops, the surrounding hills still green from winter rains, and occasional sunny warm days. We’ve been extra busy this spring so we put off our Spring Farm Tour, but there will be even more to show you and talk about when we do our tour Saturday, May 4th 
(see details below). The last couple years we’ve done the spring tour at our new Lewis Road ranch, but this year we’ll show off our home farm again. This is the site of our apple and pear orchards, blueberry patch, and various field crops, as well as our habitat restoration area, goats, hedgerows, riparian corridor, and a field trial we’re doing with UCSC researchers on cover crop rotations for strawberry plantings. Lots to show you and it looks different than it does in the fall for our huge Harvest Fair event.
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We’re in the last stages of our spring field work. May 1st is the deadline I usually give myself for getting hard squash and pumpkins planted. Because powdery mildew almost always becomes a problem with these crops late in the season, we’ve found that the earlier we can get them planted the better. As with most large seeded crops, we can’t plant them too early, however, because the seeds will rot in cold soils—it’s all about timing. In addition to planting hard squashes we will be planting another block of potatoes from the seed that we saved over from last year.
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This is a big planting week for us. We had a greenhouse full of young green (and red) starts to get into the field. Steve spent much of the weekend on the tractor preparing several fields for planting. Then Monday our crew of 8 workers plopped the starts into the ground — they planted out about an acre of lettuces, cabbages, and fennel.
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For me, one of the most gratifying parts of life on the farm is watching the land change over the years in positive ways. When we first arrived here at our home site along Harkins Slough thirteen years ago, the upper portion of the property was almost completely devoid of vegetation around the farm fields. In the first few years we planted hedgerows around most of the periphery of the farm, as well as riparian buffer strips and landscaping around the house and outbuildings.
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The salad and braising mixes are a sort of spring special here. We know that the baby green mixes are very popular and we grow them in spring because they can be ready to harvest in about four weeks, which means we can plant them after the major winter rains have let up and have them ready by the first CSA boxes. But salad and braising mixes are a lot of work to grow so during the rest of the season we tend to favor the head lettuces and mature greens that do so well here.
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Celery Root, The Ugly Duckling
If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone pick up a celery root and say something like, “What is this, it’s so ugly!” I think I’d be quite well off. It’s funny, because in France the word “céléri” refers to the celery root (a.k.a. “céléri-rave”), whereas it is always “céléri branche” for the stalks Americans know and crunch for everything from dips to diets. Celery root is also known as celeriac, and is one of three forms of celery; root, branch (or stalk), and leaf, but they are all variants of the same plant.
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Tomorrow is the first day of spring, and we’re celebrating by starting up CSA deliveries for the 2013 season. We’re looking forward to a good year of farming on our beautiful central coast farmland. We’ve had a busy few years, getting to know our “new” Lewis Road property and completing the big projects so we can be more productive with what we’ve got.
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This week we are delivering our final winter CSA boxes. Thanks to those of you who joined us for winter! We’re busy with planting and tending the spring crops for the first weeks of the regular season starting March 20/21. (Check your account and make your payments now if you haven’t yet so that you take advantage of the lower price—see subscription info below.)
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This is the third straight year that we have had a prolonged dry spell in the middle of winter and, according to the latest weather report, there is no meaningful rain in sight. In some respects it has been helpful. Because most of our ground has dried up, we are well ahead of schedule getting ground worked up, and doing our first plantings. Harvesting for the CSA and the Farmer’s Market is always much easier when things are dry as well.
We offer several varieties of apples during the late summer and fall. At our home farm, we have planted orchards of Jonagolds, Rubinettes, Waltanas and Hudson’s Golden Gems.
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What I want to know is, who was the first person to eat an artichoke, and why? Ponder the artichoke and you too may wonder this same thing. The artichoke is a member of the thistle family (a sub-group of the sunflowers), and is aptly named.
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Arugula, or “salad rocket”, is a leaf with a rich peppery flavor that originates from the Mediterranean region. It is high in Vitamin C and potassium and is often mixed with milder lettuces or greens to produce a balanced flavor in a salad or with cooked greens.
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It’s been a busy couple weeks on the farm. About 80 CSA farmers and other people involved with CSAs from around the country in town for the EcoFarm conference came by last week for a tour of our farm. It was great to meet all these folks who are doing some version of what we’re doing and to swap stories about pests, weather, packing boxes, and all things CSA-related. Steve also attended some meetings about organic strawberry growing.
Basil is an aromatic herb belonging to the mint family. Basil originates from India but certain varieties are used commonly in Southeast Asian cuisines. It has a strong, pungent, if sweet, smell. This versatile herb is commonly used fresh in Italian and other Mediterranean dishes, added at the very end as to not lose too much flavor.
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Beans and peas are one of those marvelous crops that not only taste delicious, they actually give back nutrients into the soil. Peas can take nitrogen out of the air and “fix” it into the soil. Nutritious for you, nutritious for the earth. We offer several kinds of beans throughout the season.
We grow several varieties of beets. Red Ace beets are the earthy deep red kind. Chioggia beets are a beautiful candy-striped beet, an heirloom variety from the Italian town of Chioggia, near Venice. Golden beets are sweet (and won’t turn everything you are cooking red).
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We have four varieties of blueberries in our blueberry patch, Southmoon, O’Neal, Misty, and Jewel–which are supposed to ripen sequentially so that we could stagger our harvest over a longer season than if we just had one variety.
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