Confessions of a Modern Day Farm Girl

In the belly of a whale...

2011-03-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's been a long time. I'll admit it. I haven't written or even thought about writing in a couple of months. It's just that we've been on matrimonial leave. Even though we've been working hard prepping the farm for the coming year, at the end of the day, I just don't feel like sitting down at the computer...I'd much rather cook a nice dinner for my husband and enjoy his company while doing something other than shovelling. I'm back, though, so you need not worry about whether we've disappeared.

Our primary task over the last week has been building a new greenhouse. We've been feeling pretty cramped in our first greenhouse and really needed additional space for starting all our transplants. After hashing out a multitude of ideas, we finally decided to just go for it and build another full size greenhouse. We scrounged around the farm looking for needed parts and bargain shopped all around town for the best prices on hardware, spent a few days building, and wham, bam, we had ourselves a nice, new, shiny greenhouse. Now the fun of filling it begins.

Other thoughts...

A couple days ago when we went to Western Farms to buy alfalfa for our goats, we were told they were just about out of it and didn't know when they would be able to get more. Apparently, all alfalfa is being exported to China because the floods they experienced last year meant they couldn't produce their own. To top it off, it's been too wet in our immediate area for alfalfa farmers to cut their hay. I guess a global food system means sometimes, even when there's plenty of local(ish) sources, you still have to compete against halfway around the world for food. Seems like it would be a smart idea to have farms that deal directly with real people in the middle of communities to safeguard against a real food shortage.

I came across some statistics that I found really interesting. Only 1.1% of Sonoma County's agricultural production is in vegetable crops. 72.1% is in fruit and nut crops (think grapes and apples). 13.9% is in livestock and poultry products and 8% in in livestock and poultry themselves. So, even though Sonoma County is very much an agricultural county, hardly any of it is vegetable production. With so few vegetables produced, why doesn't it feel like locals are banging down the doors to buy local produce? Just wondering.

Inspiration from Joel Salatin...

2011-01-29T09:30:00.000-08:00

In our business, there are a few voices that stand out from the rest. Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, and John Muir have been preaching the importance of conservation, stewardship, and the necessity of maintaining a connection with the land despite the increasing industrialization and mechanization of mainstream agriculture. These guys were/are incredible thinkers and paved the way for much of our modern return to more simple, natural, and responsible agricultural practices. One person, however, now stands out from the rest as someone who is leading in our industry by example and who is standing strong against the tide of sterile, impersonal, unnatural farming.

Joel Salatin is a farmer. He has been other things (most notably a successful journalist), but it is in his simple life as someone who works with the land that he has been most influential and revolutionary. On his properties in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Joel Salatin has created a model for truly sustainable farming, in which the farmer protects and nurtures the land through the raising of animals. Instead of taking from the land and never giving back anything in return, Salatin's system simulates the relationships between the earth and animals that can be seen in nature throughout history. Under Salatin's stewardship, the animals do not tax the land, they help improve it.

We had the pleasure of hearing Joel Salatin speak a couple weeks ago in Point Reyes. I have read most of Salatin's books and we have been fortunate enough to speak to him via phone, so I wasn't sure if I would take something new from the talk. I was delighted, however, to hear a crystal clear new message that, I believe, should be the litmus test for most new innovation in agriculture. Smart farming requires that we only do things in and with nature that we have examples of in the natural world. The disastrously filthy and harmful practices of feedlots, slaughterhouses, and conventional, chemical based crop agriculture are completely unnatural. Where in nature do we see animals being raised without sunlight and with food that is genetically unrecognizabe as nutritious and useful to their development? No where! Where in nature do we see plants thrive when fed with chemicals and sprayed with pesticides? No where! Where in nature do we find the most clean and sanitary spaces to be in closed and confined areas where there is no contact with the elements which are the most effective cleaning agents? No where! Our agricultural system has become so out of whack because we have become accustomed to applying man made, unnatural practices to the natural world. We cannot, without destroying nature, exert our artificial and unsustainable practices on the earth. As Joel Salatin suggests, we have to open our eyes to the intricacies of the medium with which we work. We work with the environment, with soil, with plants, and with animals. If we are aware of the realities and limitations of these things, we can most easily see the natural ways that the environment heals and preserves itself in harmony with the cultivation of plants and animals. Does it make sense to spray chemical pesticides and herbicides (i.e. roundup) around trees that we hope will produce bountiful crops of healthy, nutritious fruit? Absolutely not! If the chemicals are capable of killing the undesirable weeds and pests it is also going to harm the tree we are trying to protect.

The lesson I learned from Joel Salatin this time is that nature is not a petri dish. We cannot look at our agricultural work which occurs in the environment as isolated from the deeper workings of nature. Regardless of where we throw the rock in the pond, ripples will extend throughout. As farmers in today's world, we must accept the consequences of our actions and only do that which makes sense in nature.

A Whole New Year...

2011-01-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

So we did it. We got hitched on New Year's Eve and now we're official. Our party was perfect. Surrounded by friends and family, we said our vows and grew together in a way that will never be undone. I had wondered if I would actually feel different after it was all finished and I do. I feel calm, balanced, happy, and ready to apply myself to life and business like never before. This year we will feed more people than last. We will grow more, we will grow better, and we will do everything we can to make the lives of those around us - our family, our friends, our communities - so much better. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and offered their positive intentions for the past few years. Now you get to watch us really shine.

Inspiration

2010-12-17T21:25:00.000-08:00

Jeff at the Market Hall in Florence, Italy. Check out those Romanesco cauliflower to his right...inspiration!

I was going through a bunch of photos looking for pictures to put up at our wedding in a couple of weeks and I found pictures of the indoor Market Hall in Florence, Italy. Jeff and I were there two years ago and spent a lot of our trip exploring farmers' markets and market halls all over Italy, France, and Spain. My favorite was a two story indoor market hall in Florence smack in the middle of the train station ghetto. Seafood, vegetables, spices, mushrooms, bread, espresso, beans, pasta, you name it, this place had two or three vendors selling the best and freshest available. We were there in January so there were predominately greens, brassicas, and roots in the markets. At the time, a lot of the produce seemed obscure and different from that in our area. Now, however, when I look at my pictures, I realize that we now grow many of the same things. Many things that we now grow, like Romanesco cauliflower and rapini, were always on our minds to grow, but it wasn't until we saw them proudly grown, displayed, and widely enjoyed, that we had the confidence to dedicate precious planting space to less known crops. Now, as we pick gorgeous, delicious Romanesco cauliflower which will be enjoyed on tables across Sonoma County, I am so glad that we did. It turns out that those random Italian veggies can be enjoyed just as much in California as in fair Italy.

Have your pumpkin and eat it too!

2010-10-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

Traditional carving pumpkins are fun, but wouldn't you rather have a pumpkin that is a beautiful decoration and can be eaten too? Yes, I am suggesting something radical - eating real pumpkin. Believe it or not, you can cook with pumpkin that doesn't come from a can. I think you'll actually find that the finished result is far superior.

You can roast pumpkin and eat it as you would any other winter squash, you can make pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin butter, and that's just a start.

Check out this article in today's Press Democrat about edible pumpkins: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20101026/LIFESTYLE/101029664/1316/lifestyle12?Title=Great-pumpkin-ideas

Edible Art

2010-10-09T21:26:00.001-07:00

Here are some of my favorite watermelon pictures from the past week or so. These things are crazy beautiful!

This is my favorite Moon and Stars. I call it "The Penguin" because it's about as big as a penguin and shaped the same.

We don't know what causes these intricate designs on the melons - maybe aliens.

Sittin' under the watermelon tree, chillin' with the melons.

Woohoo...we're farming now!

2010-10-09T21:08:00.000-07:00

Despite our high production, Jeff and I actually possess minimal farming equipment. Jeff has use of a 1948 Case tractor and a disk that goes with it, we have a lawn mower (the motorized kind that you still have to push), a weedwacker, and, well, until now, that was it. We used to have a hand-me-down riding rototiller, but it wasn't much of a rock breaker and it finally gave in and died earlier this season. Fortunately, we were able to work with Bacchus Vineyard management on our Kick Ranch veggie block and they used their tractor and their super fancy spader (think high tech double digging machine) to do our groundwork. We finally reached the point, though, where we knew we needed a new rototiller to complement our other equipment. I'm a good shoveler, but I'm not good enough to make a strong, commercial quality rototiller unnecessary. Thanks to the major increase in the number of small farms and highly motivated backyard gardeners, the kind of rototiller we were looking for was sold out everywhere in California. And we consider ourselves to be one of the agricultural seats of the country...shameful! Finally, I found a place in Kentucky that carries walk behind tractors and rototiller implements and they were able to ship us exactly what we needed in less than a week. Our new tiller is a beautiful, obnoxiously colored Grillo and it's a beast. Look out now, world, we're about to get all kinds of high tech!

Jeff workin' the tiller

Thumpin' Watermelons

2010-09-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

We've all seen it, whether at the grocery store or the farmers' market - people thumping, tapping, flicking, sniffing, or otherwise inspecting watermelons trying to tell if they're ripe or not. I always ask people what they're listening for, because to me, it all kind of sounds the same. According to the experts, a ripe watermelon should sound hollow when you thump it. What hollow sounds like, though, seems a bit subjective.

I don't mind if you thump our melons (just don't thump too hard because it might pop!), but you can rest assured knowing that we pick all our watermelons completely ripe. Watermelons actually have a cool little built-in indicator that tells you exactly when each individual melon should be picked. Next to where the stem connects to the melon, there is a little tendril that is bright green throughout the development of the fruit. Picture a little, green pig's tail. Once the melon is ripe, the tendril immediately dries up and turns brown and brittle. Here's a picture of a dried tendril:

Once the tendril dries, the melons have to be cut from the vine - they don't slip off, so you don't need to look for melons that have no stem. I've also heard that a ripe melon will show sugar crystals if you nick the skin, but I haven't tested that hypothesis yet. I'll let you know what I find once I do.

Other interesting watermelon facts:

Watermelons don't ripen once they are picked.

Watermelons are extremely fragile when fully ripe. They will split, pop, or crack if handled too roughly. That means that ripe watermelons really don't work with the conventional food/grocery business in which produce is handled a lot, shipped long distances, and stored for periods of time. Watermelons in your average grocery store have to be picked under-ripe in order to make it to their destinations in one piece. The upside is attractive watermelons in the supermarket. The downside is watermelons that are mealy and don't taste very good.

If watermelons are handled too roughly, it ruins the texture, making them mealy or mushy. Be warned that if you see your watermelon purveyor dropping boxes of melons or letting them bounce around, they might be questionable.

Despite all these warnings, you can 100% trust our watermelons. If, by some fluke of nature, you end up with a melon that is sub par, we'll always give you another one. That's called integrity.

Adventures in Urban Farming

2010-09-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

Ah, heat. Beloved, yearned for, much anticipated heat. A little bit of heat right when we need it makes everything feel so much better. A season can go from dismal and disappointing to feeling pretty darn ok. Our watermelons and ambrosia cantaloupes have taken this little heat wave and said, "Thank you very much! We're gonna sweeten up just like that and, bam, we're done!"

Our melons are planted at Kick Ranch, our other chunk of land just down the road from us, so getting the melons picked and moved to the farm for safe keeping and selling at the Roadside Stand took some creative thinking. Last year, we learned that Jeff's Xterra SUV makes a fine watermelon-mobile - we carefully pile them in the back of the car in one massive mound of melons and drive as carefully as possible so as not to turn our beautiful melon pile into an exploded mess of watermelon juice. Tonight, we filled the car to the brim with melons and then realized that we somehow still had to fit the bins of just picked cucumbers into the car. Jeff, always one to think outside of the box (or car), decided they'd have to go on the roof. So, imagine, a Nissan Xterra filled to the gills with fragile, perfectly ripe and ready to pop watermelons, with bins of cucumbers perched on the roof. I'm happy to report that we made the two mile drive home safely, albeit slowly, and weren't even stopped by any police officers and required to explain why we had a car full of melons and cucumbers on the roof.

Sometimes farming is ridiculously fun.

I could do without the rain...

2010-09-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

It's September 19th and it's raining. I could really do without this. I'm tired from working seven days a week, 12 hours a day all year long. I'm tired from fighting to save every plant that we put in the ground. I'm tired of worrying about whether we will make enough money to pay our bills and even be able to pay off the costs of farming for this year and have enough to start the farm next year. This has been a year that could dissuade less courageous farmers from ever farming again. We won't be dissuaded, though. We will keep working hard to grow our crops to healthy fruition. We will plant for the Fall, Winter, and Spring. We'll figure out a way to fund the farm and maybe even find a way to provide more substantially for ourselves. No one ever said farming was easy. When so much depends on factors entirely out of our control, such as the weather, there's a point when you have to accept whatever happens in any given year. I have to accept that we have done our best...we have put every minute of our time for the past however long into our farm and what happens, well it happens. Hopefully next year will be better.

I can moan and groan about how challenging this year has been, but we're not facing as dire a situation as many of those in Sonoma County's grape industry. We can compensate for failed crops or unusual, inconsistent weather with planting more or different things throughout the year. The grape growers, however, only have one crop and everything depends on it. Grapes don't grow themselves - they cost a lot in labor and other inputs and when the grape crop is not what it needs to be, well they still have to pay all those costs. So when we gripe about the vineyards and say that vineyards are just a get rich quick scheme, we should remember that when there is a year of failure, it's dismal for them.

As it rains, say a prayer and think good thoughts for the farmers and grape growers. We all need it.

Good Food IS Medicine

2010-09-15T22:42:00.000-07:00

When I'm selling our veggies, you'll frequently hear me touting the nutritional benefits of our just picked, naturally grown produce. I say stuff about vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients, antioxidants, and omegas. I say Eating good food is preventative medicine!" over and over and over. When I make this claim, it's not just a sales pitch. I believe, I know that food is medicine because I've seen it heal better than any pharmaceutical and almost any procedure. Food can go a long way toward healing conditions that are deemed incurable. Fresh, clean food does amazing work...and it tastes incredible to boot.

I consider myself an expert on this subject because I have watched someone come back from the worst of worst case scenarios to a place that no one thought possible, in large part because of nutrition. My older brother, when he was twenty-five and on the cusp of marriage and law school, was hit by a car while riding his bike out in the West County. Hit from behind at 55 mph, he didn't stand much of a chance against that big, hard car, regardless of his strong physical condition and the helmet on his head. His brain was broken - broken badly. They said he wouldn't survive the night. When he did, they said he wouldn't survive the week. After that, they said he wouldn't feel or move or eat or talk or express how he felt. And he didn't for pretty much as long as he was in the hospital. But once my parents, my faithful, courageous parents, brought him home, he started to improve.

Once he was home, my Mom started feeding him real food. No more soy and sugar based formula received through a tube - only real, organic, vegetables and proteins. He started getting the meanest green smoothie in Northern California, with more kale, chard, and other super greens than you could imagine. He started getting real vitamins in shapes and forms that our bodies can recognize - in carrots, broccoli, peppers, butternut squash, and healthy grass fed meats. Soon after he started getting real food through a tube, he was eating the real food through his mouth by means of his own fork and hand. The physical practice of eating helped retrain his body to move in controlled ways, which helped his body get stronger and more controllable. As he has eaten probably an elephant's weight in kale, his mind has become quicker, more focused, and he has been able to express himself more. The first way he really expressed himself since being hurt was to express how much he loves food and eating. Without a doubt, food seems to brings him more joy in his still very limited and challenged life than anything else.

Now, a few years after his love affair with food was renewed, my brother can talk, eat, move, express, and almost walk. And they said he would never do any of it. They also thought that the human body doesn't care what kind of nutrition you put in it. Some people, no matter how smart, can be wrong.

Isn't it ironic that they serve some of the most toxic, shabby, and least nutritious food to sick people in hospitals? The people who need it most are the last to receive real, nutritious, medicinally powerful food. Kids and senior citizens also get left behind when it comes to having ready access to fresh, organic food- fruit and produce, especially. So, as it stands, in our society, the most at-risk members of our population receive the worst and most deadly food. Because these groups typically have more susceptible immune systems, they get sick or sicker and then end up costing society more in the long run. How's that for unintended consequences? Real food also has the capacity to bring joy to people, especially the elderly and sick, and joy is the most powerful healer there is. I have elderly customers who live for the taste of good tomatoes every Summer because those tomatoes take them back to special times and places and help them to feel young.

We justify the status quo by saying that organic, local food is too expensive. It's low on the totem pole of priorities, especially in hospitals. But I think, I really do believe, that if we invested more money in proper nutrition, we would have to spend far less in the long run on pharmaceuticals, surgeries, therapists, and fad diets. My belief in the importance of accessible and affordable real, clean food is one of the reasons why I will continue to farm no matter how challenging. Maybe someday farmers will earn a fraction of all that money going to the drug companies who thrive on people's sickness and dependence on their products. I'm pretty sure my kale can't kill you if you use it too much and the side effects, well, they're minimal.

Hooray for Jimmy Nardello!

2010-09-04T21:38:00.001-07:00

Whoever he was, Jimmy Nardello must have been quite a guy to have such an awesome pepper named after him. I really like sweet peppers raw, but, frankly, I'm rather ambivalent towards roasted peppers and other cooked interpretations. Grilled Jimmy Nardello peppers, on the other hand, are downright phenomenal. They are sweet and tangy - almost spicy without being hot - and melt in your mouth. I like to toss the whole peppers with a teensy bit of olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and toss on the grill. Give them ten minutes, tops, and they're ready to go. You can eat them right off the grill or use the peppers as an ingredient (such as a topping on grilled pizza like Jeff and I are doing tonight). Having a party? Feature grilled Jimmy Nardellos on your local and seasonal antipasto platter and you'll knock your guests socks off.

