LEF (Com)Post

The rows in the foreground are covered in “remay” tunnels that protect crops, in this case lettuce seedlings, from frost.  The rows to the right in the middle field are planted with cauliflower, while the rows on the left, being sprinkled, are planted with radishes and Japanese turnips.

Well protected from damaging frost, the lettuce seedlings under the remay are thriving .

More mature cauliflower plants were sprinkled the evening before since water remaining on the leaves protects the plants by absorbing cold, creating an insulating blanket of ice crystals which keeps the plant’s temperature from falling too low.

This close-up, and the one below, of the cauliflower leaves shows the patterns the frost creates.

The cold weather slows growth and the plants create more sugars, which freeze at lower temps, to protect themselves. This is why winter veggies often taste sweeter than summer ones.

It got cold enough to freeze some standing water in a low patch of the road.

This garlic shoot is doing its best to shrug off some flakes of frost.

The frost is so thick in this blackberry row it almost looks like snow.

Frost rimed blackberry leaves.

These Brussels sprouts made it through okay, and will be all the sweeter for it.

The Lacinato (Dino) Kale has its own frost blanket. Notice how the leaves have been harvested yet the plant has been left to continue to grow. The harvest is extended by leaving the plant in the ground longer.

All puffed up against the cold, this hummingbird takes a sunbath on one of the Farm’s Meyer lemon trees.

Pictured here is a field of summer squash from a previous post on July 9th. It’s changed dramatically in just a few weeks.

This is the same field from the opposite direction. The squash leaves are almost completely covering the ground, and the plants are full of flowers and small squash.

The squash are tucked in, hidden under the leaves at the base of the plants. They grow quickly, and this particular squash will be ready for harvest in just a few days

This zucchini is growing in a field nearby the one above.

Lush and green, this is a field full of winter squash and cucumber plants.

While the winter squash are only just beginning to produce blossoms, the cucumbers are already on their way to being ready for harvest. Here’s a small pickling cucumber that will be in someone’s box soon.

The cucumber above just needs to reach this size for harvest.

Plants have wills of their own. This dino kale, looking healthy and strong, is a volunteer that came up in the middle of a field of leeks.

Bees bees bees. We can never have enough of them here on the farm. Whether they are feeding on an invasive thistle…

…pollinating a squash blossom…

…visiting a California Poppy…

…or making sure our blackberry vines produce berries, we love them.

In fact, there are now some permanent hives on the farm. These were placed here, and are managed by, friend-of-the-farm Patrick W.

Summer is a colorful time on the farm. Even the poison oak puts on its red dress.

Much preferred, though, is the red of our dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes. Are you ready for the U-Harvest on Saturday, Aug 24th?

While the Early Girls are already being put in the shares, with the August heat upon us it won’t be long before these Heirloom tomatoes will be ready for harvest, too.

In contrast to last year, this season has been a good one for our cane berries. Recently harvested, this blackberry row still has lots of ripening berries.

There are many patches of wild roses on the farm. This time of year, wild rose hips are adding their own bit of red to the landscape. Cup of tea anyone?

Sweet Lipstick Peppers peek out from under leaves in the pepper fields.

Though the apricot trees no longer have any fruit on them…

…they still bear small jewels. Protective sap balls form where a branch’s bark cracked or sustained some kind of damage.

Our Concord grape vines have been quietly working away…

…creating jewels of their own that will be ready for harvest in late September.

An obscure fruit, the quince are just starting to turn yellow and give off their wonderful fragrance. Difficult to use, these don’t appear in the shares very often, instead they go to Happy Girl Kitchen to be turned into quince candy and membrillo.

There are a number of hedgerow projects on the farm. This row was recently planted near the Heirloom tomato field.

The hedgerows contain native plants, like this penstemon…

…and this other variety of penstemon, too.  Their flowers are important attractors for pollinators.

What would a farm be without animals and other wildlife. This rooster is in with one of our pastured flocks. Though hens will lay eggs without a rooster, having one can help since they announce intruders, herd or lead the hens into the coop at dusk, and dole out any tasty morsels as evenly and fairly as possible (at least, a good rooster does so).

