Farmer Elizabeth was interviewed for Savoring Sonoma: The Hour which aired this past 7/14/24 on KRCB 104.9, Northern California Public Media. If you missed it, you can certainly still listen to it on their site (above). They switched dates on us, otherwise we would have written about it last week.

Host Clark Wolf is hilarious and I was smiling and laughing through much of the production as we had fun talking about growing fresh food, nutrient density and farming but also singing frogs looking for their lovers and much more. I hope you’re able to listen, and find it entertaining.

We made a really big change to our farm eco-structure the last two weeks specifically for our hoop houses. We are taking out two very large Cottonwood Trees that we planted 17 years ago from little saplings pulled out of Paul’s mom’s yard. They have grown so much that they completely shaded one and half of a second of our hoop houses (we have five total). It’s been sad, really sad, and it lets in a little more wind, but it’s been necessary. We are also leaving a tall stump thoughtfully, recognizing that these riparian trees will sprout back up in a big bush, which is honestly just what we want.

But check out the view from above!

It’s been a hot full week. Hopefully this sleeping honeybee at dawn all covered in fresh dew is refreshing to you.

This week’s newsletter is only Produce Notes & Recipes.

The end of June is a hard time because there is so much anticipation for summer produce including tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and fruit. We need patience. There are a lot of green and small fruits on all varieties. Our tomatoes and peppers especially look really good and are starting to be loaded with lots of small and green fruit but it will take a couple to few weeks at very minimum for them to be harvestable. This cool and cloudy weather does NOT help unfortunately.

Our Tomatoes have had more love, pruning and early trellising that most years. You will have weeks and weeks of Cherry and Heirloom tomatoes plus the ability to purchase bulk tomatoes, it’s really August and September as their season, get ready! We hope you can come and see Sunday. The Peppers likewise have had more pruning…

Singing Frogs Farm hosted the North Bay Farmers gathering last night. We had almost 70 farmers from Longer Table, Coyote Family, Open Field, Three Springs, Front Porch, Beet Generation, Fledgling, Filigreen, Paul’s Produce, Strong Arm, Little Wing, Chiatri de Laguna, Little Saint, Yagi Sisters, Shone, Costal Land & Livestock, CAFF and a few others plus of course crew from Singing Frogs.

We’re excited to invite you to our second CSA member event of the year.

CSA Member Summer Farm Day

Sunday, June 30th 10:00 am - 1:00 pm

It’ll be a Pick-Nic Party…

• Light Pick-Your-Own Berries! Including some Blueberries, Mulberries, Strawberries;

• Pick-Your-Own n Cherry Tomatoes;

• Pick-Your-Own Flowers (just a few varieties)

• Bring a Picnic brunch, lunch or snack

• Explore our farm from small bugs, to crops to hidden spots

• Adult and Kid Farm Tours

RSVPs desired. Please email Charlie and let Elizabeth know.

The heat is the topic of the moment.

On the farm we are used to heat waves in May and June, foggy mornings and cooler days in July and August and then heat waves again in September and October (interspersed with frosts). As such we adjust our crop plan to have a wider diversity of crops in the spring (especially lettuce and other light greens) because a heat wave will make each variety act differently and we might have 2-3 successions of one variety bolt but another variety not. As such, today you have one of our spring varieties, Vulcan.

But this heat wave is stronger than we’ve had before. I don’t think we’ve hit the high nineties in the first week of June in our last 17 years (it got up to 98 on the farm yesterday). We’ve had frost and we’ve had rain but not 98 degrees!

Many of you may wonder why our email address is Charlie the Llama yet we don’t have a Llama. We had a Llama the first 11 years of this farm who was beloved by all, he was super sweet, loved getting kisses and greeting CSA Members. When he passed (at the ripe age of 24) our CSA Members told us to keep the email address and so we have.

Read more about Charlie and our other animals…

The big deal this week is that we’re planting our first round of WINTER SQUASH this week! Hundreds of feet of Delicata, Red Kuri and Black Futsu! The second round will include Butternut and Kabocha plus more Delicata! We only are just coming into our Summer Squash plants and yet our mind is on Winter Squash. That’s farming for you, you’re living both in the present but also 6 and 9 months in future!

We’re trialing something new out this year. A lot of the squash are going into beds that have a lot of weed pressure. Some are being planted into black plastic but we’re also trialing seeding a low growing clover at the same time as a living mulch. We’re excited about this trial.

Pictured is Red Kuri Winter Squash plus Cauliflower and Fennel for today’s boxes.

The heat wave of last week had us feeling like summer. Now this week, it’s back to spring weather but we’re very focused on summer crops at the moment.

We’re exceptionally excited to have our first Cucumbers coming in. We have two beautiful successions coming along with the next one just germinating in the nursery! Our hoop houses are stacked with all our Peppers and Eggplant PLUS a more full Summer Squash planting than last year. They’re beautiful.

Every week we Curate a Box of a mix of what’s seasonal and growing on the farm. The weather and season are absolutely reflected. For instance because it’s early May we have a lot of light greens right now and salad is big. But generally we follow a recipe that includes: a head lettuce, a bunching or other hearty green, in the winter and spring a light green as well, a root (Daikon is filling this this week), something with weight (squash, broccoli and onions this week), an herb, fruit when we’re able (about 1/2 weeks) and something else seasonal. Now this flexes a lot. In high summer we will have tomatoes weekly and our fruit might be rotating cherry tomatoes and strawberries. In winter our weight might be winter squash and fruit meyer lemons. Family boxes will usually receive 1-2 additional items and/or bigger of other items, they usually have the most diversity. For instance if we harvest a crop of cauliflower, some heads will be twice the size of the average, these will go to Family Boxes. Lastly we absolutely track what goes into the boxes and their value, which we based on Farmer’ Market value. We might have a box that’s a little less in value and will make sure to bolster a box soon. We also make sure we keep a diversity of products going into your boxes. If you ever have a question about what’s in your box, don’t hesitate to ask.

Today, May 1st, is Beltane or May Day. A celebration of the peak of spring and certainly fertility! Technically it’s half way between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. We are feeling it on the farm. The days are already long and everything is growing at a tremendous speed! Put a flower in your hair, dance around a May Pole or just enjoy the sound of the buzzing pollinators and the bright green fresh growth on life around you.

Welcome New CSA Members

We’re excited to welcome round 2 of new CSA Members for 2024! We have a total of 40 new members joining us this year in three rounds and 130 members continuing from last year (or many years). With all this new energy, we’ll focus on some basics in the newsletters this time of year.

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.