Basil, Melons, and Making Lemonade

2010-08-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

Every week, someone at the Farmers' Market asks me the best way to keep basil. I always tell them to treat basil like flowers and put it in a vase or glass of water in a sunny spot in their kitchen. Kept like this, basil will last for weeks (literally, weeks!) and will actually start to grow again, eventually sprouting roots from the stems. If you're so inclined, you can go ahead and plant your newly rooted basil and keep it going in the garden. I have had the same bunch of basil in our kitchen for about three weeks now and the roots have been growing like crazy for about the last 10 days. Here's a picture to see what I mean....

Other news....

We have melons! Jeff impresses me with his farming abilities on a regular basis. His scientific knowledge (gained by his university level plant science education) combined with his years of hands on experience and his unbelievable ability to intuitively know what plants need (green thumb!) make him an extremely competent grower. His latest triumph is his melon patch. I'm uber picky about my melons...they have to be perfect or else I'm not really a melon fan. That said, Jeff's melons are the best I have ever had. Perfectly sweet, tender, not over or under ripe, and with a consistency like the perfect mango. Last week, I raved about our melons in my weekly farmers' market email and people flocked to our booth at the Market to try a melon for themselves. The day after the Market, I received an email from a friend/customer that informed me that the melon was so sweet and juicy that juice dripped onto his shirt. He told me that I should really warn people about the likelihood of that happening : ) Nothing makes me happier than when our customers enjoy our produce as much as I do.

At this point, it's no secret that Sonoma County growers are dealing with the coolest season on record. A colder than normal Summer season is challenging since so many local farmers plan to make the bulk of their income in the Summer months, but it's not the end of the world for Redwood Empire Farm. Over the last couple of years, we have moved toward being a year round farm. Summer is only one of the seasons and, with our system, we are able to adapt and try to make up for the dismal and minimal Summer season with booming harvests in the other seasons of the year. To that end, I've been seeding broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, roots, and lettuce with gusto. Indian Summer or not, we're going to have a good Fall.

The delayed harvest of tomatoes afforded us the opportunity to get our of town for two whole nights a couple weeks ago. We headed to Downieville, which is Jeff's favorite place in the whole wide world. Downieville, which is about 40 miles north east of Grass Valley, is a very rustic gold mining town and is one of California's meccas for mountain biking. We camped out, rode our bikes, and relaxed! It's incredible how a short break from work can put everything back into the right perspective. Here are a couple photos from our adventure...

Jeff panning for gold. Yes, he really did pan for gold by his own volition. I could hardly believe it. Unfortunately, he didn't strike it rich. I was shocked and disappointed.

Here I am reading next to the rushing creek. You can call me the librarian of Downieville.

Lastly, since the blog entry in which I detailed the difficulties of this Summer, friends, family, and customers have expressed their concern for us. The interest and support means so much to Jeff and myself. Let me assure everyone, though, that we're not quitters. We will continue to farm because we are farmers and that is what we do. We will adjust to the changing climate and circumstances and we will be successful. And right now, I'm still getting to live my dream. I get to work outside doing meaningful and fulfilling work with my best friend and love and am able to work on building the foundation for our future and that of our family. And we have successfully provided food for our 40 family CSA despite the crappy weather. I don't think that adds up to failure...not one bit.

Is it August or March?

2010-08-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

We're reaching an impasse. This season is starting to feel like a disaster. It's August 3rd and here, in Santa Rosa, these days we're lucky to break 80 degrees. We have fog until noon and then a cool afternoon sea breeze that drops the temperature immediately. Our tomatoes are sitting there shivering, conserving the energy they should be putting into ripening fruit just to keep them alive. Melons are cracking before they ripen because we haven't had the heat needed to up their sugar and ripen them, so the melons actually outgrow themselves and explode. Don't get me started on this year's ongoing battle to get cucumbers to grow successfully - yet again, not enough heat for the plants to thrive and more bugs this year than animals at the zoo.

Luther Burbank once declared Santa Rosa to be the most ideal place for growing things in the whole world. I'm afraid that's no longer the case. The weather has become so irregular that Santa Rosa no longer seems to be an ideal place for growing heat loving Summer crops, of which we (try) to grow so many. Hopefully we'll get some heat eventually this Summer or Fall, but it's getting awfully late in the season to still be in the red. I wish I could say that Jeff and I didn't depend on the income we earn from our farm, but we really do depend on that income. Farming is both of our full time jobs and we both put in 80+ hours a week. We are pretty frugal folks and certainly don't require riches to feel adequately compensated, but as of today, we have put more cash into the farm in the form of soil amendments, equipment, irrigation, tools, plastic mulch, seed, rent, utilities, and insurance than we have gotten out. We have a lot riding on the outcome of this growing season, our future business development depends on us being able to make enough to fund our next step forward. You may be asking why we always feel the need to be moving forward. The answer is this : we want to constantly move forward because we want to constantly get better at doing our job, which is growing real food for people to eat. We believe in the importance of what we do, for our community, our nation, and ourselves, and want to do it to the best of our abilities. To reach our potential as farmers, we need to improve at consistently growing large quantities of high quality produce, which, first and foremost, requires that we be able to sustain ourselves in our daily living, which allows us to operate a sustainable farm.

I don't mean to be dire, but something needs to change. We either need the local weather to become more consistently warm and dry in the late Spring and Summer months, or we need to farm in a climate that is more suited to our needs, or we need to make a large financial investment in greenhouses and other season extending and stabilizing systems. I really hope the weather turns around soon and we can finish the season in real style. Keep your fingers crossed for us and keep eating those Redwood Empire Farm veggies.

Secret Gardens

2010-07-27T17:57:00.001-07:00

I have probably mentioned before that I spent the first thirteen years of my life running wild on a farm west of Petaluma. My parents bought the farm before I was born with the intention to get back to the land - they wanted to grow their own everything and be a bit more sustainable in an increasingly unsustainable world. My Dad kept his day job, but his nights and weekends were spent tending to animals, mowing the fields, working in the garden, and fixing broken pipes and sputtering wells. Perhaps I am a bit more capable of farming and working as hard as I can regardless of consistent paychecks because my earliest example of farming was of my folks who weren't trying to make money as much as they were cultivating a lifestyle for my family.

Our twenty-five acre farm was not perfect - it didn't have much water, it was windy all the time, and it was a bit on the cold side, but I loved it more than anything else in my young life. We had cows, sheep, chickens, and a hodgepodge assortment of other animals that came and went as a part of my Dad's attempts to be a farmer (on top of his day job). I recall a couple of horses and a pony that were too mean to ride, but that I still had to take care of (I became good at avoiding bites and kicks at a young age). We had a breed of sheep called Barbados, which were supposed to be excellent grazers and great for meat, but the problem was they were mean, fast, excellent escape artists, and you couldn't catch them to save your life.

Although I loved the animals, my favorite thing about the farm was its expanse. To a kid, twenty five acres is huge! I would pack my backpack or my doll carriage and set out for the far reaches of the property with my pet sheep, Jane, in tow. My favorite spot was a lovely stand of Poplar trees in a corner of pasture furthest from the house. I would settle in and read books, write stories, or play with my friends until I heard the enormous dinner bell (a vestige from the farm's life before my family) calling me home. Even though I was a fairly outgoing kid, I treasured my solitary adventures and relished being able to get lost for a day in a patch of land that I knew so well.

When I was about twelve, I was enthralled with Lewis Carrol's, "The Secret Garden." I wanted my own secret garden, overrun with old-fashioned flowers and hidden from all except for me. I saw potential in one corner of our backyard that was hedged in by a tall, grape stake fence and our deck. The area was completely tangled with blackberries and other weeds and was hardly accessible. I had a vision, though, and I set out to create my secret garden. I cleared a narrow entrance, tore out the blackberries and weeds, creating a clean palate with which to work. My Mom took me to the local nursery and we picked out roses and other flowers befitting my old-fashioned secret garden. To be honest, I don't really remember much about my secret garden after its creation. I probably moved on to another interest or hobby and my garden was probably overtaken by weeds again. Nonetheless, I vividly remember the process of creating that garden and how much I enjoyed taking a brambly and unloved space and making it special and beautiful.

This year we are growing some cut flowers for our CSA and the process of cutting them and making bouquets has made me think a lot about that farm where I grew up. When I was a kid, I would tell anybody with an ear how much I loved my farm. When I was thirteen and we moved, I was actually a little bit devastated. I never thought, though, that I would find my way back to a farm and the farming life. Now that I have returned to my earliest passion and calling, it seems unbelievable that I strayed so far from my homesteading roots for as long as I did.

Other news -

We've been a little concerned about one of our goats, Shosanna, who has developed some very round udders even though she isn't pregnant and has never had babies. She's not acting sick, still has a healthy appetite, and doesn't have any noticeable wounds. In fact, her only symptom besides the voluptuous udder is a slight increase in goofy and hormonal behavior. Since we are relatively inexperienced goat owners, we are pretty clueless about whether this recent udder growth is normal. I've searched the internet, poked and prodded the poor goat's udders, and called the Vet, and, finally, it seems that we have an answer. The most likely diagnosis is something called precocious udder. How great is that? Basically, Shosanna is going through puberty and is developing all the necessary parts to make her a baby goat and milk making machine. I just think that precocious udder is a fantastic name for a puberty related ailment. I can actually think of some teenagers I know who might be suffering from precocious udder...

Victory!

2010-07-13T21:13:00.001-07:00

The first tomatoes that we planted this year (April 1st) had really crummy weather for the early part of their lives. It was wet, it was cold, it was drab. Those poor, little tomatoes did their best, but they became ridden with blights. Hating to lose our whole early planting, Jeff and I went to work trying to bring the plants back to health. We spent hours doing everything we could think of to curtail the blight and then sat back, crossed our fingers, and hoped the tomatoes would outgrow their weakness.

Well, I'm happy to report that we just ate the most delicious, perfect Early Girls. A slice of Early Girl, a slab of fresh Mozzarella, some basil, and a sprinkle of salt...incredible.

So the moral of this story is: With perseverance, hard work, and the right intentions, what you want to happen will quite likely occur.

Our monster volunteer sunflower. The plant has got to be close to 15 feet tall. Healthy volunteers are a sign of a super healthy farm.

Jeff high-tailin' it through the melons.

Woah! Look how long those beds are! Although I miss the shade of the trees in our Orchard, farming on a bigger scale and starting with a blank slate feels quite a bit more efficient.

Wild Farming

2010-07-04T23:45:00.000-07:00

Things are definitely growing on the farm. Each warm and sunny day brings us closer to catching up after the slow, wet late Spring season. The farm feels especially wild this year - I've seen more swarms of bees, wild animals, and other crazy displays of nature than I have in years past. It goes to show how much living things (plants, animals, insects, humans, you name it!) are dependent on adequate rain for life.

Here are some current farm photos:

We noticed this swarm of bees in an apple tree yesterday. I think this is the fourth or fifth wild bee swarm I've seen on the farm this year.

That really tall plant is a sunflower. The crazy thing is we didn't plant it! We grew sunflowers in this area two years ago and they're still coming up on their own. I think this particular plant is close to twenty feet tall and it's still growing! Sometimes the things you try to control the least grow the best.

Jeff's melon patch is doing great so far! Sunflowers at the ends of the rows increases pollination for the melons and look pretty too!

A crane melon peeking out through the leaves.

Our veggie block at Kick Ranch is beautifully wide open, which allows us to farm on a bigger scale. Look how long those rows are!

Defining the relationship: I'm going to be the farmer's wife

2010-06-26T20:13:00.000-07:00

So our biggest news is that Jeff finally did the dirty deed and popped the question. Apparently he likes me a whole lot and wants to get married to me and have babies someday. I'll be honest, I'd been hinting for awhile now, but he had me pretty well convinced that he was just too busy to think about turning me into the Mrs. I wasn't taking it personally - we have been working harder than we've ever worked before and hardly have time for dinner each night, let alone deciding to get married. So it was my birthday on June 16th and I was just hoping not to get any presents that would require me to do more work (last year I was given Shosanna and Isabella, our rambunctious goats). The morning of my birthday, Jeff told me to go out to the goat barn with him and I thought, "Crap! Is it going to be a donkey? Another goat? Maybe a pig?" As soon as I entered the barn, Jeff handed me a wrapped box, which I opened to find a ring box. Still disbelieving, I thought, "Now this is a low prank...tease me with a ring box when he knows that's what I want more than anything." I kind of stood there with the ring box and he told me to open it. When I did, lo and behold, there was the most sparkly and beautiful ring I've ever seen. Me, being the classy gal that I am, asked, "Is it real?" What I meant was, "Really? You really want to marry me?" Jeff, thinking I was asking whether the ring was real, said, "Of course it's real, stupid! So, are you going to say yes?" That's when I said no....JUST KIDDING! Of course I said yes...with the goats as my witness, I eagerly, happily, ecstatically said yes to becoming Jeff the farmer's wife. So, that's the biggest farm news - we've finally, officially defined our relationship. No, I'm not an intern, nor am I just his amorphous "partner." I'm Jeff's fiance and he is mine and it is awesome!

Other exciting farm news:

The first Armenian cucumbers are starting to come in and they are just as good as I remembered them!
We ate the first ripe Early Girl tomatoes on our grassfed beef hamburgers last night and they were so good! Next on my first tomatoes of the year list: BLTs!
We're getting closer to opening the new and improved Redwood Empire Farm store, so keep your ears and eyes peeled for more info.

I'm back!

2010-06-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

Believe me when I say that I feel extremely guilty when I neglect my blog. I’m quite proud of this written record of the life we are living and building and I really don’t want too many gaps and omissions in my account. I have a really good excuse for not writing recently, though, I promise. I have been fighting with technology – my computer’s been on the fritz, my internet connection has been extremely shaky, and my printer is completely out of ink and I haven’t had time to drive down the dreaded Santa Rosa Avenue to get more. Contrary to what you might imagine, I don’t have a fancy, high-speed computer control room where I coordinate our business and write my emails and blogs. I have a hand-me-down Blackberry and a laptop that chugs along well enough, but no real internet connection or phone lines. It’s a rustic and improvised technological infrastructure I deal with, to say the least.

It’s not so bad though, because when technology gets the best of me, I seek solace in the outdoors and throw myself into work on the farm. Not that I really have a choice about how much work I do on the farm – we have so much to do that Jeff and I are both busy from the moment we wake up until well after dark. Today, for instance, has been jam packed with planting tomatoes, preparing beds for planting peppers and basil, picking squash, broccoli, kale, and arugula, and taking care of a slew of other farm chores
We are busy, busy bees these days. It’s hard to imagine that not that long ago I still thought I could pursue a career as a teacher while farming. I was 95% sure that my decision to dedicate myself to farming was right, but now that I have put all of myself into the farm and the farm has given back so much more than I ever hoped, I know that my decision was perfect.

I have always wanted to make a difference in the world, my community, and the lives of those around me. I am sure that Jeff and I, in all of our efforts and strides to grow our farm and ourselves, are making a bigger difference than I could make any other way. I get to grow beautiful food that brings people happiness and health, I get to meet and work with people who share my vision, and I’m even finding a way to be a source of knowledge, experience, and support for young people who want to learn to be farmers too. Our farm is organic in so many senses of the word – it grows naturally, sustainably, and adapts to the world in which it is firmly seated. The farm’s ability to transition and adapt to the changing world and our community’s needs is what will make it long-lasting, successful, and is what makes Jeff and I so excited every day to do our work.

Beautiful Dirt

2010-06-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

Good dirt is a beautiful thing. Black, rich, moist, crumbly – it practically emanates life and the desire to grow. I was just riding along with Jeff on the tractor as he did his final disking of our bottom pasture in preparation for its planting. As we drove along, I watched, delighted, as the strong soil erupted out of the ground, turning itself into what I know will be fertile land. Every once and awhile my reverie was broken and I had to hop off and clear rocks by throwing them into the bucket of the tractor. I’m not complaining, though, because there’s nothing better for one’s constitution than some hearty rock tossing.

Perfect soil is not easy to come by, which is why it’s so gratifying when it finally reaches its prime. A couple years ago, our bottom pasture was just an ordinary horse pasture full of rocks and weeds and too rough even for our retro tractor. But now, after two years of cover cropping, chicken raising, horse manure, and vegetable growing, it’s ready to go. We have dug that pasture by hand, pushed wheelbarrows full of rocks from it, watered it, added nutrients to it, and talked to it. I can’t even tell you how many watermelons Jeff sacrificed in its honor last summer; he would cut out the heart and eat it, leaving the shell behind for the pasture to use for its benefit. We have put ourselves into that land and now, hopefully, it will reward us more than it already has.

On a less philosophical note, today was a market day. Markets require a lot of preparation (picking, packing, loading, etc) and are always a bit stressful because we depend on them to sell the majority of our produce each week. A busy market is loads of fun, but a slow market can quickly become nerve-wracking as I start to worry about making sure none of our product is wasted and how we will cover our bills. Farmers really do rely on the Farmers’ Markets to help them do business – they are, in many cases, the only outlet for farmers to sell their produce.