This is one of the goat kids born earlier this year. The kids are growing fast, and they’ve already become noisy teens bleating “hello, don’t you want to feed me?” as anyone walks past their enclosure.

Our farm dog, Chella, takes it easy in the shade on a hot day. She’ll be up all night chasing away coyotes from the hens and deer from the fields, so she deserves a good rest.

And speaking of wildlife, here’s one of our summer helpers, Noah, flying his chard flag high while doing his happy chard-dance.

This dry-farmed tomato field is looking very different from when it had a cover crop in March (below).

The cover crop was tall enough to get lost in during our Sheep to Shawl Event. Hold that ice cream cone high!

The very first ripe dry-farmed tomatoes can be found hidden among the lower leaves and branches.

Most of the tomatoes are still green though, or just starting to turn red.

There is quite a difference between these March fields and the July ones, below.

The raspberries (on the left) are green again, and the cover crops are gone – replaced by summer squash, kale, leeks, and chard.

The chard in this week’s boxes is most likely from the rows in the foreground, while the leeks in the back rows will be in future boxes.

Dino Kale anyone? This crop is looking gorgeous!

Field of young summer squash.

View from within the raspberry rows. You can’t see them, but the bees are busy buzzing among the raspberry blossoms.

The raspberries are soooo gooooood!

And the blackberries are coming on strong, too.

Here’s Adrianna with just the start of today’s blackberry harvest.

These yellow peppers….

… and these poblano peppers …

… and all this basil, are loving the heat we’ve been getting so far this season. Everything is ripening about two weeks earlier than last season.

And we can’t forget about the cherry tomatoes. The first, small harvest is going to the Farmers Markets this week. They’ll be in the shares soon, too!

Nearly six hundred apple trees were grafted earlier this year. This one was grafted in February.

Now it’s leafing out, and will be producing apples in future seasons.

Here are some fujis ripening in a more mature orchard. They’ll be ready for harvest sometime in October.

Warren Pears, which will also be ready for harvest in October or November, can now be spotted on the trees.

The cover crops in the upper fields (where Tom and Elisa played back in April) are now gone, replaced with…

… this corn field.

And last but not least, blossoms can be spotted in our pumpkin patch. Is it too early to mention Halloween?

The apricot trees are a riot of blossoms exploding like popcorn right now. Though we need more rain, keep your fingers crossed it holds off long enough for proper pollination and fruit set to happen.

We dream of a bumper crop of ‘cots this season since we haven’t had one in years.

Apricots are self pollinating, which is why you won’t see many bees buzzing from blossom to blossom. The blossoms smell amazing though, and if we could, we’d add a scratch ‘n sniff to the picture for you.

This is one of the many hedgerows planted on the Farm as part of a partnership with Wild Farm Alliance. This hedgerow contains ceanothus (California Lilac) and sage, among other native plants. There is a self-guided tour you can take that highlights more of these projects around the Farm.

This beauty is one of the few peach trees on the Farm. We have few stone fruit trees since our coastal climate is too moderate for them to grow and produce well. They do much better in the inland valleys, like the San Joaquin, which get colder during the winter.

So close you can reach out and touch them.

The yellow of mustard blossoms is a common sight in the cover crops we plant to recharge the soil and control erosion during the winter. Here it is competing with rye.

Mustard also provides cover and food for song birds during the winter. You may only see just the one, but you can be sure there are a dozen more hidden in there. They flutter and pop up like Jack in the Boxes as you walk past the fields.

Mustard, originally planted among apple trees that were removed (you can see some of the remaining ones at the top of the picture), has taken over this sloping field where we grew dry-farmed tomatoes during the last Regular Season. Mmmm … dry-farmed tomatoes. Is it August yet?

These are blossoms of an early blooming variety of pear tree. The trees that produce the Warren (French Butter) Pears that go in the shares have yet to bloom.

While pear blossoms look a lot like plum blossoms, there are differences. Notice the blush of pink at the tips of some of the petals and how dark the pollen is. Now, check out the plum blossoms in the next picture.

See how there’s no pink on the petals of these plum blossoms? The pollen is also yellow, rather than brown like on the pear blossoms above.

Plum trees have different growing patterns. Notice how the branches and trunks of these trees swoop around in curves.

