2/5/25 Rain, Rain Go Away
That was quite the downpour we had yesterday after a stormy few days. We hope all of you are safe and don’t have much property damage. We have a couple CSA members who live near the river and knew they wouldn’t be able to get their boxes. We’re holding them until they’re ready on the farm. Please know, if you have urgent issues, let us know. We’ve done all sorts of flexing around storms, floods, smoke and even COVID and if needed we will flex for you, just let us know.
Saturday night there was quite a lot of wind after some saturated soils. We lost a mighty Live Oak at our fence line. Surprisingly for such a tree fall, there was minimal damage. It went down because it was leaning tremendously for sun as it is in our dense Oak Woodland area. It fell right between three fences in an area that we had just cleared of blackberry brambles last autumn and were getting ready to plant a new hedgerow. Now I’m considering using the wood to create a Hugelkulture berm to plant into (wood with soil over it to decompose slowly). Our son Lucas has already started to chainsaw it off the fences and will continue today after school. It took out 40 feet of fencing with our neighbor vineyard and 20 feet of fence with our uphill neighbor, who also lost a tree nearby that had intermingled roots, our joint fence is 8 feet in the air.
Then yesterday, the mid-day downpour that must have dropped a few inches of rain in an hour gave rise to a tremendous waterfall of run-on water onto our farm and yes, we did flood. We also have a sink hole that has opened up this winter as a result of gopher tracks in our grass parking lot and that was made expanded. Anyone who comes to the farm today will see our gravel road is a little worse for ware. We’ll wait until late spring to fix it. We’ve done the fixes we can just now.
Not surprisingly, our bottom lands flooded to their high water mark. Farming on the slopes into the Atascadero valley bottom, a flood plain, this is no surprise, this is Mother Nature’s way of slowing and sinking it. Sadly it doesn’t work as well because instead of a meandering mashy area, the Army Corps of engineers dug a channel which we now know as the Atascadero Creek which made most of this land passable and farmable. Atascadero is a Spanish word for wet muddy place and it used to be like a smaller Laguna de Santa Rosa. But with the valley as it is, we’re ready for the flood every year and we flood a little most years, but it’s not been to the high water mark in 2 years. We do not grow food crops in these fields in the winter (another reason we’re more lean in the winter months, we lose 1/4 of our field space) for if flood water comes in the crops are no longer food safe. We instead plant cover crops in these beds. This year, thanks to a dedicated crew, we have more beds in cover crops and more kinds of cover crops than ever before. So if you look at the photos you’ll see green grass and you may wonder where the fields are, but this green grass is a mix of oats, rye, barley, peas, vetch, clovers, and more! These work to feed the soil through winter photosynthesis, but also hold the soil in place with their roots in these times of flood.
Waitlist is OPEN
If you have friends who have been on our waitlist, please let them know to check their email and sign up soon or reach out to me. We only have 2-3 more year-round CSA spots for the year and then we’ll continue to take seasonal CSA Members. We’ve offered a spot to everyone on the waitlist prior to Jan 15th. In a week we’ll be waitlist free. We appreciate how many of you recommend us to your friends. Feel free to continue recommending this spring as we’re expanding the CSA.
Produce Notes & Recipes
This Week’s Box
Escarole (Classic) OR Frisée (Family)
Spinach (Classics) OR Arugula (Family)
Mystery Green (SFF & Fledgeling Farm)
Masquerade Potatoes (Suncatcher Farm)
Bulb Fennel
Chesnok Red Garlic
Family: Brussels Stalk
Thankfully we’re out of the Persephone Period…. That means fewer than 10 hours of sunlight per day. That means our plants don’t have enough photosynthetic energy to really grow. They should start up again as long as we have sunny days and not too cold of nights. We’re seeding and planting like wild for spring, first Tomatoes and Cucumbers were seeded this Monday!!!