In addition to being our place of retail business, the farmers’ market is also a place where we gather together with other agricultural professionals, as well as our customers, and share our blessings and burdens. Every week, there is some intense topic of conversation, whether it be the good weather, the bad weather, fungus and pests, weeds, insurance, restaurants, wholesalers, varieties of plants, and equipment. By the end of the day on Saturdays, my head is usually spinning with all the ideas that have been sparked and I’m ready to pass out in a tired stupor.

Jeff and I have always thought that farmers’ markets would make a great subject for a “mockumentary” movie (think “Best in Show”). The places are filled to the brim with individuals who have all sorts of eccentric qualities – and I’m including Jeff and myself in the mix. Because of the unique nature of our jobs, we always have weird and improbable stories to tell and, because we’re only human, there’s always at least a half dozen soap opera-esque dramas playing. I’m pretty sure that the farmers’ market would make such a great movie, I am hereby exercising my intellectual property rights and staking claim to the idea. You read it here first, folks - the Market movie was mentally birthed by Jeff and Ariel of Redwood Empire Farm

Blights and Scapes

2010-06-02T20:51:00.001-07:00

Today was another long and hard work day. We weeded, watered, picked, and planted. We spent a few hours trying to help some tomatoes that have a nasty blight from all the rain and cold. I felt like a surgeon trying to remove cancerous cells as I crawled along the rows, reaching up into the plants, and carefully removing blighted leaves. Working with sick plants isn't fun at all. The whole time, I'm sad for the plants, like they're my good friends who aren't feeling well.

The highlight of my day was pulling garlic scapes. If you don't know about scapes, here's the deal. Not long before it is mature, hardneck garlic throws up a long, slender, big chive looking thing thing that, if left, would eventually turn into the flower. It's best to remove the scapes when they appear, because that improves the overall garlic bulb formation. Well, the lucky coincidence is that scapes are great to use in cooking. They taste just like garlic cloves, except slightly more mild and light in flavor (somewhat like chives). My favorite thing about scapes is that they're super easy to use - you just chop them up and use them as you would garlic. If you want to get your hands on some garlic scapes and try them out, we will have them at the market for a couple of weeks or you can check with any organic farmer usually grows garlic. Chances are that if a farmer grows garlic, he'll have garlic scapes.

Garlic Scapes!

Weeds and Bees

2010-06-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

Whew! Another busy day on the farm. Along with picking and packing CSA bags, it was the day for tackling all the weeds that are growing rampant all over the farm. I think Jeff mowed and weedwhacked for a solid eight hours straight. The poor guy will probably be wheezing from allergies for days, but the job had to be done. Weed erradication is important because it's really hard to see the farm clearly when it's overgrown. Clearing the weeds is kind of like cleaning the kitchen before preparing a big, complicated meal - you need all the space you can get so you have room to make the next mess.

The highlight of my day was getting to see a wild swarm of bees move into one of the bee boxes that we have on the farm. The last couple of years have been so dicey for bees everywhere that we wanted to introduce extra bees to the property, as well as attract wild bees. Rob the Honey Guy brought us some bee boxes and bees and we also got a bee "trap" box intended to draw in wild bees. Since we got the trap box, we had seen some bees check it out, but it had yet to be fully inhabited by a swarm. Today, though, the swarm descended. I wish I had a better camera so that I could have taken a good picture, because it was the coolest thing. Seemingly out of nowhere, a swarm of bees appeared and filled the air around the tree in which the trap box sits. The swarm was about 30 feet by 30 feet of solid bees...incredible! Within five minutes, the air had cleared as the bees made their way into their new home. I'm telling you, it was so cool. I felt like I was watching some spectacular nature display on the Discovery Channel, but lucky me, it was right on our farm. I'm always amazed how often I see the most special natural occurrences in my day to day life. Even though it may feel like we live in the midst of a concrete jungle full of cars and shopping malls, all that crazy, man-made chaos exists within the much larger natural world. So. even if we aren't actively seeking out nature by going hiking in a park or camping in the wilderness, if we just open our eyes and stay attuned to our surroundings, we'll undoubtedly see nature's most intricate and incredible workings.

So, there's my challenge for you. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, look for nature. I bet that you'll be able to see nature even in the most unlikely places. And if you look for nature enough, I guarantee you'll see something so awesome that it trumps anything on the Discovery Channel.

Let the Sun Shine!

2010-05-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

I haven't written anything this week because I didn't want to complain about the weather. When I woke up at dawn on Thursday morning to the loudest thunder and brightest lightning I've experienced in years and then when the sky opened and rain and hail came pouring down, I honestly thought it might be a bad dream. I like rain, really I do, but this May has been something else. Farmers have a schedule that we need to stick to in order to get our crops off in a timely fashion. Usually, April 15th (the last frost date) marks the beginning of a planting bonanza. April and May are the busiest planting months of the year and set the stage for the entire Summer. This year, however, we have had cold temperatures (both at night and during the day) and rain throughout April and May, which has made planting nearly impossible. Every other local farmer that I have talked to has said that they are behind because they simply haven't been able to get into their fields because of the wet weather. The reason wet weather prevents us from planting is because we can't drive tractors in the mud and even if we could work the ground enough to plant, plants planted in too wet of conditions are prone to fungus, disease, don't grow very well. There's a reason why Summer crops don't grow in the Winter - they need seasonal Summer weather in order to grow! Seasonal produce requires seasonal weather, which we really haven't had this Spring.

I'm not complaining, though, because today the weather is beautiful. Hopefully the sun and heat will last and all of us local farmers will be able to get back on schedule.

Enough about the weather! Now that it's almost June, we've started planning the opening of our Farm Stand. Hopefully we will open sometime in June with days and hours to be determined. The exciting news is that last year's rustic and weather exposed parking lot Roadside Stand will be a bit more weather proof and permanent this year. We will be moving our produce stand into the space formerly occupied by Carter's Feeds, which means we'll have electricity (lights!) and shelter from the weather. Initially, we'll be selling our produce, fruit, and eggs, but in time, we hope to expand to create a hub for those involved in local agriculture (both growers and eaters). We have so many ideas and plans - I guarantee it will be exciting to watch how our farm and business evolve over the next year.

It's important to acknowledge that our positive evolution is due in large part to the support of our community and customers and to the green-friendly atmosphere of our society. I was just in Copperfields Book Store and whole displays are dedicated to organic farming, seasonal eating and cooking, and the appreciation of nature. Right now, farming is cool. Because of people's attitudes about the environment and interest in getting back to basics, Jeff and I get to pursue our greatest dreams, live the best lives we're able, and try to help change the world for the better. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's true. We are living our dream, thanks to people's genuine interest in what we're doing. So, to make a long story short- We're not content to just stay the same farm year after year; we always want to grow more, grow better, and feed more people. Last year, we grew more than ever before and opened a Road Side Stand. This year, we have more acreage, are expanding our Stand, and started a CSA. And next year? We will most likely be doing (or trying to do) something even more spectacular than all that has come before. I don't mean to sound arrogant at all. It's just that Jeff and I have really high expectations for ourselves and will work as hard as we can to accomplish our goals. What can I say? We're kind of crazy.

A Cucumber Love Story

2010-05-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

Last summer, at our Roadside Stand, we sold Armenian cucumbers (along with everything else). For those of you who don't know, Armenian Cucumbers are the greatest cucumber, if not the greatest vegetable ever. These beauties grow over a foot long and curl into crazy shapes, not to mention that they are seedless, don't need to be peeled, and have the most refreshing and perfect cucumber flavor. People who like cucumbers love these. People who hate cucumbers even like them.

Anyway, we were selling Armenian cucumbers at our stand and we had one customer who would come every week and fill her bags full of cucumbers. Every week, she raved about how amazing they were and how much she loved them. After a couple weeks, she told me that her boyfriend had been visiting her and they ate one of our Armenian Cucumbers. That night, her boyfriend got up in the middle of the night and went and ate more cucumber because he couldn't stop thinking about it. The woman and I discussed whether it would be worth it to try and ship him cucumbers, but we eventually decided they probably wouldn't survive the journey. You can be sure, though, that she stocked up on Armenians before his next visit. It just goes to show the things people will do for a really good cucumber.

I'm happy to report that we have Armenian cucumbers in the ground and they are doing their best to grow despite the unseasonably cold whether. Hopefully it'll heat up and those plants can give us cucumbers soon!

To wash or not to wash...

2010-05-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

When you buy produce from your local farmer at the farmers' market or you get produce through a CSA, you certainly know more about those veggies' past than if you purchased them at a grocery store. You will probably know where they were grown and, hopefully, how they were grown. Nonetheless, there are still some unknowns, such as whether the produce has been pre-washed before going to market. When I was a kid, I naively thought that if the produce was organic, it meant it didn't need to be washed. Sure, those organic fruits and vegetables may not have the chemicals and sprays on them, but they've still been handled by someone during picking, packing, and transport, not to mention the extra handling they receive while consumers are shopping. For these reasons, I always suggest that folks wash all the fruits and veggies they bring home, regardless of their origin. Washing not only ensures that any stowaway bugs are removed and that any germs and bacteria are washed away, but it also helps lengthen the life of most produce.

Here is a short guide for how to wash and keep many of the veggies that are available now:

Lettuce:

At Redwood Empire Farm, we always pre-wash and spin dry lettuce before taking it to market or packing it for the CSA. Nonetheless, I always recommend that lettuce be rewashed once it gets home. If you wash it immediately and then put in the fridge with a little moisture still on the leaves, it will reabsorb the moisture and keep for quite a long time. Even if your lettuce is looking a little sad and wilty, give it a wash and it will perk back up. The best way to wash lettuce or other cut greens is to fill your sink (make sure it's clean) or a large bowl with cool water. Submerge the lettuce in the water and let soak for about five minutes. Remove the lettuce from the water and gently spin until almost dry. At this point, either put your greens in a plastic bag and into the fridge or you can lay the greens on paper towels, roll up, and then put in a bag and in the fridge. If you take these easy steps when you bring your lettuce home, it should easily keep for at least two weeks in your fridge.

Chard, Kale, and Other Greens:

Chard, kale, collards, and all those other bunched greens are easy to wash and get ready for the fridge. I like to wash them immediately when I bring them home - this makes sure that any bugs or slugs are removed before the greens go in the fridge. Simply wash the leaves and stems, pat mostly dry, put in a plastic bag, and pop in the refrigerator.

Summer Squash and Zucchini:

Wash, dry, and refrigerate. In my experience, squash usually isn't washed before being taken to market. Since squash grows so close to the dirt, it's really important to wash before using.

Fava Beans:

Even though fava beans are protected by their pods, I still suggest that you give them a rinse before using them. Even if you are shucking the beans, bacteria from the outside of the pod could be transferred to the inner bean during preparation. It's true that if you are planning to cook the beans, most bacteria and germs would be killed, but it's still a good habit to wash them anyway. Fava beans will keep in the pod for almost a week, at which point the pods will start to get a little floppy. If this happens, go ahead and remove the inner beans from the pods and keep the beans in a bag in your fridge. They will keep like this for at least a week longer. Be warned, however, that fava beans do lose their best flavor pretty quickly in the fridge. They are best if used promptly.

Broccoli and Cauliflower
Broccoli and cauliflower should definitely be washed before being cooked or going into the fridge. After washing, try to remove most of the excess moisture. The less moisture, the longer the broccoli and cauliflower will keep from spoiling.

Onions:

If they are dry, storage type onions, just remove the dry skin and maybe a layer of the onion itself. If they are spring onions (they haven't yet dried and cured), give them a rinse and dry before putting in the fridge. Unlike storage onions, spring onions should be refrigerated to preserve their flavor and keep them from spoiling.

Although this list is not exhaustive, it's a start. If you're unsure about what to do with a certain item, go ahead and wash it. Washing never hurts (unless you're dealing with mushrooms).

One more thing...

It's fava bean season and everyone wants to know how to cook the darn things. Michele Anna Jordan wrote a great piece in today's Press Democrat that clearly explains the most common preparation method. She also gives some fantastic recipes. Click here to check it out.

May Showers? I thought they were April showers...

2010-05-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

I know that my life is special. As I write this, I am sitting outside waiting to send my freshly packed CSA bags home with their families. I hear roosters crowing, chickens clucking, I see cars driving by on the busy street, and I can hear the highway not too far away. I smell fennel wafting from the CSA bags, the smell of yesterday's rain still lingers, and, occasionally, I get a whiff of the flower garden a couple hundred feet from where I sit. While I sit here, Jeff is cruising around the farm, working on a list of things longer than his arm. Even though we’re not working together at this very moment, it makes me so happy to be working with him on this farming project of ours. I know it’s not for everyone, but we work well together even though we’re a couple. Sure we have our moments of frustration with each other, but they are infrequent and usually short lived. My intention is not to gloat about my fortunate life; instead, I just want to offset all the moaning and groaning that we farmers do on a regular basis. I won’t lie. Farming is hard, exhausting work. But farming is what we love to do, it’s what we are good at, and I don't ever want to give in to the temptation to complain too much.

Farm Update:

Everything is growing like gangbusters. We have greens galore, the most beautiful head lettuces I have ever seen (have I mentioned that Jeff is really, really good at growing things?), a jungle of fava beans, fennel, beets, herbs, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and much more. Despite the rainy weather, plants continue to grow and we continue to work. It's crazy to me how, if I pay close enough attention, I can actually watch the farm grow. Sometimes I will intentionally look at one of the younger squash plants in the morning and go back at the end of the day just to see how much it has changed. I do the same thing with seedlings in the greenhouse. A baby plant just starting to poke its elbow out of the soil can double or even triple in size by the end of the day. It's just amazing.

Here are some recent farm pictures:

A Mama Hen and Her Babies

Heirloom Tomatoes...yum!

Spring onions starting to bulb

CSA Success!

2010-05-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

I don't know where to start. This week has been so incredibly busy. Every day, we have a million things to do, and these things have to get accomplished or else the whole schedule is thrown off. So what ends up happening is we start working first thing in the morning and we finish when it's been dark out for an hour. I think I can say for both of us that we don't mind - Jeff said for the first time earlier in the week, "Finally! I'm tired enough to sleep well at night again!" We both like the fast pace and hard work. It's good for our constitutions...and as my mother would say, "It builds character."

One of the main sources of our increased business is our CSA. This was the first week of our CSA and it took a lot of planning, preparing, picking, and packing. But survive we did! I feel really good about the bags of food we sent home with people. They truly are artisan CSA bags - we hand pick every item in them, we hand wash, and hand pack. I even find myself becoming involved with how aesthetically pleasing the bags are and how well the veggies look together. I firmly believe in the power of intention and I put so many good intentions into what I do on the farm. When I plant, I give the plants encouragement and my blessing. I ask for them to grow big and strong and bare us lots of fruit. When I pack our CSA bags, I wish for the food to help those who eat it, for it to satisfy, nourish, and maybe even make people faster and stronger. I so firmly believe in the power of intention that when I show someone how to plant, I include the step where you have to think good thoughts so the plant can grow well.

Other farm news: this morning we discovered some new additions to the farm. As we were working in the barn, we heard some little peeps coming from way back behind a shelf on a stack of old newspaper. We peered in and found a mama hen with four baby chicks and eggs still to be hatched! Jeff relocated the little family into a super safe pen (he chick proofed it...he's good at that) and gave water to the babies and mom. The hen had been sitting on the eggs for so long that she was visibly weak. Now that's she's had a drink, she can finish hatching those eggs. We think these chicks are Cuckoo Maran crossed with Americauna - Cuckoo American. No, that's not a real variety, but if we breed it, we get to name it.

We've also had a lot going on besides the CSA. We're trying to finish planting our upper areas so that we can get into our bottom pasture and then finally get to our new piece up the road. Meanwhile I've been seeding in the greenhouse and trying to resuscitate cold and rain weary crops, Jeff's been driving the tractor, weedwacking, and mowing, and we've both been trying to settle a lot of administrative mumbo jumbo. On top of all of that, it frosted two nights this week! Good luck trying to figure out what the weather's going to be like - it's looking like it's going to be a year of gambles and adaptation. No matter what, though, it's bound to be fun and exciting.

Announcement: Fava Bean Season Has Arrived!

2010-05-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

Fava bean season is officially upon us. For the next few weeks, fava beans will dominate the landscape of our table at the farmers' market. Even though fava beans have regained popularity over the past few years and are featured on the menus of many of the area's restaurants, a lot of folks still don't really know what to do with the darn things. If you happen to be one of these people, don't be ashamed - hopefully I can help educate you about these tasty and versatile beans in a few short minutes.

Fava beans are one of the oldest cultivated crops in history. Before the Europeans discovered America and its bounty of other legumes, fava beans were the only beans eaten in Europe. Although they originated in the Mediterranean region and were enjoyed by ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, fava beans are enjoyed in many cultures and go by many names - broad beans, horse beans, tick beans, field beans, and windsor beans (among others). Despite being called a bean, the fava is actually a member of the vetch or pea family and actually has more in common as far as taste is concerned with the common pea than with other beans. Although the appearance of the shelled bean looks similar to a lima bean, it tastes more like an english pea.

