At the end of the road where we farm in Monterey County, there are two shallow ponds in the shady bottom of a small valley. In the thirty-plus years that he has lived there, our neighbor Keith, the beekeeper, had never seen the ponds dry up. But last year, dry up they did, and with all of the rain we have gotten so far this season, dried up they remain. For me this serves as a useful gauge of just what a serious drought we remain in. The rain so far has been great–but much more is needed.

Those of you who are long time newsletter readers will recall that we have been involved in the effort to transition organic strawberry growers into using organically grown starts. The problem we are facing now is that virtually no organically grown planting stock is currently available and the standards allow growers to use non-organic plants when their organic counterparts aren’t available. To make a long story short, there was an organic plant nursery (Prather Ranch) that grew beautiful plants for a four year period between 2005-2009.

We hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving!

Welcome to the winter season of every other week deliveries. During the last harvest the crew found these three carrots intertwined, which we are taking as a good omen for the season ahead (displayed here by our packing shed manager Aquileo at our harvest party.)

It’s hard to believe another CSA season has come to an end. This week we’ll deliver the final boxes for the regular season. Next week we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving and then we’ll take some trips to visit colleges with our eldest daughter. (This is quite a milestone. We leased our first few acres and started farming the year she was born. The kid and the farm are both growing up!)

The National Weather Service is calling for some substantial rainfall during the early part of next week—which we are delighted to hear about. It’s been just about a perfect fall so far. We’ve had enough rain so that we haven’t had to irrigate much during the last few weeks, and out on the grassland, things are greening up fast. At the same time, the storms so far have been spaced far enough apart to allow us to get in with the tractors and do the things that need doing—cultivating, preparing ground for cover crops and planting a few last vegetable crops.

“Severe Drought, Heavy Rains Hamper Pumpkin Crop,” read the headline in one of the ag papers we get. Steve pointed it out to me, “That about sums up farming right there.” Our pumpkin crop did fine here, though, and the cows and goats are now enjoying what’s left of the jack o’lantern pumpkins. The rain we did have last week was about perfect – a nice soaking to help our cover crops and the pasture grasses along, but not a gulley washer. Now we just need it to continue to rain like that once a week or so through the winter.

This is the time of year when the scheduling details for the CSA get a little confusing, so I’ll try to clarify how the logistics work for deliveries, sign-ups, and payments this fall.

There are four more weeks of regular season deliveries — these continue until the week before Thanksgiving. November 19 and 20th are the final delivery days for the regular weekly season. There will be no deliveries Thanksgiving week.

We are moving into winter planning mode here. We’ll be seeding some fields with cover crops before the expected rain this weekend at our home farm, and utilizing this rain to prepare our Lewis Road soil (which needs a bit more moisture to plant into) for sowing cover crop seeds next week. Our winter cover crop is typically a mixture of bell beans, vetch, oats, and peas. These crops are allowed to grow through the winter before we mow them down and disc them under in the spring.

This is the time of year when we really start to keep an eye on the weather.

The strawberries are going to be hit and miss from now on. The heat did a number on them last week, but they are rebounding surprisingly strongly. With possible rain in the forecast we may lose some of this ripening fruit.

Thanks to those of you who braved the heat to come out to the Pumpkin Patch on Saturday. We enjoyed seeing you, and the goats and cows loved all the food and attention. We donated 100% of the pumpkin sales (over $800) to Linscott Charter School.

The high pressure zone and the heat that accompanied it during the later part of last week made life interesting around here. Normally our proximity to the coast (two miles) takes the edge off of most heat spells,

Usually this time of year we are gearing up for our big Harvest Festival, which we’ve done for several years with the help of volunteers from Linscott School in Watsonville. The event has been a great success and fun for everyone.

As we approach the official end of summer, things are really getting dry out on our grassland and the surrounding hills. There’s a sprinkle of rain in the forecast — hopefully much more will come. While the slough we live beside (Harkins Slough) has maintained its water level due to some upwelling groundwater, the other fingers of the Watsonville Slough system are getting noticeably drier every week.

Some of you will receive “new” potatoes in your box this week. These are simply potatoes that have been dug before the skins have set and the plants have dried down. I remember an English customer at a Farmer’s Market once who asked if my potatoes were “English” new potatoes, as if the name implied a specific variety. In fact, they can be from any variety—this week we are digging Desirees.

It’s been a mixed year for the pears. After a beautiful early lush bloom in spring, they developed fireblight that nearly killed many of the trees. It hit some varieties much harder than others, though, and the varieties that pulled through are producing a nice crop of fruit. The Hardy Buerres and the Seckels came through almost unscathed, and we’ll be alternating these with strawberries in the boxes as our strawberry production is going into a bit of a slump.