We are a little sparse today so there are several items in a big mix so we have a split on our Chicories Escarole and Frisée as well as on bagged greens. Plus we have a Mystery Green today which includes quite a lot of Savoy Cabbage, a mix of greens (Chard, Collards or Dandelion from our friend and SFF Alum Alice of Fledgeling Farm) plus Mini Romaines from Alice for Families. Bringing in some greens from Alice gives her an outlet when her CSA is finished and also helps us out. Alice is also helping us with some labor this month and next, you may see her at our Farmers’ Market booth in Sebastopol.
Pasta and Greens (Verdura by viana La Place)
Note that Chicories have the ability to turn the water in which it cooks into a flavorful broth. Many other greens would work well in this recipe.
1 large head Frisée Endive or Escarole
3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
pinch of dried red chili pepper flakes
4 c water
salt to taste
1 c imported tubetti pasta (or other)
2 oz dried ends of Pecorino Romano cheese, cut into small chunks
Freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese
Wash the greens well and chop coarsely.
Place olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes in a soup pot. Sauté over low heat until the garlic is fragrant . Add 4 c water, bring to a boil, and add a little salt to taste (remember Pecorino Romano cheese is salty). Stir broth and then add the chopped greens. Cover and when the water returns to a boil, add the pasta and stir well. Add the pieces of cheese and stir again. Cook until the pasta is al dente.
Ladle the soup into shallow pasta bowls. Serve with grated Pecorino Romano cheese on the side.
Today’s box has the last of our Masquerade Potatoes from Suncatcher Farm. These bi-colored beauties have moist, white flesh that works well baked, mashed or fried.
Maybe you can enjoy them with our last round of Chesnok Red Garlic! We wish we had more of this for CSA, but we’re growing almost double for next year. We also just yesterday received back data from a study with our Extension agent and UC Davis that showed our garlic beds have some of our most diverse predatory beetles on the farm. This is a great thing for keeping pests (especially slugs) away!
We lost all of our outdoor Bulb Fennel to the deep freezes we had but we have this wonderful crop that was in a hoop house and we’re thrilled share with you. Although I love it in a salad (and it’s great on an Escarole or Frisée salad) here’s an idea for it on Polenta.
Polenta with Fennel, Tomato, Greens and Cheese
(Based on NYT Cooking)
Note: The recipe included 16 oz Red Pepper but I omitted and used a bag of Mustard Greens but it would be great with a lot of the greens in this week’s box from Chicories, Dandelion, to Collards, I would add lighter greens at the end of cooking veggies. I also used roasted and frozen tomatoes from last summer instead of fresh.
1 16-ounce fennel bulb
1 tsp olive oil
Bag Mustard Greens, washed and chopped
8 oz ripe tomatoes (or frozen or canned)
8 large black Greek olives (omitted)
3 ½ cups no-salt-added vegetable stock or broth
¾ cup instant or fine ground polenta
2 ounces plus Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, to make about 3/4 cup coarsely grated
⅛ teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Wash and trim the top branches and the bottom from the fennel. Slice the fennel bulb very thinly into rounds, and then slice the rounds into julienne strips.
Heat a medium-large nonstick skillet until it is very hot; add oil, reduce heat and stir in the fennel, cooking until fennel begins to brown and soften.
Wash, trim, seed and thinly slice the peppers, and cut slices into small pieces; add to fennel, and continue to sauté over medium heat.
Wash, trim and cut up tomatoes; add to vegetables when peppers have begun to soften.
Pit and cut up olives, and add. Cover the pot; reduce heat to simmer, and continue to cook until the vegetables are tender.
In covered pot, boil stock.
Grate cheese.
Slowly stir polenta into boiling stock, reduce heat to medium-high and cook until mixture thickens, just a couple of minutes.
When polenta is cooked, stir in the cheese, season with salt and pepper, and top with the vegetables.
Lastly, Family Boxes have the last of our Brussels Sprouts this week! Enjoy them, they need a little love but are lovely underneath. Sorry… this is what Brussels look like in February. They are now done. We’ll have a few more going to markets but that’s it.