In addition to being used as food since at least the beginning of western civilization, fava beans are also used as a cover crop. Fava beans are easy to grow, in fact, they practically grow themselves. Around here, we plant our fava beans in late fall, allow them to overwinter, and harvest them beginning in May (usually). Imagine Jack's beanstalk and that is what a fava bean plant looks like; the beanstalk is thick and grows to around five or six feet tall and eventually produces long, bulging pods full of quarter sized beans. The fava bean plant produces large amounts of nitrogen (so good for the soil) and when chopped down and tilled in add beneficial green manure back into the ground. Fava beans also produce extensive root systems that break up the ground, making it easier for other plants to grow. Some farmers might argue that fava beans must either be grown for eating or as a cover crop, but we do both. We grow the beans plants as a cover crop, harvest the beans, and then chop the plants down and till them back into the ground.

So now that you know what fava beans are, what are you supposed to do with them? There's a nasty rumor that fava beans are a pain to prepare, but really, they're not that bad. The hardest part is removing the thin, outer skin from the bean itself, but even that isn't too tricky if you know what you're doing. In fact, I find that if the bean is young and fresh enough, the bean can be eaten skin and all. Once the bean is fully mature, however, the skin takes on a different flavor which detracts from the clean, buttery flavor of the bean.

The traditional way to prepare fava beans is to shuck the bean, thereby removing the beans from the pod. Then, parboil the beans by dropping them in boiling water for a couple of minutes. After you remove the beans from the water, the beans will slip easily out of their skins, making them ready for their final preparation.

My favorite way to prepare fava beans, which has everything to do with ease and convenience, is to use the barbecue grill. Heat the grill, brush the fava bean pods with olive oil, and put the whole pod on the grill. After about ten minutes, the pod should look charred and wrinkled. Remove the beans from the grill, open the pod, and the inner beans will be ready to slip out of their skins and enjoy. The pods have enough moisture in them that grilling them actually steams the beans in the pod, both cooking them and making them easy to peel.

You can also roast fava beans! Heat your oven to about 400 degrees, toss the bean pods with some olive oil and maybe some spices, and roast for about 15 minutes. Just like with the grilling method, the roasting allows the beans to cook inside the pod, making them easy to peel and ready to eat. If you want to infuse your roasted fava beans with other flavors, snip off the end of the pod, toss the pods with olive oil, salt, pepper, and any other herbs that suit your fancy, and roast as described above. Snipping the end allows the flavors of the herbs to sneak into the bean and make it extra flavorful.

Once the beans are ready to eat, you can do pretty much anything you want with them. Fava beans are a delicious and nutritious addition to salads and pasta. They are great when made into a seasonal succotash and used as an accompaniment to your main course (especially seafood!). Fava beans also make a mean hummus like spread, which is absolutely stellar on crostini. Mash or gently puree the cooked and peeled beans with some olive oil, garlic, a little lemon juice, salt, pepper, and, if you're really inspired, some Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Spread the mixture on your favorite toasted italian bread and get ready to die!

Watch the Fava Beans Grow!

Just popping out of the ground...

Starting to grow a little taller.

Tall enough to make a fava bean jungle.

Look at all those beans! Just about ready to harvest.

Now that's a familiar sight! Don't get caught in a Redwood Empire Farm fava bean avalanche. On the other hand, that could be kind of fun...

Workin' Hard for a Living

2010-05-05T12:02:00.000-07:00

Now that's a Romanesco Cauliflower! Yet another reason why it's great to be a Redwood Empire Farm CSA member!

With this nice weather, we've been keeping plenty busy on the farm - planting, seeding, making beds, weeding, and trying to get organized for the start of the CSA next week. We started the week off by attending Rosso Pizzeria's annual farmer and winemaker appreciation luncheon. John Franchetti and his incredibly gracious staff welcomed a packed house of farmers, grape growers, winemakers, and other local agricultural professionals. We were served dishes prepared with local ingredients grown by farmers who were present and were poured wine made by local winemakers from locally grown grapes. It was such an experience being in the company of at least one hundred other individuals who have devoted themselves to producing local and sustainable agricultural products.

We really are so very lucky to live in a county where we are blessed with a diversity of high quality, locally grown products, foods, and beverages. I can't think of anywhere else in the world where such a variety of fruits and vegetables are grown, where so many different varieties and styles of wine are made, where such interesting cheeses and dairy products are created, and where such a diversity of animals are raised humanely and sustainably. Here in Sonoma County, we do much more than auto parts and wine; we do everything!

I was reminded yet again of how special this area is when I found myself in front of the downtown mall staring at the ground. I don't go to the mall very often, in fact, I typically avoid it at all costs. Yesterday, however, I happened to be passing through and noticed that in front of the mall (by the big hand) the pavement is engraved with notable quotes about Sonoma County's natural and agricultural blessings. Sonoma County has long enjoyed fame for its unique climate and environment, which makes it so well suited for growing most anything. At one point, back in Luther Burbank's day, Santa Rosa was the most popular tourist destination in California. People from around the country and even the world flocked to Santa Rosa to see Luther Burbank's gardens and miraculous horticultural accomplishments. When I'm dying of allergies because of all the pollen in the air, I try to remind myself that the high pollen count in Santa Rosa is a symptom of its beauty.

Here are some pictures showing how much work we've done on the farm over the past couple of weeks. The landscape changes quickly, doesn't it?

Then: Cover crop. Now: Summer squash and lettuce.

Baby broccoli turns into adult broccoli.

Whirled Peas for All!

2010-04-29T19:24:00.000-07:00

Every year, I look forward to the point during the spring when the farm starts producing food that I can pick right off the plant and eat. Farming is hard work, so it's nice when there are things to satisfy my appetite growing all around me. For me, sugar snap peas mark the beginning of the readily edible farm season. Yeah, I can pick a leaf of arugula and munch on it, but it's not nearly as satisfying as a sweet, crunchy, amazingly flavorful sugar snap pea. I went for a run this morning and when I got home, I picked some sugar snaps and ate them. Let me tell you, they were far more quenching than Gatorade and certainly better for me. Hopefully, for our customers' sakes, I'll be able to control myself and leave some peas for the market this weekend.

Aside from eating peas, we've been working hard getting stuff planted. Despite the rain, we managed to plant more sweet peppers (colored bells and Italian roasters), the first Armenian cucumbers (hallelujah!), eggplant, summer squash, lettuce, and arugula. Tomorrow, along with picking for Saturday's market, we will plant our first heirloom tomatoes. Every day we try to do a little more, moving us ever closer to the delicious peak season harvests. We're just hoping that we get a break from the rain and that we have a real, warm summer. Because if we get the right weather, I'm telling you right now, you will never have seen piles like we are planning to build. If I have my way, we'll have so many tomatoes that we will have to have the First Annual Rincon Valley Tomato Fight Festival. So say a prayer, wish us luck, or keep your fingers crossed for us, because we have a long haul ahead.

Go Time

2010-04-26T13:16:00.000-07:00

It's go time. It's almost May and it's time to get everything into the ground. We're expecting more rain, but we can't really wait any longer before we plant all the tomatoes, pepper, melons, and everything else. I think the most challenging part of farming as a profession is having to organize and plan for an entire year of business and then be subject to unpredictable weather. We know what we would like to grow and when we'd like to have it be ready for harvest, but for that to be achieved, it would require perfect weather and rainfall (doesn't happen often) or a climate controlled and protected growing environment (like greenhouses, which are costly on a large scale and the flavor of most produce typically suffers when grown inside).

Year to year variances in the weather profoundly affect what the year's harvest will look like. Years with a hot summer, warm nights, early last frost and late first frost dates tend to be incredible tomato years. On the other hand, years in which we have a really rainy and cold spring followed by a cool summer with lots of fog are often bummers for tomato growers. The inherent unpredictability of farming is why customers who ask me when we'll have tomatoes, peppers, melons, etc are often met by a blank and unknowing look. I really wish I could program the weather to be perfect, but I can't, so we just have to make the best of what we have and try to anticipate future weather patterns and intelligently respond to current weather.

As I write this, Jeff is out doing the last passes with the tractor for our next planting. After he's finished, we will stake out the beds and start laying plastic. We can't lay plastic in the rain or when the ground is super wet, so we're going to try and get as much done today as we are able. Our goal is to lay 1200 feet of plastic before dark. I think we can do it, but we might have to finish tonight with our headlamps on. We watch The Deadliest Catch (the crab fisherman show on the Discovery Channel) and have decided that we're like the crab fisherman who have to work past the point of exhaustion in order to get the job done. We may be tired and crazy and we may not be able to shovel any longer, but we will get the job done!

While Jeff has been working on bed preparation, I worked on staking and tying-up the first tomatoes we planted. It took be about five hours yesterday - five hours during which I crouched or squatted while staking, removing suckers, and tying the individual plants to the stakes. By the time I was finished, my hands were completely green/black from touching the tomato leaves and stems, I had green all over my arms and my face, my back ached, and my hands were quivering. I have no idea why it took me as long as it did or why it was as physically taxing as it was, but man, my butt was thoroughly kicked by the task. The work will pay off though, because the tomatoes will respond to the attention and support and will take off. Tomatoes are kind of like people - with the proper attention, care, nourishment, and support when young, they won't require too much intervention as "adults."

Is it spring yet?

2010-04-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

Weather like this is enough to make a farmer go crazy. We may be past the last frost date, but apparently we're not through with hail and torrential downpours. Right now is when we should be planting most of the summer crops (tomatoes, squash, melons, cucumbers, basil, etc), but wet and cool weather is not ideal for planting anything, really. The only things that thrive in weather like this are slugs and let me tell you, I've had my fill of the slugs. Slugs are really difficult to control when it's wet and soggy and, as far as I can tell, they hold no benefits for anything. They eat everything, they multiply faster than you can imagine, and they're just plain gross. The slugs are so annoying, not even the chickens will eat them.

I'm trying to stay positive, though. A year of above average rainfall is a blessing and will help us grow incredible dry-farmed tomatoes this summer. We are also lucky to be farming on a slope, which will allow us to get into the ground soon enough. Even though the bottom part of the farm is currently a duck pond, the upper parts will dry out in a matter of days. We can also get around the weather by starting a lot of plants in the greenhouse that we would typically direct seed into the dirt. For example, beans can tolerate being transplanted, so we will give them a really good start in the greenhouse and put them in the ground when the weather and time is right.

While we've been waiting out the weather, we've been busy recruiting for our "farmy." Jeff and I realize that there's only so much the two of us can do on our own and, given our goal to grow as much as we possibly can, we have decided to invite willing volunteers onto the farm. Once we accepted that we can't accomplish everything on our own, the most incredible, enthusiastic, interesting people started appearing and offering to help us out. Over the past month or so, we've started cultivating the coolest crew of energetic folks who want to grow stuff and get dirty in the process. We have our young veteran who is teaching us as much as we're teaching him, we have our high school students who want to learn about farming and do their part for the planet and community, as well as a slew of others in the prime of early adulthood who want to be a part of what we're trying to do.

It's so clear to me now that Jeff and I are trying to do something special and unique - we want to feed as many people in our community as we can. It's not enough for us to just sell our produce to a wholesaler or restaurants or even just to the farmers market. We need to grow enough produce to sell to our neighborhood, to the people at the farmers markets all over the county, to restaurants, to our CSA members, to people passing by on the highway, to everyone! Eating healthy, local, delicious food should not be an option for only those people who can fit it into their schedules and lifestyles. Eating our food should be an option for everyone, which means it needs to be accessible to everyone! By accessible, I mean that I want even the people who don't realize the importance of eating clean, local food to end up eating clean, local food. Last summer, I considered myself successful when people would stop at our roadside stand and by tomatoes on their walk home from the 7-11 next door where they were buying beer. They may not care whether their tomatoes come from Florida, Mexico, the Central Valley, or our little farm in Rincon Valley, but in the end, they ended up eating healthy, amazingly flavorful tomatoes that were grown right here.

We're so passionate about locally grown food that we are even trying to help give people the knowledge they need to grow their own gardens. We don't want to be in competition with other local farmers or with people who want to grow their own gardens. We want to do our part - by growing as much as we can and educating as many people as we can - to give the conventional, unsustainable, monster farm corporations a run for their money. If we do our part and other local farmers do their parts and we all grow as much as we can and make it easily accessible to the real people who live all around us, then the food revolution will really be rolling.

John Deer Green

2010-04-16T22:28:00.000-07:00

Today marks a milestone in the life of Redwood Empire Farm. Today, Jeff got a real tractor that can do real farm work. Over the past couple of years, we've steadily expanded our plantable space and are now trying to grow in areas that have been sitting and collecting rocks for decades. Even though Jeff's 1940s Case tractor works great and is an amazing working antique, we can't escape the limitation that it is just that - a working antique. It's simply not powerful enough to do some of the dirt work that we need to do in order to grow in the ways we grow. So, today, a longtime and very dear friend of Jeff's family brought Jeff his top of the line John Deere tractor so that Jeff can use it for awhile. There is no greater gift than lending us a tractor. A tractor like this simplifies our life, saves our backs, and allows us to keep growing as a farm.

Within minutes of the tractor's arrival, Jeff was in the cab, firing it up, and driving around. He immediately got that tractor grin that he gets, the one which makes it clear that he's meant to be a farmer. But then, he did the the nicest thing that anyone's done for me in long time. He let me ride along with him. And then, he let me drive!

The way to my heart is through a tractor. Maybe it's because I grew up riding in my Dad's lap as he drove his "working antique" John Deere through the pastures of the farm where I grew up. Those rides were when I discovered my own tractor grin. Nothing, not even riding horses, was as fun and exciting as riding that tractor with my Dad. I can remember everything about it. The feel of my Dad's worn denim overalls, the smell of his sweaty work shirt combined with the fumes from the tractor and the smell of engine oil, all mixed with the heady smell of cut grass and broken dirt - that smell will always be ingrained in me.

So when Jeff offered to let me drive the new tractor, with complete confidence and ease, I was reminded (again) of why I like him. He's nice. He knows me and knows what I really want. He let's me drive his tractor.

Last Frost Date...Or Is It?

2010-04-15T19:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a really big day in the farming world. April 15th, in addition to being tax day, is the supposed last frost date for this area. I'm not sure where this particular date came from, but it's a fact of conventional wisdom, old wives' tales, and folklore that April 15th is the last date on which frost can occur. After this date, you can start setting out those plants that don't like the cold - plants like tomatoes, squash, eggplant, etc.

Curious about the true last frost date for around here, I went to the National Climatic Data Center where I found the average last frost dates recorded in Santa Rosa from 1971-2000 (http://cdo.ncdc.noaa.gov/cliwwwmatenormals/clim20supp1/states/CA.pdf). According to NCDC data, there is only a ten percent chance that the temperature will drop to 28 degrees after February 19th, a ten percent chance the temp will drop to 32 degrees after April 5th, and a ten percent chance the temp will drop to 36 degrees after May 1st. So really, the frost date varies depending on what degree of frost you're tracking. And although the frost dates are usually fairly good predictors of the temperature trends, strange things, including frost, can happen long after April 15th.

Mid to late April is always a good goal for when to begin planting summer veggies, but it's always a smart idea to provide these often delicate plants with a little protection from the elements. Covering your young plants with floating row cover or a light frost blanket certainly won't hurt them and will actually keep them warm and help them get off to a healthy and fast start. It's also a good idea to get used to reading the dew point as a predictor of how cold it will actually get in the early morning frost periods. The lower the dew point and the predicted temperature, the more likely the temperature will drop and stay low for a longer period of time. A high dew point, on the other hand, coupled with a low temperature, makes it less likely for a significant and devastating frost to occur.

Ultimately, the best way to protect your plants against frost and to determine when it's safe to start planting your heat loving plants is to be observant of what the weather seems to be doing. If it feels like it's going to frost, it probably will. If it hasn't gotten close to frosting in weeks and the night time temperatures have been staying safely high, then it probably won't frost. And it's always better to be safe and protect your plants, than to risk it and lose your young plants.

Get ready to be jealous!

2010-04-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

Don't worry. I haven't lost my fingers in a tragic farming accident and had to quit writing. The past week was very busy and included chicken "harvesting," which is always a tiresome and hard addition to the week. It's also been raining (what feels like) a lot. I don't want to be unappreciative of how good all the rain has been for us in the big picture, but I'm tired of it. I'm completely ready for drier and warmer weather. I want to really start planting so that we can be one step closer to all the delicious things of summer.

We'll deal with whatever weather we are offered, though, because we don't really have a choice! That's why farming is supposed to be adaptable - depending on the weather, we can choose to adjust our plans, crops, schedule, and everything else in order to try and make the best of the situation. I'm not saying that unfortunate weather doesn't matter to a good farmer - after all, bad weather can mean the difference between a great and profitable year and one where you barely get by. I'm simply saying that a good farmer who grows a well-rounded menu of fruits and vegetables has far more options than a conventional grower who grows one crop on an enormous scale. That guy has no options if he gets bad weather. Not only does that guy not get by when he gets bad weather, but that guy often loses everything.

On to lighter subjects! I have to brag about what I cooked tonight! I picked the first little baby squash and sauteed them with a spring red torpedo onion and a little rosemary and thyme. That's right! We ate the first squash of the year! We planted our first squash way back in February, which was not the typical time to be planting summer squash. Squash is remarkably resilient and, with protection, can actually grow in imperfect conditions. The weather since February, however, has been a little too wintry for the squash to really take off. Nonetheless, the weather hardy survivor squash have started gaining steam and are finally starting to push out some fruit. It'll probably be a couple of weeks until we have squash at the market, but it's not too far away!

See, I'm not lying. Squash!