We’re enjoying some beautiful August days here on the farm. We’ve cut the water off on our winter squash and pumpkin fields. Over the coming weeks we’ll let the plants dry down and the squash fully cure before we cut the stems and pack them in totes for winter storage. It’s always a bit difficult to see what you have got, in terms of yield and quality, until the plants have died back, but at this stage things look pretty good.

We’ve been busy this last week trying to get caught up with maintenance on our tractors and trucks. It’s always a challenge at this time of year because the trucks are out on the road most days, and the tractors are out in the field. One of the big advantages in having our own shop, as humble as it is, is that, in addition to saving us a lot of money, it is simply quicker and easier to do routine maintenance ourselves rather than having to shuttle a truck to an outside shop and back. And I can have my feline helper with me.

The tomatoes look great and we are right on the cusp of having lots of them, so expect to see them in the web store soon. This year we planted several new varieties including grape and “San Marzano” type sauce tomatoes and they all are loaded with fruit. This is the third year that we have used the single stem method of training the tomato plants in the greenhouses and every year we have gotten a little better at it.

Last week I discussed some of the farm practices we use, relating to soil fertility, seed purchases, and pest control. But one of the biggest differences between growing vegetables organically vs. conventionally is how we deal with weeds. Conventional growers often use chemical weed killers before planting their crops (or even after the crops are planted if the crop is resistant to that weed killer—like the genetically modified “Round-Up Ready” crops.) Organic growers control weeds through only non-chemical methods.

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. Rather than spraying a crop with something that will impede or kill a targeted pest, most of our pest control methods are more indirect. We rotate a diverse array of crops in small plantings through the different fields of our farm so that pests don’t get to feast on large blocks of their favorite food over a long period of time in one place.

As a CSA farm, we get a lot of questions about how we grow our vegetables. In this article I’ll address some of those questions at least in a general way.

We are certified organic by CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers). While in some cases the rules to qualify as certified organic don’t go far enough, they do go a long way towards addressing many of the concerns that consumers have.

Most of my work for the farm involves communicating with people from behind a computer or phone, so when an opportunity comes up to step out a bit and mingle with people face to face, it’s a real thrill! I had three such events recently.

June is one of those months where all the different farm tasks come together and everything has to be done right now. The harvest is in full swing, with vegetables and berries ripening quickly and needing to be picked and sold. The weeds are also growing in leaps and bounds, requiring hoeing and tractor cultivating to keep them from overwhelming the crops. Meanwhile seeding and planting has to happen for the fall crops or we’ll miss the window for those. And everything needs to be kept watered and monitored for pest and disease problems.

Outside of the early problems we had with red lettuce aphids, we have had very light insect pressure so far this season. The cabbage aphids, which were so bad last year that we had to disc in several plantings before harvest, have only appeared in a few areas and in light numbers. And I have yet to see a single flee beetle this year.

The summer weather pattern has taken hold here. While those of you who are inland a bit are feeling significant heat, we are enjoying our cool foggy mornings in the 50s with warming into the high 60s or mid 70s mid afternoon. Much of what we grow really loves this weather, we don’t need to water as much, and it’s easier to work outside in the cool weather than hot, so we don’t mind. But be prepared if you come out for the u-pick this Saturday with a sweatshirt and long pants.

Berries, Berries, Berries!

We’ve still got plenty of blueberries coming in and are ready to do some strawberry u-picks as well. We’re making the first three Saturdays in June U-Pick days – June 7, 14, and 21 from 10 am to 4 pm.

Things have cooled off greatly since the hot spell that we had a couple weeks back, but its effects are still evident around the farm. The two-spotted mites, which are one of the largest pest problems for strawberry growers in this area, reproduce at a much greater rate when temperatures are high. We’ve had to release more of the beneficial, predatory, persimilis mites to combat them than we normally would have.

I always enjoy walking through the greenhouse during the busy season. There’s something about seeing all the colorful baby plants that makes me feel hopeful about the future! We now have two greenhouses where we plant the seeds that we’ll later transplant out into the field. Starting most of our crops in the greenhouse instead of planting directly into the field has several advantages. For one, germination is never 100%; it typically ranges from 50% to 90%.

Tonight, Steve and I will be going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see presentations by local teens on environmental projects they’ve been working on during this school year. The program is called the Student Oceanography Club, and it combines monthly informational meetings, monthly field experiences, and team conservation projects. Our daughter and three of her classmates formed a team this year and have worked hard on a restoration project by the wetlands on the neighboring property. Amelia and her friends have been interested in environmental action for some time, and had already formed their own environmental group they called TREE (Time to Rescue Endangered Earth) with our older daughter.