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"Journal"
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One of the things I like to do over my morning coffee on rainy days is to look at the 24hr rainfall totals on the National Weather Service website.
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We have been a CSA farm since we planted our first 3-acre plot in 1997. The support we got from our early CSA members (some of you are still with us!) helped our farm get off the ground and beat the odds to survive for over two decades.
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When we first started doing the Sunday farmer’s market in Mountain View, Jeanne was pregnant with our daughter Amelia who will be 19 in three weeks.
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In our backyard we have a black mission fig tree which was probably an ill-advised choice this close to the coast.
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You will notice that the leaves on your Mei Quin Choi this week are flecked with small, pin-pricked holes. This is the work of the flea beetle.
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This week we are planting out the last of our vegetable transplants and the first blocks of overwintering cover crops.
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One of the things that drew me into farming in the first place was the fact that I could wrap my feeble brain around the basic transactional level of it.
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Every three or four years we replenish the mulch beneath the plants in our blueberry patch. It’s important for several reasons.
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No matter how conscientiously you go about it, there is no getting away from the fact that farming is inherently a disruptive activity.
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In the Ag History Museum at the County Fairgrounds here in Watsonville there is a picture of our home ranch back in its heyday as a grade-A milk dairy, probably from sometime in the 1940’s.
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As the weeks seem to fly by, summer’s progression for me is marked by a series of milestones–the hillsides turning from green to golden-brown, the harsh call of Caspian Terns returning to our area and the appearance
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I’ve long believed that one of the main distinguishing characteristics between city and county folks is their tolerance level for spiders. I have a vague memory of being squeamish about them when I first came to spend summers
When we first started using our packing shed, which used to be the milking parlor for the dairy that preceded us here, we had to deal with the problem of what to do with the vegetable wash water once we were through with it. 
The popular perception is that organic farmers are at a disadvantage most when it comes to dealing with insect pests. But in reality it is weeds that can bring an organic farmer to ruin in short order. 
The heat wave has passed and now we have our old comfortable friend the fog back again – drizzly mornings that keep temperatures in the cool 50s and 60s — the type of weather that makes this such a good climate for growing lettuces, greens, and strawberries. 
The blueberry bushes are kicking into gear! Each year we go back and forth on one of our perennial farm questions – to net or not to net. This year the ayes have it and the crew spent a couple days this week covering the blueberry patch with bird netting. That means there should be more fruit for you, so we’ve put blueberry flats on the webstore and set some dates for Blueberry U-Picks.
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I’ve always liked sweet alyssum flowers. We planted them back in our San Francisco community garden plot before we moved out of the city to start farming, and they made a lovely delicate ground cover that attracted the most beautiful little crab spiders. 
From about February on, the greenhouse is always filled with colorful starts. Seeds of lettuces, greens (chard, kale, mustard, collards, escarole), brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, romanesco), and herbs are planted on regular schedules into the greenhouse to be planted out for the many successions we will harvest during the year.
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For the first ten years or so of my working life I was employed in kitchens of one sort or another—first as a dishwasher and later as a cook. And while this may seem like an odd preamble to becoming a farmer, in many ways it prepared me well for what was to come. 
Awhile back I attended a workshop at Moss Landing Marine Labs concerning water quality issues in Elkhorn Slough. Elkhorn Slough is a large brackish wetland whose main channel starts at Moss Landing Harbor (about 10 minutes south of us on Highway 1) and winds its way inland and to the North over six miles.
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It’s about as busy as it can get around here. The ground finally dried out enough to get into most areas of the farm and we’ve been planting like crazy. You’ll notice we are depending a lot on our friends at other local farms these past few weeks. The heavy prolonged rains definitely put us quite a bit behind schedule.
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Dandelion, or “tooth of the lion” (from the French “dent de lion”) is sure not to be a glamour item on everyone’s table–it is too good for you, can be bitter, and can take a little work. Although it is said the name derives from its tooth-like shape, I sometimes wonder if it derived from the bite of bitterness these leaves can sometimes pack.
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Our new crates have arrived and this week all pick-up sites will receive their vegetables in crates!The barn swallows are back, which means spring is right around the corner! The greenhouse has a new roof and is filling with starts. There is still some rain in the forecast, but with enough days like today the ground will be dried out enough to get the tractors in soon (using the new 72 inch spacing), so these little lettuces and other greens can get out there in the real world.
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As yet another storm system overtakes the area and our already saturated fields become wetter still, it’s hard not to fall into discussions about the weather. But I’ve had enough of weather talk for now so I’ll fall back on the subject that comes next most readily to mind—nerdy farm equipment talk.
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All is right with the world again—Aquileo, who oversees the packing and greenhouse side of things around here, is back. It was touch and go in his absence. At one point we had both Jeanne and Amelia, our daughter, helping to pack CSA boxes before school in the morning. We got through it, but it wasn’t easy.
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Despite its intensity, the storm did little harm here. The cover crops and grasses all have a pronounced lean to the North, as though somebody passed a comb through them. 
The World Ag Expo will be held down in Tulare in a couple of weeks. My Uncle, Cousins and I usually attend once every two or three years. At 80 acres of show-space (essentially 80 football fields), it is the largest farm show in the world.