Here's Jeff getting ready to do the chickens. He has on a fabulous, custom-made butcher's apron (care of my Mother) and a laid-back, slightly rumpled straw hat. Not only do these chickens taste delicious, but the butcher is cute too!

Easter Shenanigans - Chicken Run!

2010-04-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

Three Easters ago, I underwent one of my first farm adventures. Jeff and I had been getting to know each other for a couple of months and I hatched a plan (pun intended) to surprise him with some Easter treats. That year, Jeff and is family were spending the day at another relative's home, so the farm was deserted. I decided to put what I was hoping he would take as funny and endearing notes in plastic Easter eggs and put them in the various chicken coops so that when he went to collect the real eggs, he would find my clever tokens of affections. The plan was pretty good, but when I went to carry it out, things started going wrong.

At that time, Jeff's chickens were not quite as domesticated as they are now. They didn't mind their coops, but they certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity to escape to the outside world if given the chance. So, as I was carefully adding my decorative eggs to the nests, a wily and conniving hen decided to escape. Now, you have to understand that I was still very much a guest on the farm at that time. I was just getting to know Jeff, liked him a lot, and certainly didn't want to lose his chickens while he was away. My only option, therefore, was to try and recapture the chicken. Easier said than done.

When my attempts to simply shoo the escapee back into her coop failed, I changed tactics. I found a huge net and proceeded to try and catch the chicken with it. I think I was too timid because I didn't want to hurt the chicken, but I couldn't catch the darn thing to save my life. I proceeded to chase the chicken around with my huge net, but the chicken knew its way around better than I did and was far more agile. I almost had her, but she ducked into a huge saw grass bush at the last minute. Unfortunately for me, the saw grass was on the edge of a small but full drainage ditch, and in my enthusiastic efforts, I lost my balance and fell into the water and the saw grass. At that point, I accepted my defeat, tipped my proverbial hat to the bold chicken, and took my scraped and wet self home.

After Jeff returned to the farm and found the eggs, I reluctantly told him that I might owe him a chicken because I accidentally let one out. Being the nice and easygoing guy that he is, he laughed and said that he'd already let that chicken back into the coop. I hadn't known it, but chicken "jail breaks" happened all the time.

Multimedia Presentation

2010-04-03T18:42:00.000-07:00

I really like going to the farmer's market, but sometimes, when the day is over, I just don't have any words left. So instead of trying to make sense out of my tired and addled mind, I'm going to blog by picture. Enjoy!

Here's an extremely rinky-dinky video of Jeff driving the tractor. He's pulling an attachment called a disk, which breaks up the top couple feet of soil and mixes in any green manure that was growing there (cover crop, grass, basically anything that will benefit the soil when turned back in). Pardon the poor video quality - I took it with my ancient digital camera and, besides, I never claimed "professional camera person" as one of my innumerable talents. Ha!

Here's one of the meat birds as a 2 day year old chick.

Here's one of the same birds 7 weeks later. They may be big, but they're still young and supple.

About a month ago we got Rob the Honey Guy to bring us a couple of bee boxes. Rob sells close to us at the Santa Rosa Market, always has quarters to spare, and is thus our go-to guy when it comes to honey matters. The bees started flourishing immediately upon arrival and we've noticed a marked increase in bee activity around the farm. Bees are awesome because not only are they good indicators of the health of the overall farm ecosystem, but they also increase pollination for our veggies and fruit trees.

Now who wouldn't want to plant cover crop? It's so beautiful! I much prefer the look of vibrantly blooming fields over bare dirt. I was half tempted to pick bouquets of cover crop and take it to the market.

It's hard to tell, but that's a chicken running up the path in front of me. Our chickens are a little beyond free range. They're just plain wild!

Slip and Slide!

2010-03-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of some freshly made beds that we put in just before it started raining. The first step in preparing the beds is to put down compost and organic fertilizers. Jeff then uses the rototiller to mix the amendments into the soil. Next, irrigation is installed, which simply involves laying out lines of drip irrigation. Finally, we lay the plastic mulch. The beds shown here will be used for tomatoes. The red plastic mulch is used specifically for tomatoes and serves numerous functions. In addition to warming the soil, preserving soil moisture, and practically eliminating weeds, the red color bounces red light back at the growing plants, which in turn stimulates a natural hormone in the plants that increases the production of blossoms and therefore fruit. I always think that the plastic looks like a giant slip and slide and I'm super tempted to take a running start and see how far I can slide. Self control gets the better of me, though, and I'm able to practice restraint. Good thing, too, because Jeff might fire me if I went around sliding on and destroying our fresh beds.

Redlight-Greenlight Farming

2010-03-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

Ready, set, farm! Oh wait, stop farming. It's raining again. Or is it getting sunny? Uh-oh, that'd be hail...not sun. Getting started in the spring reminds me of the playground game, red light-green light. Just when it seems like warmer and drier weather is here to stay, it rains more and the temperature drops. With volatile weather patterns such as these, accomplishing anything on the farm requires a lot of anticipation, planning, and the ability to change our plans on a dime. If the weather is nice enough, we have to pick up the pace and go crazy preparing beds and planting. But if it happens to be a rainy day, or a series of rainy days, then we just have to wait for suitable work weather to return. You might be thinking to yourself, "Geez, they're kind of wimpy. They won't work in the rain? Are they afraid of getting wet and muddy or something?" That is not the case! I personally enjoy being outside in the rain and, if it made sense, we would probably work regardless of the weather. Many times we do work in the rain; we pick in the rain, care for chickens in the rain, sell at markets in the rain, even weed in the rain. The problem with wet weather is that it makes the soil unworkable. It's hard to make wet and muddy soil the ideal consistency for planting and plants don't really like being planted into flooded conditions. Fortunately, a couple days of thunder showers doesn't set us back at all; it just changes the focus temporarily. Instead of digging and shoveling and planting, we tend the greenhouse, plant seeds, pay bills, run those errands we've been avoiding, and even use spare moments to catch up with family and friends. I imagine that some people would go crazy having a life dictated by the weather...but I like it. I feel like the weather gives me a structure and a flow to my days and weeks and years.

These days dotted with rain showers, quickly passing clouds, and a quick wind remind me of Hawaii. The soil is warmer, so the rain feels warmer too. The showers, followed by brilliant blue sky, feel cleansing and purifying more than depressing and restricting. So, with the feeling of Hawaii, I wish you Aloha 'Aina, which means love of the land. I hope you can find a way to feel connected to the season we're in right now. Maybe the next time there's a rain shower, go walk around the block or get your kids to dance in the rain. Then, when the sun follows and the heat eventually comes, enjoy that too...and eat lots and lots of juicy, ripe, Redwood Empire Farm tomatoes.

A Friday in the Life...

2010-03-26T21:15:00.000-07:00

It's 9:30 pm on Friday night and we've been getting ready for tomorrow's farmers market all day. I just finished my jobs for the day, but Jeff is still out with his headlamp on washing arugula and making sure the greenhouse and chickens are tucked in for the night. If my estimate is correct, he'll come inside around 10:00 pm, get cleaned up, and then we'll find a late dinner. Not every work day extends quite this late, but days before we go to market, especially in the spring, tend to be long and tiring. Spring is the season for bunched greens, arugula, lettuce, roots, and other veggies that require a bit more tender loving care. We want everything we sell to be absolutely fresh, so that means we pick as close to when we go to market as possible. Fridays, therefore, always seem like a race to get as much done as possible.

So what's a typical spring Friday like? I'll walk you through what we did today, but I have to warn you, you might want to sit down and put your feet up or else you might get tired just thinking about it.

7:00am Rise and Shine
Some farmers like to wake up before the sun and start working, but if we can avoid it, we let the sun rise before us. Around 7:00, the goats and chickens start talking and that usually wakes me up. I always hope the morning barnyard noises don't disturb the neighbors too badly. We drink our coffee and Jeff goes out to feed the chickens, goats, open the greenhouse to let in the fresh air, and survey the farm. I usually take care of any housework or laundry that needs doing. I know, it's an old-fashioned division of labor, but it works for us.

9:30 Friday Swim
So much of what we do is physical and can take a serious toll on the back. We've gotten in the habit of swimming laps a few times a week, which has done really great things for our backs and overall physical resiliency. Jeff and I both are pretty attached to the endorphins we get from exercise, so swimming before a long day's work does wonders for settling the mind and calming the body.

11:00 Picking Begins
Time to bend over and start cutting those greens! Today's picking list included the first kales, chard, collards, arugula, and lettuce. Anyone who drove by the farm would see our butts in the air as we picked as quickly as possible. We get a good number of friendly honks, which leads us to debate who the honk was intended for. We both think we have more "fans" than the other. For the next few hours, I mark the passing time by the chime of the bell at the neighboring elementary school. Before I know it, school's out and the traffic picks up. More honks.

4:00 Lunch, Coffee Break and Chicken Food
I'll admit it, we drink a lot of coffee. If I tried to deny it, there'd probably be an army of people who would stand up and blow the whistle on us because we can always be seen out around town getting coffee. I'm actually okay with my coffee consumption...a hard working girl deserves at least once vice. And believe me, I don't drink nearly as much coffee as when I actually worked in a coffee shop. Alright, back to the schedule. So we went to get a coffee and buy more food for the "meat birds" (as we like to call them). Those chickens eat more than you could imagine - and definitely not by force. They are Hungry Hunters, foraging the land for grasses and bugs, and enjoying their share of nutrient dense organic chicken feed. While at the feed store, we run into a handful of people we know.

3:45 Back to Work
Jeff gets to work picking beets. I start planting broccoli and beets into beds that Jeff prepared just before it rained a couple of days ago. In addition to preparing for and going to the farmers market tomorrow, we're also trying to get as much planting accomplished before it rains again this week. After a while, Jeff joins me in the planting.

6:00 Visited by the Management
Jeff's Aunt and Grandmother, out for a stroll around the garden, come to inspect our work and marvel at our flexibility. These gals hold us to a high standard and, you can be sure, wouldn't let us get away with anything funny! We definitely have the most qualified on-site inspection team of any farm I know.

7:00 Finished Planting...Finally!
We're finally finished planting. I'm starving, so I go find some food. Jeff finishes the planting job by covering the babies with floating row cover.

7:45 Egg Prep
Finished with dinner. Time to wash and label eggs. Now that I have a printer and can print labels, this goes much faster than when I had to hand write each label.

8:15 Time to Wash
We head back outside into the dark to finish preparing for tomorrow's market. I clean beets and Jeff washes and dries the arugula.

9:00 Finally Finished
Finished with my final job, I finally get to go inside and take a shower. Jeff hasn't finished with the arugula and his final farm tasks, though, so he's still out working.

9:30 The Present
Clean and warm, I sit down to write my blog and wait for Jeff.

So there you have it, my day. In my book, it's not so bad at all, but it is long and it'll seem even longer when the alarm goes off at 6:00 tomorrow morning.

No! That can't possibly be a farm!

2010-03-24T18:24:00.000-07:00

Quick, tell me what a working farm looks like! It's not as easy a question as it seems. Most folks would say that a farm is a big, open, sanitary looking thing, with trucks, equipment, probably some silos, and a couple of portopotties. We, as a society, have gotten used to the picture of the modern factory farm - all chrome, hydraulic, sanitary and toxic. Often, the vision of a modern farm doesn't even include humans. I know that I've always been amazed when driving through the Sacramento Valley and Delta at how I never see any people working in the fields. So, now that folks are accustomed to the image of an industrial farm, they sometimes don't even recognize true farms when they see them.

I started thinking about the image of a farm this weekend at our Open House. The Open House, by the way, was incredible. Thank you so much to everyone who came out and took our super, exciting, self-guided tour. We thought the day was so fun that we've both found ourselves taking the self-guided tour as we've been working around the farm. Ok, back to the intended topic... More than a few people told me that they had driven by the farm many times and never noticed that there was a farm there. Likewise, last summer, at the roadside stand, people would stop and ask where the farm was. When I would tell them that they were on the farm, they hardly believed me. I'd have to walk 10 feet over to where the squash was growing and physically pick a zucchini to convince them.

I think the reason people don't think our farm looks like a farm is because it's so wild and alive. The farm, especially right now, is bursting with life and activity. The cover crop is waist high, bugs are everywhere, bees are flying, and the ground is soggy and saturated, which, to us, looks like fertility, health, and promise for the coming year. If we asked a conventional farmer to walk around the farm, however, they would probably have a nervous breakdown. All they would see would be weeds and bugs everywhere...and weeds and bugs are not tolerated on factory farms.

A lot of Jeff's farming methodology hinges on treating the farm like its own ecosystem. From the aquifer running below the ground to the birds flying in the sky, all things on the farm are connected and alive. Everything connected to the farm must be healthy for the farm to be fruitful (even the farmers). A good sign that things are healthy is the presence of weeds and bugs. After all, weeds are simply plants that we have decided are undesirable or a scourge. But if you have a diverse and bountiful selection of weeds on your land, it means your soil is strong. If a weed can grow well, so can a veggie (in theory). Likewise, if you have a lot of bugs, it means you have a lot of bug food, which is another symptom of a healthy ecosystem. Furthermore, if your ecosystem is strong, you'll also have an incredible number of good bugs that will control the bad bugs. Right now, the farm is overrun with some of the biggest lady bugs I've ever seen. These girls are getting fat and happy while standing guard against any potentially pesky pests. Sure, sometimes a really healthy farm gets to be a pain because I have to battle weeds and every raccoon in the area is attracted to our tasty chickens, but I'd take this any day over the alternative.

So,the moral of this story is to keep your eyes open as you make your way through the world - you never know where you might find a farm or something else similarly spectacular.

Soak up the sun!

2010-03-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, March 17, 2010:

I hope that everyone is having a chance to soak up some of this amazing sun we're getting. Seventy degrees feels just about perfect to me right now and I'm pretty sure that all the plants on the farm agree with me, too. Now that the weather is cooperating, it's time for us to kick our motors into overdrive and start really working. Jeff has been going nonstop trying to ready the farm for some quality tractor driving, which gets us one step closer to planting all those peak season crops we love. Tractor driving is one of Jeff's absolute favorite activities. His tractor is a hand-me-down that was built in the 1940s, but despite its age, it's a sturdy beast of a machine that gets the job done with gusto. Even though Jeff is quite a skilled tractor driver, occasionally there are instances of "tractor blight," which happens when the tractor accidentally takes out a tree or something else that happens to be in the way. I'm always a little nervous that I might be a victim of "tractor blight," so keep your fingers crossed that myself and all the fruit trees survive.

Another important bit of news is the upcoming Spring Open House. This Sunday, March 21st, we are having an Open House here at the farm from 11-4. You can do a self-guided tour, ask us any questions about growing and the farm that you may have, sign up for the CSA, order pastured chickens, or just hang out for a bit. The weather should be phenomenal, so come out and keep us company!

For those who haven't been here, the farm is located at: 55 Middle Rincon Rd
Santa Rosa, CA 95409. If you turn off of Hwy 12 onto Middle Rincon Rd, the farm is immediately on your left (just down from 7-11). Go ahead and park in the gravel parking lot and you'll see our set up. Feel free to bring friends, family, and kids. We just ask you leave your doggies at home because our free ranging chickens sometimes are too tempting for even the tamest puppies to resist.

Here's a classic picture of Jeff doing some tractor driving. It's obvious how much he hates it...yeah right!

Happy Daylight Savings Day!

2010-03-14T13:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday, March 14, 2010:

It's that time of year again. We have officially sprung forward and now get to enjoy an extra hour of daylight at the end of our days. For most, this is a serious cause for celebration. Having daylight until at least 7 pm makes life after work much more feasible and, for us farmers who would rather work later than wake up earlier, gives us more time for work during the day.

There are lots of stories floating around about why daylight savings was originally adopted. Some say it had something to do with saving energy during World War 1. Others say it was for the farmers, although I'm not sure why. All these confusing explanations prompted me to do a bit of research about where daylights savings really comes from and why it was implemented in the first place.

Apparently, the practice of adjusting formal timekeeping to match the sun has been done in some capacity since ancient times. Roman water clocks had different scales for keeping time depending on the month and other cultures divided their time differently depending on the season. Modern daylight savings wasn't introduced until World War I, when Germany, its allies, and its occupied zones were the first to adopt the practice as a way of conserving coal.

In America, the movement towards standardized daylight savings began in 1883. Prior to that time, towns, counties, states, etc. set their own time, which led to an often confusing and jumbled system of time across the nation. The rise of the intercontinental railroad made it necessary for there to be some consistent agreement time that held true across the country (the train will arrive at 3:00 pm...wait...whose 3:00 pm?). So, in 1883, the United States railroad industry established time zones as we now know them with set time within each zone. Congress signed the railroad time zones into law in 1918 and made the Interstate Commerce Commission responsible for overseeing the time zones and any future adjustments that might be needed. The 1918 time zone law also called for the observance of daylight savings time nationwide, which was timely considering much of Europe adopted daylight savings in 1916. The daylight savings portion of the 1918 law was repealed in 1919, leaving specific daylight savings practices up to individual states. Finally, after years of states operating according to their own time, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which standardized the start and end dates of daylight savings, but allowed individual states to refrain from the practice if they so chose. As of now, all states except for Arizona and Hawaii spring forward in spring and fall back in fall.

