We’ve had a busy couple weeks off, catching up on paperwork, preparing the farm before the rains, chasing escaped goats, and fixing fences. (I have a new respect for the occupation of cowboys riding the fence line. It seems that there’s always some place the animals can manage to get out if they want to.) The drainage system on the hoop houses at our Lewis Rd. ranch is working well, and the three parcels we farm all came through the last deluge just fine.

We have been named one of three finalists this year for the Leopold Conservation Award. The Leopold Award recognizes “extraordinary achievement in voluntary conservation on the land of exemplary private landowners.” It is given by the Sand County Foundation, in conjunction with the California Farm Bureau Federation and Sustainable Conservation.

from Jeanne and Steve

We had a lovely time at our Harvest Fair and Pumpkin Patch last Saturday. Thank you to all those of you who were able to come, as well as all of our wonderful volunteers. The weather was perfect, the cider press was a big hit, as was the music, the food, the face painting, the crafts, the hayrides, and the bunnies, ducks, goats, cows, horses, and bees. Some pictures below; plus, Chef Andrew has written up recipes for all of the great fair food that we had to offer at the event.

I took a walk through the pumpkin patch yesterday (the leaves are starting to die back so we can actually get through now and see what’s there). The pumpkins have sized up and are turning from green to orange, which is always a relief a few weeks before our Harvest Fair and Pumpkin Patch.

Half of our home farm is in a conservation easement—it can never be developed or farmed and our goal is to restore this area to as natural a state as possible. It’s a work in progress.

We have offered flowers with the CSA shares for as long as we have been farming, at first for everyone and then as an optional add-on. We have always enjoyed having flowers to feed the soul while the vegetables feed the body.

As an organic farm, we’re always looking for natural ways to combat insect pests. In the 15 years or so that we’ve been farming we have rarely resorted to using any of the wide assortment of organically approved pesticides that are available.

This is the first year that we are able to use our new hoophouses on the terraced field at our Lewis Road ranch. As with all big farm projects, installing the hoophouses took longer and cost more than expected, but so far we’re delighted with how they are working out.

Steve’s off at an organic fruit growers’ conference in Leavenworth, Washington this week, so I’m holding down the fort and hoping to get through the week with no major emergencies (like the broken mainline irrigation pipe last week).

I’m going to keep this short this week, because we’re going through our first renewal period with our new sign-up system and it’s been a busy few days!

If you are on the quarterly schedule and haven’t yet signed up for Session 2, you need to do it by noon today (for Wednesday deliveries) or noon tomorrow (for Thursday deliveries) or you won’t be on the list for this week. Go to Manage Your Account, log in with your e-mail address and password (have it send you a temporary password if you don’t know your password), then navigate to Add Share and choose “Session 2: Early Summer.”

We enjoyed meeting some of you at our spring farm tour last Saturday. It was a beautiful day for walking around the farm and seeing what’s growing. Here in this picture, Steve is showing off one of our new hoophouses. He talked about the mechanics of using the hoophouses to extend the season and improve the growing conditions for heat-loving crops like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. We could see the stark difference in the size of the plants that were growing right outside the hoophouse compared to those on the inside.

When people think about the difference between growing vegetables organically vs. conventionally, what generally pops into their minds is that they are different methods of handling insect pests–conventional growers use chemical pesticides while organic growers don’t.

The warm temperatures this week are making things grow fast after all the stormy weather we’ve been having. The cauliflower is not maturing uniformly, so we’ll give half of you cauliflower this week and the other half next week. This is our first spinach and cilantro of the season and we’re harvesting off a new planting of kale. We’ll be getting head lettuce in probably by next week, but for now enjoy the salad mix.

When we did our subscriber survey last year we asked what your main reasons were for being part of a CSA. The choices were: to eat more vegetables, to support small sustainable organic farms, to get the freshest food possible, and to connect with where food is grown and support a local economy and community. There was also an “other” option which allowed you to write in your own reasons. All of the options got lots of votes (you could choose as many options as you wanted), but a lot of people also wrote in the other category: “to eat seasonally.”

Welcome, from Jeanne and Steve
The mild weather made our more limited winter deliveries almost easy for us this year, with relatively few days of harvesting in heavy rain and muck, but it looks like winter storms are blowing in this week in force, just in time for our first spring harvests!

This is the final week of the regular season CSA deliveries for 2011. But don’t let that stop you from getting your veggies! The Winter CSA starts in two weeks–if you are planning to sign up and haven’t yet, check the info below and sign up now.

For the past 14 years, we have been both farming and raising children. I’ve come to the conclusion that these two endeavors have a lot in common. Here are some of my basic tenets of farm-rearing.