While these plum trees send their branches shooting mostly straight upwards.

If you look closely, you can spot the places where the branches of this plum tree were pruned just a few weeks ago.

Quince trees make good root stock for pear trees to be grafted to, and that’s what these trees were originally planted for. Farmer Tom became fond of them, though, and decided to leave them as is. We’re so glad he did, because otherwise we wouldn’t have the quince candy (membrillo) their fruit gets turned into for us by Happy Girl Kitchen. This quince orchard is near Toasty 2, our cob oven that’s used during Community Farm Days to make things like pizza and apple tarts. Did someone just say, “Yum!”?

Unlike apricots, quince are not self pollinating, so it’s a good thing the bees love them. Here’s one coming in for a landing now.

It’s great how the quince blossom acts like a cup to keep the bee inside as long as possible to ensure good pollination.

Notice the “peach fuzz” on the leaf below the blossom. This same fuzz covers the quince fruit itself which is pear shaped, so imagine a fuzzy pear and you’ll have a good idea of what’s to come after this bee does her job.

At the very back of the Farm is a short wild-land trail where native wild flowers like this Western Hound’s Tongue can be found growing under oak trees near groves of redwoods.

This picture captures a patch of mustard in front of one of our apricot orchards on a hillside above the lower fields where we are growing veggies that will soon be in your share box.

Unlike the lack of rain we are currently experiencing, last year began with storms which flooded part of our Lower Fields.  By chance, the flooded area was in part of the fields planted mostly with cover crop.

Though there are apples from the previous Fall harvest in cold storage, January is the time when the trees themselves are dormant. This is when the trees were pruned in preparation for their next crop.

As the fields became dry enough, rows could be formed for new plantings. The green of cover crops just sprouting can be seen in the background, while the field in the mid-ground is full of transplants, and is pictured in other posts in July, August, and December.

Planted at the end of the previous year, cover crops go through their own progression. Pictured here are February cover crops in the Upper Fields. The mustard just beginning to bloom, while the rye and legumes have yet to reach full height.

While cover crops are planted in the fields, the orchards have their own carpet of grasses in February which are just tall enough for a bobcat to hide in.

Preparations for crops that will be harvested during the upcoming Main Season are made in February. These seed potatoes arrived in mid-February.

Dormant since November, late February is when the apricot trees begin to bloom as well. Beginning as tiny buds, it only took a couple of weeks until the blossoms burst forth (below).

By mid-March the apricots were in full bloom. And they weren’t the only thing blooming on the Farm.

The fields themselves can change very rapidly. These are the Lower Fields in mid-March; the rows that were bare dirt in mid-February now covered in seedlings.

And here are the same fields less than three weeks later. Notice how much the crops grew with the returning sunlight and warmth as Spring arrived.

These are the same cover crops pictured above. It’s the end of March now, and you can see how the rye overtook the mustard. The cover crops stayed in the fields another couple of weeks. Long enough for Tom and Elisa to have some fun in them.

During the last half of March, the apricots went from bearing just blossoms to having a mix of blossoms and leaves.

And by the end of March, small apricots were appearing. This is a critical time since the growing apricot has to shed the brown remains of the blossoms (called the jacket). Otherwise, the jacket can trap moisture and encourage a certain fungus to grow which damages the maturing apricot.

At the end of March we held our 4th Annual Sheep to Shawl event. The Lower Barn and surrounding area were prepped for throngs of people hoping to glimpse the sheep shearing, make some cool crafts, and eat some delicious food!

April is the beginning of Spring and our Main CSA Season. Green was the primary color as leaves burst forth on the trees.

As is typical, though, with our coastal weather, April began mostly foggy. The hens in one of our flocks were out and about enjoying the mild day.  They had to be wary though …

… since the low fog kept a red-shouldered hawk roosting nearby, until the day cleared enough for it to look elsewhere for prey.

Bees, like this native one, are an ever important component in farming.

The end of April brought a touch of frost, and the need to cover recent dry-farmed tomato transplants and other vulnerable crops.

Though the year had begun wet, there hadn’t been much more rain and by May we were having to irrigate the fields and, unusually, many of the orchards.  Pictured here is the main farm pump, and irrigation pipe ready to be placed in a recently planted field.