So there's the real deal about daylight savings. Although formal daylight savings was born out of the need for consistent time by which to run the railroad and a need to conserve coal during war time, daylight savings has really been done in some capacity or other forever. Practically speaking, daylight savings makes a whole lot of sense. More daylight during the hours when most of us are awake gives more time for outdoor activity, conserves energy, and has even been shown to decrease traffic accidents and crime. From what I read, the only group who doesn't benefit from daylight savings, interestingly enough, is farmers because they lose daylight in the morning when they typically start their work days. I know I'm not qualified to speak on behalf of the greater farming community, but I don't really mind swapping an hour of light from the morning to the evening. If we are so busy that we have to start work early, it's going to be dark no matter what. Working in the dark just goes with the territory.

Farming Lingo

2010-03-12T09:30:00.001-08:00

Friday, March 12, 2010:

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm ready for the rain to stop and for it to warm up. Correction: I'm really, really, really ready for the rain to stop and for it to warm up. I love how much rain we've had this year and I highly enjoy the restful cool of winter, but for pete's sake, I really want to stop having to wear five layers of clothes and rain boots every day! Not to mention how much the plants would enjoy decent temperatures and steady sunshine! I know I should be patient. Spring and summer will be here soon enough, and fall and winter again after that. Time passes faster than I can keep up with...especially when we're farming.

I've been noticing lately that talk of organic farming, ranching, gardening, and eating is all over the place. Celebrities tout their dedication to the earth, politicians lead with environmental policy, the color green is synonymous with coolness and trendiness - green really is the new black. With the barrage of information about unconventional farming methods (unconventional being organic...isn't that ironic), it's easy to get lost and not know exactly what everyone's talking about. There is a whole language used when talking about agriculture, specifically farming, and it's nothing to be embarrassed about if you don't know what "green manure" is, for example. These confusing and muddy waters of farming lingo have motivated me to periodically define and illustrate any obscure terminology.

Today's Term: Cover Crop (noun, verb)

Cover crop is any crop grown with the express purpose of strengthening the soil. Cover crop can be comprised of any number of plants that have benefits for soil fertility, weed suppression, water conservation, erosion prevention, and beneficial insect attraction. Cover crops are typically grown during the land's resting period during crop rotation. Once the cover crop reaches maturity, it is tilled back into the land (at this point, it's called green manure), returning the beneficial nutrients back into the ground.

Cover cropping is a big part of Jeff's growing system. Areas that have been used heavily over the past year(s) spend the winter growing a cover crop, which will reinvigorate them for summer planting. Cover crop also helps boost the growth of lush pasture, through which we move our pastured chickens. Not only do the chickens get to feed on all the organic nutrients of the cover crop, but the chickens then add their own fertility to the soil, making the areas phenomenal for planting.

So, that is cover cropping. Now go teach someone what you learned!

Jeff in his cover crop. It's getting tall!

Moving Day for the Chickens

2010-03-07T21:45:00.000-08:00

Still Sunday, March 7, 2010:

I can't feel my arms. Actually, I can feel them and what I feel is a dull ache with an occasional jab of pain. I started the day with sore arms thanks to an awesome yoga class on Friday at Three Dog Yoga , but then it came time to move the movable chicken pen out of the swampy bottom pasture and onto drier land so that the meat birds have a nice, dry place to call home. Now, moving the movable chicken pen is not as easy as the name "movable chicken pen" implies. It's kind of like getting a massive airplane to fly...a lot has to happen to get it into the air. Thanks to Jeff's crafty engineering, careful 2x4 placement, and a whole lot of huffing, puffing, and pulling by us, we were able to move the pen and get the chickens nicely situated in their new abode.

These chickens are so healthy and strong, it's incredible. I have never seen chickens take to pasture like these ones have...they can swallow blades of grass whole and immediately start picking at the ground looking for tasty morsels. From this point on, the chickens will stay in the movable pen, which will be moved every day to guarantee that they always have fresh, clean grass. It really doesn't get any better than that.

Here are the chickens in their movable pen. You can see how much room they have to move around.

Here's the pen from a little bit farther away. The grass/pasture that the pen will move through is at least a foot tall and full of nutrients, bugs, and other natural goodies for the chickens to feast on. Real food makes the chickens taste AMAZING!

Spring is springing!

2010-03-07T12:41:00.000-08:00

Sunday, March 7, 2010:

Is it just me or does it really feel like spring is on the way? The first glimpses of spring in Santa Rosa always remind me of a colorful and chipper Disney cartoon. Trees are blooming everywhere (much to the chagrin of allergy sufferers), birds are chirping and singing, the moist ground is so active with new growth that it practically radiates heat, and the angle of the sun is finally such that things are brighter and more clear.

Days like today are perfect for getting lost for awhile in Annadel Park. I have had a long and storied history with Annadel and there are days when I can hear the park calling to me. My older brother, Ross, first introduced me to the park when I was thirteen years old. It was Christmas day and Ross decided it was high time that I take up trail running. I was athletic, but running was not my choice activity. Not surprisingly, I was completely intimidated by the prospect of going running with my brother - his athletic abilities dwarfed most anybody's, especially mine as a gawky thirteen year old. Despite my terror, we set out for our run up Schultz Trail, which, back then, was a much rougher and more desolate part of the park than it even is today. I think I made it about ten minutes before the pain of my burning muscles caused me to dissolve into tears and sit down in the middle of the trail. Like any good older brother, Ross first tried to motivate me with tough love. He tried the "no pain no gain" line and the "pain is only temporary" mantra, too. Eventually he convinced me to at least start walking again and, soon enough, I was trotting along in my big brother's footsteps. Since that first run, I have spent many hours in Annadel and have fallen in love with running. Being able to put on my running shoes and set out into our little bit of local wilderness is one of the things that I find grounding, peaceful, and just plain fun.

It's a good thing that my brother dragged me with him all those years ago, because Annadel was actually the first step in my introduction to the farm. When I graduated from college in 2004, I moved back to Sonoma County and started running a lot in Annadel. I helped myself navigate the first couple years of adjusting to adulthood by trying to get lost in the park and seeing how far I could go. One day, in the winter of 2006, I was deep in the park and running on one of my favorite narrow single track trails. I had my headphones in and my music blaring, when I heard something coming behind me. Instinctively, I jumped off the trail (probably not very gracefully) just in time to avoid being hit by this crazy guy on a single speed mountain bike. I looked up in time to catch a glimpse of him and he flashed me a big, beaming smile before he continued racing down the trail. To be honest, I didn't put much thought into the encounter. It wasn't the first time I had nearly collided with a mountain biker and it wasn't to be the last - but there was something about that big smile that stuck with me.

You've probably already figured out the sappy conclusion to my story...but for those of you who haven't...the mountain biker was Jeff and that day in Annadel was the first crossing of our paths that would lead to where we are now. So in some distant and twisty way, we can all thank Annadel for the farm as it is now and all that it is becoming. Thank you, Annadel!

What's a CSA?

2010-03-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

Thursday, March 4, 2010:

I'm sure everyone has heard the acronym CSA countless times, but I have a sneaking suspicion that more than one person out there isn't exactly sure what it means. So, what is a CSA, anyway? It's not a stupid question!

CSA stands for "community supported agriculture." The idea is that individuals invest in local farms by buying shares of the farm. In return for their financial investment, CSA members receive regular installments of the farm's products. That, in a nutshell, is the CSA concept.

When CSAs were first devised, they were quite a bit different than they are now. In those days, a group of people got together, pooled their money, bought a farm, and hired a farmer to grow them food. They then took shares of what the farm produced for the year. Although they all hoped the farm would have have a bountiful year and that their financial investments would yield an abundance of fantastic produce, they accepted that things could happen that would affect the farm's production. For example, the farmer might have to fight against unfavorable weather the entire season and be unable to produce tomatoes, peppers, and melons during the summer. If that happened, folks would make do and accept whatever was able to grow despite the bad weather.

Nowadays, most CSAs are designed to limit the risk that the members take when buying shares of the farm. Some farms reserve the right to supplement what they grow with produce from other farms in order to guarantee that CSA members are always satisfied. Also, a lot of farms don't require members to commit to the whole season and accept payment for tangible quantities of food, as opposed to requiring them to make a more ideological commitment to the farm. Most CSAs are unique and have their own particular structures - every CSA I have researched is a little bit different. In my opinion, this ability to adapt the CSA model to fit the individual farm is what makes CSAs so great.

Jeff and I decided to start a CSA because we want to make our food as accessible to people as possible. Some people can't make it to the farmer's market or the roadside stand, but know that they want to guarantee their supply of fresh, locally grown fruits and veggies. For them, the CSA is the perfect option. We designed our CSA in such a way that members pay a certain amount up front, which helps us fund the annual start-up costs of the farm (seeds, compost, tools, drip-tape, etc). Once we are able to start actually packing CSA boxes, our members will then pay for their share of the farm's produce monthly. Not only does the CSA provide us with another outlet through which we can feed people in our community, but it also gives us confidence that there are people all ready to eat everything that we grow, which allows us to grow larger quantities of a more diverse selection of produce. We don't need to worry about selling every tomato at the farmer's market, because we have a group of people who have already committed to eating tomatoes (and whatever else we are growing at the time) each week.

I also love the community-building aspect of the CSA. I think it's so exciting to be responsible for growing the fruits and veggies that are going to be eaten every week by people in my town. Our CSA members believe in us and, in return, will be treated like royalty. They will get first dibs on the best heirloom tomatoes, juicy, sweet peppers, and crunchy, satisfying cucumbers. Our CSA kids will always be welcome to come see the goats or chickens, because we really do think of ourselves as being their farm.

If you want to know more about our CSA, go to our website at www.redwoodempirefarm.com/csa.html. For more on CSAs in general, check out www.localharvest.org, which is a great site that includes a comprehensive database of CSAs around the country.

Not So Little Peepers...

2010-03-01T17:50:00.000-08:00

Monday, March 1, 2010:

The chicks are two and a half weeks old and they are not so tiny anymore. You can see that they're already developing wings, something that doesn't happen until most chickens are twice this old. The chicks are still living inside in their brooder, but they are eating grass and bugs already and loving it. They're scheduled to go out into their movable pen on Wednesday. Once they move outside, they really start to grow fast. I'll be sure to post some pictures of them within a couple days of the move...it's impressive to see the changes.

Stopping to Smell the Flowers

2010-02-28T17:58:00.000-08:00

Sunday, February 28, 2010:

I used to dislike Sundays. Instead of getting the Mondays, I'd get the Sundays. Regardless of what I was doing, whether it be fun or not, I had the nagging reminder that the next day is Monday and the week and all the daily grinds to come. But now, I like Sundays. I also like Mondays. And Tuesdays, Wednesday, Thursdays,Fridays, AND Saturdays. Each day is full of possibility, routine, adventure, and work.

This evening, I was walking through the farm and I noticed how many of the fruit trees have started to blossom. The almond is blossoming and many of the plums are covered with flowers, too. As I got close to one of the trees, I noticed how amazing the flowers smell. And the flowers from each tree smell a little bit different, even flowers from different trees of the same variety. For me, the blossoming fruit trees are the first signal of spring - the first glimpse and whiff of the sweetness that is on its way in the coming months. I know I can't wait for the first peach of the year...oh man, will it be good.

Almond Blossoms!

Grow Seeds, Grow!

2010-02-25T17:04:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 25, 2010:

This time of year, I spend a lot of time in the greenhouse starting seeds. Jeff and I have a convenient interpretation of division of labor. I let him do manly things like weedwack and tractor drive, and I do those things that require attention to detail and a special, feminine, nurturing touch. (Jeff just read that over my shoulder and claims to be able to germinate seeds as well as me, but it's simply not true. There's a reason I'm called "The Germinator" and he's the tractor driving professional.) We grow all of our plants from seed because it's simply too expensive to buy all the plants we would need to plant the whole farm - not to mention that I can grow healthier plants than we could buy pretty much anywhere. The first step in the process of starting plants from seed is purchasing the seed. Jeff and I spend a couple of months poring through seed catalogs, debating what varieties to grow, and placing our orders. We order most of our seed from Johnny's Selected Seeds, Territorial Seed Company, and Botanical Interests, Inc. Jeff learned years ago that you shouldn't cut corners where seed is concerned. You may need to pay a little more for quality, certified organic seed, but the germination and crop quality will be better in the long run.

The next step in the process is to plant the seeds! We start all of our our seeds in the greenhouse where they will be protected from the cold elements and can have a nice, uniform environment in which to germinate and start their lives. During the warmer months, seeds will germinate outside, but not so well during the winter.

I start by laying out my clean plastic six-packs and filling them with potting soil (you'll have to email me if you want me to give away what potting soil we use). I pack the soil down so that it is dense enough that when I water the soil in, it doesn't turn to mud, but instead stays pretty solid.

We use square nursery flats to hold the six-packs. Here are the six-packs before they get soil.

I add enough soil so that each cell is full of soil to the top.

After I've spread the soil into my six-packs, I use my water wand to moisten the soil. They shouldn't be sopping, just wet enough to be thouroughly moistened.

Next, I take my dibbler (hole poking device), which for me is an old jumbo nail that I found somewhere on the farm, and make either one or two small holes/indentations in each cell of soil . The number of holes depends on the plant. If they're going to grow pretty big before transplanting, then I do one hole, but if they're going to stay small, like lettuce, for example, then I poke two. Each hole should be about 1/4 inch deep, but that's not a hard and fast rule. You certainly don't need to take out a miniature ruler and measure you're depth to make sure it's just so.

This time, I made one hole in the center of each cell.

My high-tech hole poking device.

So now that you have all you're nice, tidy holes ready, drop a seed into each hole. I have a couple of different tools that I use for this, but my favorite and the one I think works the best is a pair of tweezers. If I'm starting salad mix or arugula, I do a sprinkle of seeds per hole. If it's something else that has itty-bitty seeds, I do my best to drop only one seed per hole, but I also accept that if more than one drop, I can thin later. During this stage, I do use my discretion about which seeds are planted and which are not. For instance, in any given packet of tomato seeds, there will be a few seeds that look funky. They would probably grow just fine, but I usually opt not to plant them and instead only plant the best looking seeds. This act of unnatural selection is something I learned from Luther Burbank. He firmly believed that the first step in growing exceptional plants is observation during seeding. If you want to end up with the best plants, you must begin with the best seed.

Once the seeds are deposited in their holes, I use my finger to cover the seeds gently.

Then the six-packs are covered with remay cloth and watered in. While they're germinating, the soil in the six-packs should stay moist and relatively warm.

This is the remay cloth that we always talk about. It is great for pretty much any farm use, from seeding to frost protection.

I have to be honest - like George Washington, I cannot tell a lie. Once I have seeded the seeds, Jeff usually takes over and babysits the greenhouse until the plants are big and strong enough to go outside. After all, his horticultural (greenhouse production) degree trumps my political science degree when it comes to stuff like that. I still think I'm better than him though. Maybe it's my way of coping with the rather tedious work of seeding, but I like to imagine that my intuition and intention goes a long way towards the ultimate health and vigor of the plants.

So there you have it. My method, if you will. Okay, I'll be fair. Jeff's method as taught to me and then interpreted by me. There are many other ways of starting plants by which people swear, but this is the one that works for us. There's science to it, but not rocket science. Ultimately, seeds want to grow - it's what they are programmed to do and all we humans need to do is facilitate their natural function and make the environment suitable.

Delicious Fatigue

2010-02-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

Monday, February 22, 2010:

My body is so tired. My arm muscles, my back muscles, my leg muscles, my neck muscles...okay...all my muscles are just plain tired. I'm not complaining, though. I actually really enjoy this overall fatigue. When I feel this way, I know I've worked hard and will have plenty of fruits (pun intended) to show for my labor.

The weather people have been predicting rain for the past few days, but it looks like we will actually get some real rain tomorrow. Rain is awesome, but in order for it not to set us back too much, we had a lot to accomplish before the storm comes. Jeff's growing "system" requires the use of plastic mulch on top of our planting beds. The plastic, which comes in a very heavy roll of a few thousand feet, warms the soil, prevents weeds from germinating (thereby dramatically reducing the amount of weeding I have to do...yes!), and protects the plants from lots of pests and elemental dangers. Plastic mulch comes in a bunch of different colors that have different purposes for different crops. For example, we use red plastic for tomatoes because the red plastic bounces a certain kind of light back at the plants, which stimulates the hormone in the tomato plants that govern how much fruit is set. Green plastic does double duty warming the soil, making it perfect for any spring crops and great for those summer veggies that need extra heat. The one downside of the plastic is that it is not recyclable or reusable, but its benefits are so great and it allows us to produce such a high yield of crops using little water and with limited labor that, for now, it is our one necessary evil. Another great thing about the plastic is that once the plastic is laid, it can rain as much as the sky wants and we can plant immediately after. Without plastic, we would have to wait for the soil to dry and become workable, which could set us back significantly.

So, that leads me to today's activities. Our task was to get as many beds made and covered with plastic as we could so that we can continue our planting of the spring crops immediately after the rain. We spread a lot of compost and did a lot of shoveling - and let me tell you, shoveling heavy, wet dirt is not an easy task - but, by the end of the day, we had our beds made. And I am left with delicious fatigue. I will sleep well tonight, I guarantee.

This is a picture of some of the beds that we made. I think the plastic on the beds makes them look like long Slip 'N Slides. I'm always a little tempted to make a run for it and see how far I could slide.

