The French called tomatoes “pomme d’amour” or Love Apples, and I agree, what is there not to love about tomatoes - this year’s crop of dry-farmed tomatoes with it’s “alluring” deep red colors are bursting with “seductive” rich flavors. Saturday’s Tomato U-Pick was testimony to how much we love tomatoes. The image that brings a [...]
After a few weeks of relative quiet here on the farm we are excited to resume our weekly delivery of winter shares. My own rhythm has slowed considerably and mimics that of the farm. Plants move nutrients more slowly during winter, which results in often sweeter and more pronounced flavors. Carrots become crisper, and when [...]
On Earth Day like on any other day most of us eat 1-3 meals. Eating a meal, this humble ritual, affects not only our own physical health and well-being but collectively, as a human community, it is arguably the most important activity affecting the health of our planet. Most of us “Eaters” are so removed [...]
"Of all the natural resources, water has become the most precious...In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to the most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference." Rachel Carson, Silent Spring Overhead sprinklers irrigating a field of carrots. [...]
The most exquisite experience on the farm at the moment is to pick a perfectly ripe apricot right off the tree. The craving for these delicate, aromatic, and sweet fruit is almost irresistible, just trying to write about it makes me want to walk out and get one. Perfect ripeness is hard to describe, it [...]
The season’s first rainmaker is predicted to approach the Central Coast this Friday and Saturday. Although no more than 1 inch of rain is expected to fall, it is enough to give us some drought relief. After almost six months of harvesting every single day, we are tired and dream of slowing down a bit [...]
While some crops, like raspberry and blackberry canes, remain in the same place for a couple of years, as the season progresses most crops are rotated through the fields. Take a walk with us to see the changes. In January 2013 this portion of field was flooded, and now there are rows of raspberries [...]
Together with my daughter, Elisa, I explored this season’s first maturing pepper field in search of the coveted “Chiles de Padron”. Although still a couple of weeks out before we have enough to put in the shares, we were able to fill a paper bag to enjoy for dinner. First Padron Peppers The [...]
With every passing week the workload is ratcheting up another notch. The increasing number of tasks mimics the abundance in the field and, since most of them are manual by nature, work often starts at dawn and sometimes doesn’t stop until dusk. You will notice green beans and red raspberries in your shares this week. [...]
It feels as if the season is turning into summer a little earlier than usual … yesterday I was fixing an irrigation line in one of our apricot orchards and was surprised when a branch of orange fruit caught my eye. These 'cots may look ripe, yet they've got another week or two to [...]
