We love partnering with some of the amazing non-profit groups doing work in food and farming throughout the Bay Area. We wanted to tell you about a few with whom we’ve been sharing. We’ve are thankful that we are well positioned to give what is needed in specific situations. Your support allows us to share where we can.

We had a delightful time welcoming CSA families onto the farm to this past Sunday at our CSA Member Event. We recognize the weather wasn’t optimal and so we had small groups.

We had fun learning about bluebird nests, looking for insects, but also learning about our farming practices, checking out the produce and much more. Surprising, one young CSA member has learned a secret of our farm, we host an amazing number of 4-leaf clovers. She hunts for them when she picks up on Wednesdays. We do plant a lot of clovers in our roadways but aside from that we have no idea why we have this blessing. She herself found 17 four leaf clovers (and a new friend found at least a dozen) plus they found ONE 5-LEAF CLOVER! That is the biggest news of the farm this week.

We hope you’ll join us for our CSA member Event this weekend.

Sunday, April 14th: 10:00-12:00 or 1:30-3:30.

It looks like the rain will be done and we should have good weather. We’ve only had 10 RSVPs so I’m going to stop with that and just say COME if you can. But please do come within one of the time slots.

• Come dressed as a favorite pollinator or insect

• Bring a picnic snack or meal

• Discover who lives in our hedgerows

• Take a sensory or micro hike

• Explore the Enchanted Bamboo Forest

• Test out some tasty produce right from the field

• Learn about Bluebirds and their Nesting Boxes

• Learn about pollinator plantings

• Take some pollinator friendly flowers home to plant!

• Take a Farm Tour with Farmer Elizabeth

With Spring Equinox last week we’re thrilled for the increasing day lengths. Increasing day lengths means that our plants receive more hours of sunlight, which through the work of photosynthesis they transform into food. The plants use this fuel to grow, to feed the biology in the soil, and to feed us with their shoots, leaves, buds and fruits. As such you can understand the paramount importance of hours of sunlight for our farm. We are truly Sunlight Farmers, capturing as much as we can with our plants to produce our bountiful CSA boxes.

In the past two weeks we’re thrilled to report that with lengthening days, we planted our first 3 beds of Summer Squash (all in protected hoop houses) plus we got our first 3 beds of Tomatoes in the ground! Early Girl, Moskvich and Sungold Cherry Tomatoes. More will come next week if the weather allows.

Next week we will saying goodbye to a Lisa who after three years farming with us will be taking on managing the operations of the farm at Harmony School in Occidental. Her farming will provide not only educational opportunities for their school but also fill the kitchen with healthy food for their school lunch program.

Last week Noah with Elizabeth hosted our first farm workshop (photos on right). Now will continue to help us make them happen but will also start as new Garden Coordinator managing Ceres Project’s new 1.5 acre farm in Petaluma.

This Monday we welcomed not one but two new full-time people onto our crew for the year, Jose and Ashlyn. This is in addition to Maddie who joined us in January and Elle who joined us part time the end of 2023. We’re so excited for this new energy, they bring a lot with them including farming and no-till farming experience from Healdsburg, Alaska and Chile plus non-profits. At the end of the day Monday there were literal whoops and hollers over the day. “We just had two more people but it felt like we got double the work done.” Okay so the weather the last two days and today certainly has helped (it’s been glorious weather for farming), but we all love working with a good group of farmers who want to grow food, learn, share and be together.

This year we’re excited to bring back more farm education and events. We invite you to join in a way that works for you. With the help of our current crew plus long time CSA member Carol we’re designing two CSA Member Only Events and quite excited about these. These are free of charge to you and are just intended to get you out on the farm enjoying and sharing. You, our CSA members are the heart of our farm, we want you to be able to come and see what’s happening. We’re excited about our CSA Member Pollinator Day, plus farm tours, workshops and more.

On a dreary, rainy day (with more coming) let’s start by talking about something bright and cheerful… FLOWERS!

Flowers are important to us for a myriad of reasons. Just as chemical free, nutrient dense produce is important, it’s important in flower growing and flowers are about 10 years behind organic produce. Most flowers that are found in markets are imported from South America and with long distances to travel and very little oversight (it’s not food so the rules are much more lax) the chemicals on them can be pretty atrocious. You should not be smelling these flowers or putting them on your dinning table, they’re toxic. All the while buying local flowers (beyond being chemical free) supports our local farmers.

2024 will bring something big back to our farm, a return to more on-farm education at Singing Frogs Farm. We’re excited. For years we held multiple intensive workshops and in some years even had a thousand people out to the farm for various workshops and tours. The pandemic shut that down and health issues in the Kaiser family haven’t allowed it to return, but now it’s time. We’re thrilled to have support from a former crew member Noah who not only knows the ins and outs of this farm but is great at education, plus we also have support from so much of our current crew, who enjoys sharing what is so deeply meaningful to them.

Happy New Year! We hope you’ve had some good time with family or friends over the deep of winter.

Every winter we get excited for the slower time of year to focus on “Winter Projects”. Often these projects focus on maintaining farm infrastructure. In Spring, Summer and Autumn, as is typical for farmers, we are so busy with the work of producing food that we use the slower time to do this upkeep.

Photo collage shows fixing structure with ripped plastic from winter ‘22/23 storms, taking down the old, putting up the new and building new doors.

2023 has been quite a year but one thing is for sure, our CSA has been tremendous. That means you. Our CSA has been a larger percentage of our production than ever before with higher membership and more of you through this winter than we’ve ever before without reducing like prior winters! We’re so grateful for you. The CSA is key to our mission of bringing nutrient dense food and connection to our local community. Working to solve the world’s problems one cabbage at a time. Thank you for joining us in this, we know there are other options and we’re honored to have you. It’s been a challenging year but you are a highlight!

Monday was a big day as we went LIVE with online EBT/SNAP abilities for our CSA. Although the ability to pay online with EBT has been legally allowed for two years, it is such an onerous process, only large retailers have been able to reach those customers. We are one of the first small farms in the USA to achieve this!