Princess Priscilla

2010-02-20T18:42:00.000-08:00

Saturday, February 20, 2010:

The other day I was taking apart bulbs of last year's garlic so that I could plant them for this year. I was working at a table near the chicken coops and this one chicken, Priscilla, kept hopping up right next to me and clucking animatedly. She kept coming back and doing her little dance, to which all the other chickens would respond in turn. I thought that Priscilla was just a really smart, personable chicken and I was feeling quite nice about my affinity with farm animals and farming in general.

Today I happened to walk by the table where I had been working and, lo and behold, there was Priscilla nesting in the box that I had been using. Apparently I had stolen her makeshift nesting box to use as the box for my leftover garlic and that is why she was so talkative. No, she wasn't simply drawn to my amazing Dr. Doolittle qualities and wanting to be my friend. I had stolen her box and she needed to get in there fast and drop that egg! I had a good laugh about that one. Here is a photo of Priscilla and one of her nesting box.

Our eggs are so free-range, they're laid in sustainably farmed dried garlic under a canopy of Eucalyptus trees.

Day 1 of Farmer Boot Camp

2010-02-17T09:09:00.001-08:00

Wednesday, February 17, 2010:

Nothing beats waking up to blue sky and the promise of a warm day in the middle of winter. I'm pretty sure that weather like this is a purely Northern Californian phenomenon - no place else do we toe the line between cold and warm, rainy and dry, winter and spring. The farm is stunningly pretty on days like yesterday (and today). The sun works to warm the still moist ground so effectively that you can smell the dirt warming and changing. All the grass and cover crop captures the sunlight and glows emerald green. Even the living creatures on the farm (including us) move around with a little extra pep in their step. Weather like this is undoubtedly why Luther Burbank felt like he'd arrived in heaven when he stepped off the train from his native Massachusetts. Within a year of arriving in Santa Rosa, Burbank wrote home saying, "This is the chosen spot of all the earth as far as Nature is concerned." I've been a lot of places and I have to agree with him; we are truly blessed in the nature department.

Great weather in February comes with its own set of responsibilities. Success as a farmer depends enormously on timing. Luther Burbank, who started his horticultural career as a market gardener/farmer, said that to make a living as a farmer you had to be the earliest to harvest. How true! In order to be the earliest to harvest, you have to be ready to take advantage of good weather and get into the ground whenever you can during the winter and early spring. To that end, I have been seeding plants since Winter solstice so that we would have plants ready to go into the ground. Jeff has been mapping the farm and figuring out the first areas to work. Such good preparation leaves us free to do the work when weather permits.

Yesterday was day 1 of farmer boot camp for the year. I tore out a bunch of spent crops in order to clear some areas for new planting. Everything I tore out was fed to the egg laying chickens (man, did they get hopped up on worms and bugs), which meant that I had to push a wheelbarrow extremely full of plants and dirt through 6 inches of mud many, many times. Wheelbarrowing up a hill through mud makes me feel like modern Sisyphus - no matter how hard I push or how much momentum I try to capture, I don't make it to the top any faster. The ground is still pretty wet from the rain, so walking around feels like walking on the sand on a beach that is wet and hard, but starts to give way when stepped on. It's a heck of a workout. In addition to tearing out old stuff, I also planted the first sugar snap peas. Yea! I always love planting the first sugar snaps because they will be the first food of the year that I can eat right off the plant. Don't worry though. We planted enough so that no matter how many I eat, there will be plenty left for the rest of you.

The meat chicks are a week old today and they're doing great. Jeff will start feeding them real food (grass and bits of dirt and other goodies) today, which signals the beginning of their real growth. Only 7 more weeks until they're dinner.

Local Love

2010-02-14T20:54:00.000-08:00

Sunday, February 14, 2010:

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! In the purest, most sincere way, I love anyone out there who is nice enough to read my ramblings (and hopefully do what I tell you). In all honesty, I actually do really, really like all the individuals who support Jeff and my farming. Because of your values and your decision to live the right way no matter how inconvenient it may be at times, I get to do what I love to do with the person(s) who I love to be with most. So for that, thank you.

Also in the Valentine's spirit, I want to speak my appreciation for the people and businesses who have been so kind and supportive of the farm:

Jeff's Great Aunt Mary - She has given Jeff a place to play with plants from the time he was a kid. She helped teach him the value of hard work and modeled a life lived outdoors in the company of beautiful plants.

Jeff and my parents - I don't think I can actually find words that would adequately convey how much I love and appreciate our families. Because of my family, I have never known what it is to be unloved or feel lost. I have blazed my own trail, sometimes gracefully and often awkwardly, but they have always "had my back." My parents have supported my rustic aspirations as if they were their own. After all, they were the original back-to-the-landers, two of the first hippy-yuppies who believed that land is freedom and freedom is bliss. Jeff's folks are incredible, too. Without Jeff's Mom, there would be no Jeff and there certainly would be no farm. Jeff and his Mom started the farm together - it was her vision as much as his. And last but not least, Jeff's Dad. Whenever we're in a pickle, we know he'll come through for us. We asked for a movable chicken pen and he gave us the Fort Knox of chicken tractors. We asked for some help slaughtering chickens and he was there waiting for us in the dark at 4:00am, ready to go. I asked for a sandwich board sign for our road-side stand, and I got a 6x4 foot person sized sign with built in mechanisms to keep it from toppling. He's loyal and chipper and really fun.

Susan and Tim of Centro Espresso - First and foremost, they serve the best espresso in Sonoma County. Moreover, they made our road-side stand an immediate success by telling their customers and friends about us. Susan's endorsement is a very valuable thing, let me tell you.

Our early chicken customers - There's a group of people our there who bought the first chickens we raised two years ago. They took a chance and paid good money for chickens for which there was no guarantee that they would even be edible. As it turns out, the chickens were awesome. But I'm still grateful to the people who helped us learn and grow and try something new.

Our Dougs - Everyone needs a Doug. They're simply the best.

Little Peepers

2010-02-12T12:38:00.000-08:00

Chicks Gone Wild!

2010-02-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 11,2010:

Good news everyone! Our first meat chicks arrived today! As we speak, they are healthy and peeping away in their brooder. We order our chicks directly from a hatchery in Fresno. They are shipped out immediately after hatching and arrive at our local post office the next day. We got a call first thing this morning from the post office and went to pick them up, which is always fun because people give us some interesting looks when we announce that we're there to pick up our chicks and the postal service worker goes to the back and returns with a vigorously peeping box. The baby chicks, or Little Peepers as I like to call them, will hang out in a nice, warm brooder for the next few weeks until they're big enough to go out in their movable pen. Don't worry, they always eat 100% organic/non-GMO food and we're giving them bits of grass, scraps, and bugs as soon as they're old enough. These chicks will live quite a ritzy chicken life while they become delicious chicken dinners over the next 8 weeks.

We ordered these chicks earlier in the year than we have in the past, so we will doubtlessly have to take extra measures to keep them warm, dry, and healthy. I think we're going to do just fine though. Jeff is a wonderful caretaker and spends a lot of time checking on them. He's probably already figured out who's who and named half of them. You've gotta love that guy...I know I do.

Moo, Don't Mow!

2010-02-08T15:29:00.000-08:00

Monday, February 8, 2010:

I'd like to share a couple paragraphs of a well-written essay that I found on the Westin A. Price Foundation website (wwww.westinaprice.org). The essay is titled, "Agribusiness and the Fall of Rome," and it was written by John Moody.

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"When we encourage people to buy local and regional real foods and grass based animal products raised by real people who receive just wages in exchange for their work and stewardship of the land, we are not only encouraging them to protect and contribute to their own health and the vibrant health of their children, we are encouraging them to protect and contribute to the health of our nation and the health of the entire world. We are asking them to take tangible, sustainable steps to reduce poverty, pollution, economic injustice and world hunger. We are asking them to help heal some of the sickness of our society. We don’t need a dictator to undo the damaging effects of agribusiness in our nation and world. We do need tens of thousands of average citizens like the Gracchi, citizens willing to make sacrifices for the sake of our nation’s small farmers and others.

Personal, family, community and national health start with our decision to buy local and put nutrient-dense real food on our dinner plates. Let each of us choose wisely and encourage others to do the same."

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I recommend that anyone with a few free minutes read the entirety of this essay (http://www.westonaprice.org/Agribusiness-and-the-Fall-of-Rome.html). As a society, we can't really afford to continue on our current path. The consequences are greater than a depressed economy and high unemployment. I'm not usually prone to apocalyptic worries, but I really do feel that we have become far too detached from the real things in life and I worry what the end result will be if we keep acting with instant gratification in mind. I know I'm preaching to the choir and that my audience is already moving in the right direction by supporting local, small(er) scale agriculture. So thank you for all that you already do. Keep up the good work, because you are leading by example.

Wild Rincon Valley

2010-02-07T22:27:00.001-08:00

Sunday, February 7, 2010:

Today was another crazy day in Rincon Valley. Even though I really like the rain, I felt relieved and happy to wake up this morning to a beautiful sunny day. I loved the sun, but I think I needed to feel the warmth more than anything. After a great run in a muddy Annadel, I did a nice, healthy stint of manual labor. The recent rains helped a frighteningly vigorous bloom of weeds in the onions, so I set out to fight back in favor of the alliums. So there I was, hoeing away on the side of the road. I could hear and see a rowdy Fijian party across the street. I could hear kids playing in the neighborhood below us and a couple other Superbowl parties somewhere nearby. I heard a siren and a police officer went roaring by. Then I saw something in my peripheral vision and I looked up, expecting to see one of the cats that hang around. But what to my delight did I look up to find? A big 'ol red fox, that's what! He or she went trotting through the farm about thirty feet away from where I was working. How cool is that? Only in Rincon Valley do we get multicultural American sports holiday celebrations AND rare wild animals!

Goat Wrestling

2010-02-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

Thursday, February 4, 2010:

Those of you are already familiar with our farm have probably heard all about "The Girls." Our two Nubian goats, Shoshanna and Isabella, were Jeff's gift to me on my birthday this past June. I have what I consider to be a very healthy appreciation for the goats. I like them, I think they're cute, funny, and I definitely think they add an authenticity to our farm that only farm animals can. But when the goats are yelling in the middle of the night or when they start eating the crops, I see them for what they are - goats.

Jeff, however, is a very proud Papa. Since the day he got them, he's been over the moon for his girls. The goats' first night at the farm was undoubtedly unnerving for them and they, like most babies, expressed their fear by making A LOT of noise ALL NIGHT LONG. Jeff decided that it would be best for us to sleep in their barn with them...on the floor. Despite our presence, the goats still cried. Jeff's patience was unfailing until they went to the bathroom...on him. I think he started understanding the limited intelligence that accompanies that sweet and goofy demeanor of goats. Since then, we've developed wonderful relationships with the goats. They are treated like princesses. They play, eat, jump, and have the run of the place.

Today, however, they had to get their hooves trimmed - a necessary, but rather awkward exercise. First, we bribed them with grain laden with molasses and other goodies. Then we tried to get them to calmly stand still so that Jeff could trim their hooves. But despite my petting and coaxing and Jeff's gentle touch, the goats did not want to be messed with. I don't think I can describe how strong a full grown goat is. When a goat wants to move, it moves - even if there's a full sized human trying to hold her. In the end, I used my weight to bear hug the goats into submission and Jeff laid on the barn floor trying to get an angle from which he could work.

Even though the goats acted like we were trying to kill them, once we were done, they were happy and seemed to have forgotten the whole ordeal. Goats are clearly masters of forgetting and forgiving. And therein lies the moral of today's story: no matter what uncomfortable ordeals we must face, once we make it through them, make like a goat and just forget it ever happened.

Website and Hoes

2010-02-01T22:43:00.000-08:00

Monday, February 1, 2010:

Nope, you're eyes don't deceive you...I really am posting two days in a row. I'm trying to write a bit each day so that everyone out there in reader land can understand what we do as modern day urban farmers.

So, on to the days happenings. This winter, I've been determined to be more organized and on top of things. Deciding to be more administratively thoughtful when in the midst of picking 8 hours a day and then planting and selling to boot doesn't work well at all. This winter has been my time to get stuff straight - we have calendars, files, post its, envelopes, and fliers everywhere.

Also on my list was to finally build a website. This blog was a start, but we really need a website to make our business more efficient and visible. So, I put on my computer pro hat and built us a website! It's nothing fancy, mind you, but it gets the job done for now. It will undoubtedly grow as the season progresses, so look for amazing things to come. The address is www.redwoodempirefarm.com. Catchy, right? Well, today I worked out some website kinks and put it up in its most complete form yet.

The other item on my agenda was to order myself a new hoe. This time of year it is a constant battle to protect the onions and garlic that are growing from the weeds. I've been using an ancient hula hoe, but it's heavy, unwieldy, and I find it to be incredibly awkward to handle. So, I bought myself a fancy little hand hoe doodad that they claim is like an "extension of your own finger nail." That sounds like a good deal to me! Because right now, I'm so dissatisfied with my hoeing performance that I usually end up using my real fingernails to dig the weeds out of the dirt.

Only in Sonoma County...

2010-01-31T20:37:00.000-08:00

Sunday, January 31, 2010:

One of the reasons that Jeff and I get along so well is that we both like to go on adventures. He does the driving, I do the navigating, and off we go. Today we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and head a little north to Lake Sonoma. Lake Sonoma is one of our favorite spots to visit, regardless of the season. Although it's not too far away from Santa Rosa, it seems wild, uninhabited, and man, is it beautiful!

Today we were interested in visiting the fish hatchery to see how many fish have returned to the hatchery so far this year. If you haven't visited the hatchery, you should definitely check it out. The Lake Sonoma Visitor's Center is full of interesting history/information about the area and, the fish hatchery is a great way to learn more about the lifecycle of the fish that spawn here in Sonoma County.

All the rain we've had did wonders for the creeks and rivers, so the fish are having a ball running inland. Even though the water was murky, we still saw numerous Steelhead jumping up the fish ladders and spawning in the creek at the hatchery. Watching fish spawn in a natural habitat is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It's like seeing something from the Discovery Channel or National Geographic happening right in front of you in your own backyard. Steelhead are BIG fish and they look somewhat out of place in our relatively small streams. Then they start doing their spawning dance, which is awesome! I don't know if it makes me strange or not, but there is something definitely seductive about the way that the males and females introduce themselves, line up side by side, and then, in perfect time, propagate.

Fish watching is another activity that Jeff and I share. He took me to see spawning Steelhead in a very local and secret creek on Valentine's Day when we had just started dating. (I know, it was very romantic. He's a regular Don Juan!) The creek is somewhere I had been many, many times, and yet I had never even thought to look for fish. I had always assumed there was nothing in the water to look for, fish or otherwise. But Jeff merely had to point out the first fish and, suddenly, they became clear to me, like a lense on my world had been changed and now there were fish in my creeks! Seeing the fish and understanding how they live, what they do, and why they are such an important indicator of the overall health of the earth, made my understanding of nature much more complete.

Wow, that was quite a fish tangent. Hopefully my passion will be a nudge to go see the fish for yourselves. If you have kids, visit a farm and see the animals and then go see the fish - I'd bet that your tykes will be eager to be outside for at least a while afterwards.

Back to our day's adventure...

After the hatchery, we drove out one of the roads by the lake. The weather was great, there was sun and some big, puffy clouds cruising by. But to make everything better, we came around a bend and there were a big herd of wild pigs! There were big ones and little ones, brown and black ones, spotted and solid ones. Jeff wanted to "capture" one, but I talked him down and the piggies escaped to face him another day.

A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words...

2010-01-03T17:34:00.001-08:00

This is a picture of our bottom pasture where we raised the last batch of chickens. In the background is our movable chicken pen and in front of it is the strip of ground over which the pen moved while it was inhabited by chickens. I think it is so cool that you can actually see the fertilizing power of the chickens. This is why we want to raise more chickens! Not only are they responsibly raised, but they taste delicious and move our farm one more step toward complete sustainability!

Market News

2009-12-04T16:00:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that we'll be back at the farmer's market on Saturday (December 5th). We took last Saturday off in order to recuperate from Thanksgiving, but now we're back to work.

What can you expect to see from us at the market? We have beautiful cut lettuce mix, arugula, chard, kale, broccoli, eggs, and more of our soon to be world famous chile peppers. Also, a note about our eggs. We ARE bringing eggs to the farmer's market these days, so even if you don't see them out on the table, ask if we have them stashed somewhere.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and we'll see you at the market!

It's Raining...It's Pouring...

2009-10-13T17:39:00.000-07:00

The first storm of the year inevitably results in mixed emotions. Some love it. Some hate it. Rain can wreak havoc for the vineyards if it comes before harvest is complete. Rain can mean much needed water in our rivers and streams that will allow precious fish to run, spawn, and hopefully thrive. So where do I stand on the rain and what does it mean for Redwood Empire Farm?

Well, personally, I love the rain. After months of dry, dusty weather and rock hard ground, rain provides refreshment, cleansing, and saturation that makes the season's finale much easier. Believe me, tearing out crops is infinitely less tiresome when the ground is moist and soft. The rain also recharges the moisture in the ground, allowing us to grow beautiful greens and winter crops. Recharging the groundwater table is especially important for us because we try to use as little water and irrigation as possible.

What, if anything, does the rain harm? Ripe tomatoes still on the vine are prone to splitting and rot, as are figs. Unharvested winter squash (pumpkins included)needs to be watched that it doesn't start to rot or mold. Everything else, however, does ok in the rain. Some crops, such as kale, chard, lettuce, and other greens, even thrive with a rain bath.