By the end of May the apricot leaves were looking hardier in preparation for summer.  In contrast, the once green grass was already brown.

The apricots themselves were plumping up nicely. It was shaping up to be a bumper crop.

Meanwhile, along with many other things happening in the fields, it was time to thin the apples in order for the remaining ones to reach a large enough size. This bunch would be thinned down to two or three.

By the end of May, the blackberry vines were covered in blossoms.

Blackberry blossoms are a wonderful combination of white and pinkish purple.  Looking almost tie-dyed.

June is the month when certain field crops, like crucifers, are tapering off and fruit, like the Santa Rosa plums pictured here, are ripening. It’s a transition time from Spring to Summer.

Our 18th annual Solstice Celebration was alive with joy and excitement. It was probably one of the best attended, and many visitors could be spotted harvesting strawberries from our Discovery Program garden prior to the evening potluck and bonfire.

The end of June was all about the Blenheim apricots. As we’d hoped, it was a bumper crop and we were able to hold a U-harvest day for CSA members to come and share in the bounty.

In July, the raspberry field in the middle-left of the picture looked very different from what it looked like in the pictures above from March. Leafy and green, the vines were now producing berries.  More raspberry vines can be seen in the upper right corner.

As much as farmers do their best to keep crop production consistent, every year still brings its own differences. While the raspberries were wonderful, due to unfavorable weather conditions there weren’t as many this past summer as there have been in previous ones.

It was an abundant summer for blackberries, though, which stepped in to fill the gap left by the smaller raspberry harvests.

The Farm also serves as a classroom, and this past summer it hosted a teen program by Food,What?! The help could not have been more appreciated as the season approached its peak.

The end of July brought consistently warm days, and heat loving crops like these Poblano (often called, Pasilla) peppers sized up nicely. It was a very active time on the farm, with crop variety increasing almost daily.

The first week of August brought a field visit from County Supervisor Kaputt, and it also brought the first dry-farmed tomatoes.

The summer squash field above was an abundant producer during August. The pickling cucumbers were in a nearby field.

While August crops were maturing in the fields, seedlings were being started in the greenhouse to stay on the planting schedule so there would be veggies to harvest in the upcoming months.

At the end of August, it was time to invite our community to the Farm for the summer’s first dry-farmed tomato u-harvest. We had a couple more scheduled u-harvest days, and the community field was open on Saturdays for harvesting all the way through October.

Tended to all year long, some apples were ready to harvest at the end of August while the majority of the apple varieties grown on the Farm, like these Fujis, were ready sometime during September and October.

The Farm’s annual fundraiser for its Discovery Program was held in mid-September. The event, Slice, celebrated the apple harvest and was a great success, exceeding the year’s fundraising goal.

It rained a little, just before the Equinox. Not enough to make a difference in whether we needed to irrigate or not (we still did), yet it washed the dust off everything for the change of the season.

October was ushered in by the harvesting of our pumpkin patch, reminding us we needed to prepare for our Fall Harvest Festival at the end of the month.

Like June, October is another transition month. There was still a large variety of crops available or becoming ready, like this Romanesco cauliflower which creates a nest of leaves in which the head will mature.

With no rain predicted in October, we were still irrigating fields like this one of Romanesco. This is the field that summer squash was growing in during August. Just beyond is the cucumber field, now covered in weeds and waiting to be plowed and planted with lettuce seedlings.

The angle of sunlight increases after the Equinox, and it takes on a golden tinge that triggers a response in the leaves of trees like these apples, causing them to yellow and fall.

The Farm’s Main CSA Season ended in mid-November. Plant growth was slowing as colder days arrived with the approach of winter, and the fruit trees entered their period of dormancy.  We began now to look to the beginning of our Winter Season at the end of the month, and further ahead to our next Main Season.

Reminiscent of the end of April, frost was predicted at the beginning of December. Once again, delicate crops like the lettuce in the field above were covered to protect them from frost damage.

April’s frost was light and quick. December’s was heavy and occurred on a number of nights in a row. This is the field of Romanesco that was being irrigated in October. With growth slowed, the heads may not be ready to harvest until late January or early February.