2015 Winter Week 9: Crop & Field Notes from Taylor and Laura

Taylor’s Crop & Field Notes:

The farm is particularly alive and green right now, thanks to that lovely warm rain we had a few weekends ago, and though it may still technically be winter the tempo these past few weeks is definitely starting to pick back up with the fields and orchards awakening early from the unseasonably warm weather.

We have large blocks of Romanesco cauliflower, rainbow chard, green garlic, and crunchy carrots coming on strong. I can’t believe it, but the early Chandler strawberries are not far off. The apricot branches are swelling – ready to burst into life in the next couple weeks. The tractors are working hard to prep fresh new beds for spring crops, and we are direct sowing seeds of spinach, radishes and various varieties of mustard greens.

We are all trying to relish these last few weeks of winter around the farm before things launch back into high gear for the start of main season CSA deliveries in April. Weekly restaurant, retail and wholesale deliveries have been on hiatus, and will begin again the first week of March.

During the seasonal CSA delivery break between winter and main seasons, we welcome you to come stock up on plenty of produce at one of the 3 year-round markets we attend: Santa Cruz Downtown on Wednesday afternoons; West Side Santa Cruz Saturday mornings; or Los Gatos on Sunday mornings.

The main CSA season is just around the corner…and it’s shaping up to be a great year ahead.

A rainbow of winter veggies at one of our Farmers Market stands.

Laura’s news from the greenhouse:

The warm weather we’ve been experiencing over the past couple of weeks has really helped speed things along in our greenhouse. Many of the seedlings for our staple crops (chard, kale, lettuce) are already being planted out into the field, and even the first of our spring specialty crops (summer squash and onions) are beginning to poke their heads out of their trays.

We’ve been embarking on a number of improvement projects to our greenhouse area as well, with a thorough cleaning of all our equipment, additional irrigation, as well as building some new structures to help improve the efficiency of work-flow with our vacuum seeder. We’re also trialing some new varieties of seeds, so keep your eyes peeled for things you may not have seen from us before. Good things lie ahead for us this season!