A word of warning, though, for those planning on buying tomatoes after the storm. Smell them! Feel them! Pick them up! For tomatoes to be flavorful, they should smell like tomatoes, they should feel heavy for their size, and feel firm to the touch. Remember, tomatoes picked green and hard will eventually turn color, but they will not necessarily develop delicious flavor. Many tomatoes that you find after the first storm will have been picked green and unripe prior to the rain in an attempt to save them from being ruined. So do yourself a favor and thoroughly investigate your tomatoes before buying them so as not to be disapointed.

Peppers are a crop not adversely affected by the rain - they actually benefit from a gentle rain washing. They emerge from the storm clean and polished, ready for action. And speaking of peppers, I have to share my pepper preparation discovery. I cut our italian roasting peppers lengthwise, drizzled them with a little bit of olive oil, and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. I then put them in the oven at about 400 degrees and let them roast for about 10-15 minutes. Once they're a bit soft and starting to look good and roasted, I put a little bit of herb chevre (fresh, soft goat cheese) in them and put them back in the oven for about 5 minutes. Once the pepper are soft and the cheese is bubbly, take them out of the oven and enjoy!

Hooray for the Farm Stand!

2009-10-04T12:17:00.000-07:00

For starters, I’d like to apologize for not updating the blog more often. Despite my best laid plans, finding time to sit down and write about what we’re doing on the farm has been difficult. I have a really good excuse though! Most every moment that I’m not picking, planting, weeding, seeding, or selling at a farmer’s market, I’m working at the Farm Stand. And let me tell you, the Farm Stand is a wonderful way to spend my time! Jeff and I really wanted to open a stand as a way of making the things we grow more accessible to the people and families who live in the neighborhoods surrounding the farm. We expected that it would be fairly successful, but anticipated that it would be slow going in this, it’s first season. Boy, were we wrong! Every day that we’re open, more people stop by and get so excited about what they find. Our clientele is growing quickly and with our growing popularity, Jeff and I are afire with ideas of new things to grow, programs to launch, events to hold.

The Farm Stand has rekindled my enthusiasm for growing food in the way that we do. I am so excited that our farm is becoming a part of the daily lives of people all over Santa Rosa. The thing I enjoy most is that our Farm Stand customers are all different. We have parents shopping with their kids who use the Stand as an opportunity to talk about how veggies are grown and to plan dinner together. We have folks who live in retirement communities and come stock up on tomatoes to share with their friends and neighbors. We have people who are shopping for special dinner parties and people who are simply shopping for that night’s dinner. We have caterers and chefs, the affluent and the not so affluent, those who really care about where veggies are grown and those who stop mostly because it’s convenient. All of these different people have one thing in common though – they all go home with our clean, fresh-picked, delicious fruits and veggies. I love that folks all over Santa Rosa (and probably beyond) enjoy the fruits of our labor. Making healthy, local food accessible and convenient to people from all walks of life is incredibly gratifying and makes all the hard work worthwhile.

So, in sum, THANK YOU for supporting us. Your encouragement, patronage, enthusiasm, and smiling faces are the fuel that we need to keep going and growing. Keep sending the feedback, ideas, and requests, because we’re constantly planning what’s next.

September News

2009-08-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

CHICKENS!

We hope everyone's prepared because the chickens are about to be ready! The first slaughter day is this Tuesday, September 1st! We are slaughtering over a three week period to give our customers more choice over their chicken's size, so there is still plenty of time to place your order. If you want more information about the chickens and the ordering process, please email us at RedwoodEmpireFarm@live.com.

FARM STAND!

At the risk of boring you with even more farm stand news, our hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 6pm. Our location is 55 Middle Rincon Rd, Santa Rosa, CA 95404.

Why should you check out the farm stand? For DISCOUNTS and GREAT DEALS, of course! In addition to the same high quality produce we have at the Farmer's Market, we also offer a wider variety of fruit and discounted produce selections (think squishy tomatoes and blistered peppers).

Already August!

2009-08-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe that it's already August. Every year, we plan and work in preparation for and anticipation of the Summer growing season and every year it seems to start ending before it's even really begun. In a couple weeks, kids will start back to school and people's mindsets will shift to Fall. But the reality for those of us who farm for a living is that Summer is just getting started in earnest and we have miles and months to go before we rest.

Around here, we have a lovely, long growing season. We can usually count on a season that begins in April and lasts at least until Halloween. When we get the heat that is needed for tomatoes, peppers, melons, and cucumbers to thrive is often unpredictable, but it always arrives...eventually. So far, the Summer has been cool, which means that most crops have been slow to ripen. Red tomatoes are changing color faster than I am able to pick them, but the beautiful, large heirlooms are dilly-dallying. Our pepper plants are growing into strong bushes, but the pepper fruits themselves are slow to mature and color. Our watermelons, cucumbers, and beans are growing along steadily, but are taking their sweet time. All these wonderful fruits and vegetables will be ready for us to harvest eventually, but it just means that you can't stop thinking about and enjoying the Summer season quite yet. The kids may go back to school and the fair may be over, but there is still much to look forward to as far as good, fresh food is concerned.

Farm Stand Now Open!

2009-07-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

After much anticipation and thought, the Redwood Empire Farm Road Side Stand is now open!

Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 3-6 pm

Location: Our Farm

Middle Rincon Rd and Hwy 12
Santa Rosa, CA

If you want to look us up on mapquest, our physical address is 55 Middle Rincon Rd, Santa Rosa, CA (however don't send us mail there, we won't get it!).

We are selling an abundance of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, eggs, basil, beans, and have so much more to come.

Please pass the word along to your friends and neighbors - we can use all the word of mouth help we can get.

Hope to see you all soon!

Open House and Farm Tours!

2009-05-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

We would very cordially like to invite you to come check out the farm on Sunday, May 24th. You can see how our garden grows, check out the chickens, and ask any questions you may have. We will have somewhat formal tours beginning at 11:00 am and 2:00 pm, however feel free to come any time between 11:00 and 4:00. You're welcome to bring any friends or family, however we kindly ask that you leave your canine friends at home (we have far too many chickens roaming around). So, come for a tour or just pop by to see where you will be coming to pick-up your chickens and where the upcoming FARM STAND will be.

To recap, here are the details:

Farm Tours and Open House
Date: Sunday, May 27th
Time: 11:00 -4:00
Tours begin at: 11:00 and 2:00
Location: 55 Middle Rincon Rd, Santa Rosa, CA 95409

Please park in the gravel parking lot next to the feed store. I anticipate having a sign out, so our location should be very clear.

Snacks and beverages will be provided.

If you have any questions, please email us at RedwoodEmpireFarm@live.com or call Jeff at (707) 953-8671 or Ariel at (707) 953-6150.

History repeats itself...

2009-04-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

History and time flow in cycles. Fifty years ago, practically everyone with the space had a backyard garden. Gardening, especially veggie gardening, was an essential aspect of life. Folks knew what real tomatoes tasted like, they knew just how amazing fresh picked sweet corn is, and they understood the seasons and the importance of canning and preserving in order to eat a well-balanced diet year round. Then, with the rise of the shipping industry, our concept of seasonality started to dissapear. We became subject to our desire for instant gratification and started eating fruits and vegetables from all over the world all year long. Factory farming and mass production made everything accessible, but simultaneously stripped the nutrition from our food and made it far too easy to know nothing about producing our own food. We became a society of people who want, need, feel like we deserve to eat tomatoes in winter and who eat out five nights a week.

The past five years (maybe more) have seen a swing back in the other direction. The locavore was born, thank God, and we've begun to realize the cost of industrialized farming, shipping our food from all over the world, and expecting to get what we want when we want it without having to do anything ourselves. Authors like Barbara Kingsolver and Michael Pollan have reaffirmed the merit of eating simply and locally.

Now, with the economy such as it is, eating local is even more important. It's not just good and "green" to shop at the farmer's market or grow your own garden. Before too long, buying local and producing your own food might just be the only way to get food at all. We're so happy to have been practicing our locavore ways over the past however many years because now, when it's really important, we know what to do. It's really not that difficult to be a locavore. The first step is getting used to asking lots of questions because it's not enough to think that something is local...you need to know. The second step is to seek out people who value and subscribe to a locavore philosophy (the farmer's market is a great place to start!). It's much easier to cause real change when it's a movement by thoughtful, motivated people. Next, you use your hard earned dollars to support your local food warriors. The more people believe in us farmers and choose to support us, the more we can produce and the more we can lessen our dependence on non-local sources.

What a Winter!

2009-04-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

Ariel with the lucky boar of Florence

Jeff at the farmer's market in Florence

Nothing puts life in perspective quite like traveling. Jeff and I both love to adventure and so we jumped at the chance to take a trip to Europe this last January. We loosely planned our journey and set out with backpacks to conquer the land across the pond.

The first stop was Amsterdam. I must say that I was surprised at how much I liked the city! For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who were taller than me...even the women! Thank God the Dutch speak English though, because there was no way I was going to be able to figure out how to pronounce the language. Way too many achs and fhgjghjs.

After Holland we headed south, to Rome, then Florence, La Spezia, and Turin. The $5 Pizza Margherita officially ruined us for any knock-offs here in California. I think we went to a farmer's market in every town we visited and man, were they incredible! I thought that those of us in Northern California had a healthy appreciation for greens and unique vegetables, but the Italians put us to shame. We brought back a bunch of seeds and are planning on growing some incredible varieties of greens, basil, tomatoes, and peppers. And the cheese...don't even get me started. I think the most incredible thing about the food in Italy is that it isn't at all pretentious. They are so accustomed to high quality produce, cheese, cured meat, wine, and coffee that they don't feel it necessary to make a big deal out of it. For them, good food is a part of everyday life. I also felt that the Italians understand that oftentimes, the best food is the most simple food. We ate at a little place in Florence and befriended our waiter who had worked for a time at Tra Vigne in St. Helena. The waiter told us that he didn't understand why Americans liked Michael Chiarello and why we are so obsessed with the food network. He suggested that we make too big a deal out of simple things - like teaching classes on making sandwiches (his words, not mine). I think he is right, though. Some of the best things are wonderful because they are simple. Pizza Margherita, for example. Good crust, a little sauce, fresh mozzarella, and a sprinkle of basil. So basic, yet so good. Or, my favorite, pain au chocolate. Basic croissante dough and ordinary dark chocolate. So basic, yet delicious! Alright, I have to stop the food talk because it's making me hungry...

After Rome and Florence, we headed to the slow food capital of the world, Turin. I'm not going to waste much time on Turin, but I will say that I feel that we embrace the Slow Food movement here in a much more genuine way than they do even in Europe. In California, we understand eating local to be eating food from our town or county. In Italy, local is eating food from Italy and Italy is a pretty big place! The Europeans haven't embraced the organic movement nearly as much as we have either. Jeff and I couldn't help but laugh when we visited the pinnacle of the Italian Slow Food movement, a grocery store aptly named Eataly. Any of our local grocery stores put it to shame in terms of how many local, organic, artisan, and sustainably produced products are carried.

Next stop was France. Nice was nice, but rainy. I think I did the impossible and overdosed on Roquefort cheese. Apparently you can have too much of a good thing. We checked out the farmer's market in Nice and it was similar to those in Italy. The biggest difference was a focus on spices. I think I saw literally a hundred different interpretations of herbes de provence.

After France, we trained it to Barcelona, Spain. We ended up stuck in a wind storm on a train for 10 hours right outside of Barcelona. Since neither Jeff or I speak Spanish, we didn't know how to ask the people on the train with us what was going on or where we were, so we just sat there. After many hours, our fellow train riders realized we didn't speak Spanish and attempted to tell us what was going on. They couldn't believe that the crazy Americans had sat there for that long when we were so close to our destination. We finally made it to Barcelona, though, and we were so glad that we did! The city is everything people say it is: colorful, vibrant, energetic, spirited, ALIVE. Next time we go to Europe, we're definitely going to become better acquainted with Barcelona.

So that was our trip in a nutshell. We went, we saw, we ate, we conquered, and now we're back and so happy to live in Sonoma County. We truly are blessed to call this place our home.

Seasons Changing

2008-10-26T15:34:00.000-07:00

The inevitable is happening. The growing season of summer is coming to an end. Tomatoes and peppers are running out and making way for all that green stuff that is so healthy for us. In my cooking, basil gets replaced by parsley and garlic and salads of fresh, tender, flavorful lettuces and greens become a staple.

Even though it's sad to say goodbye to the sweet flavors of summer that I love, fall is a time of year to which I look forward. Shorter days end in cooler nights. The air is crisp and fragrant and everything seems to have a golden glow. I start to long for the comforting smell of wood smoke and feel myself craving the companionship of my favorite sweaters. On the farm, the fall is especially magical. We pick the last of the tomatoes, peppers, and figs wistfully, knowing that the flavors will be all the more special because soon they will be gone until next summer. Green is everywhere - chard, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, arugula - the color being so predominant that the neon colors of the chard stems, the brilliant purple of the cauliflower heads, and the reds and yellows of the beets stand out like Vegas lights. And then there's the turkeys. They run and eat and gobble as though each day is an adventure, which it no doubt is.

This weekend was a bit of a lull for us at the farmer's market. The gradual transition from summer to fall is a subtle pause, a chance for Jeff and I to catch our breaths, find our bearings, and plan for the last month or so of the season. We are by no means finished for the year. You can look forward to the piles of summer produce being replaced by equally magnificent piles of greens, a bounty of winter squash, beets of all colors and shapes, lettuces, arugula, and a few different varieties of broccoli and cauliflower. You'll still be able to find us at the farmer's market in Santa Rosa on Saturday mornings and in Sebastopol on Sundays, although we'll probably be bundled up a bit more and struggling to stay caffeinated enough.

I am so thankful for everyone who I have met through the farmer's markets since I began helping with the farm. Every person has a personality all their own and has shared something unique with me. I'm so happy to know you all and look forward to the rest of the year.

Sold out until Spring

2008-09-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

All I can say is wow. We have sold out of chickens in an unprecedented amount of time. The response to our chicken venture has been incredible and we are so thankful. It makes such a difference to have happy, nice, appreciative customers who value what we're doing. Unfortunately we've had to turn people away, but it has shown us that we really need to revise our method so we can do more chickens at a time. We are planning on expanding to two movable pens in the spring, that way we can have either twice as many chickens each cycle or chickens twice as often.

And in case you didn't make it to the market this weekend, pepper season has arrived and the tomatoes are still awesome. We've also been planting our fall greens, so your bodies don't have to wait too much longer for delicious and nutritious chard, kale, arugula, and spring mix.

That's it for now. Keep it local and keep it healthy. Go outside and enjoy the day!

Chicken Time

2008-09-11T18:39:00.000-07:00

It's that time again! Our baby chickens are almost grown and ready to meet their maker. They will be available September 24th, 25th, 27th, and 28th. That is Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Saturday's chickens will be available for pick-up at the Santa Rosa Farmer's Market. The birds should be between 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 pounds and the price is still $6.00 per pound.

You should also note that this is the LAST BATCH OF CHICKENS FOR THE YEAR. We have 80 birds available, so we highly suggest that you stock up for Winter and buy multiple birds. Chickens freeze really well and we have been told that freezing does nothing to compromise the quality or flavor of these birds. We recommend using a vacuum sealer if you can, but it isn't necessary.

We will be taking orders at the Farmer's Market on Saturday, but I suggest that you email us at Redwoodempirefarm@live.com to place your order TODAY!

Tomatoes, Chickens, and Turkeys...oh my!

2008-08-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our first official "blog"! My hope is to use this as a means of keeping in touch with all the friends of the farm and to let everyone know what we're doing. So what are we doing? Well, right now, when I walk into the barn, I get a little confused about what kind of farmers we are. We have two brooders, side by side, that are home to 25 baby turkeys and 100 chicks. These little guys receive more TLC and attention than you can imagine. Jeff is constantly checking on them and is trying to find the absolute best, most revolutionary way of poultry farming. For example, certain that they benefit from the vitamins and nutrients, he's turned the turkeys into tomato lovers. Hopefully he doesn't live to regret this when they're free ranging in the field and trying to get to the heirloom tomato plants. The turkeys will be raised until Thanksgiving, at which point they will become the centerpieces of some very lucky households. The chickens, on the other hand, will become dinner in about 6 weeks. You wouldn't believe how fast they grow. One day they're babies, the next they're monsters. Amazing!

In addition to the birds, we're still in the middle of the summer crops. Actually, we feel like we haven't really been able to capitalize on summer yet because of this bazarre weather. In case you haven't noticed, it's been mild during the day, cool at night, and foggy - weather that is more characteristic of spring and fall and not summer. We've been harvesting tomatoes, which have tasted great, but there are so many more still on the plants waiting for some heat in order to ripen. We're also anticipating our peppers. We planted about 12 different varieties of sweet and spicy peppers, which we should be able to start harvesting within the next few weeks. And in the midst of all this summer stuff, we're also starting to think about fall. That means that I have been seeding up a storm. Chard, kale, lettuce, beets, and all the other cool weather veggies are starting their lives as we speak.

So that's the farm update for now. I'll keep you informed about the birds and the veggies and I hope to see you all at the farmer's market. Right now we're selling at the Santa Rosa market on Saturday morning at the vet's building and at Petaluma's Wednesday Night market. See you there!