So long, Redman

I love winter skies. Even though this “storm” didn’t ever pan out, the stormy-looking sky was a lovely consolation. We’re still hoping to get some rain the end of this week. On my walk around the farm I came across dozens of ladybugs in all stages. This picture shows a pupa on the left, and on the right is a ladybug freshly emerged from its empty pupa case. It’s good to see the ladybugs gearing up for the season!

This year we’re saying a fond farewell to the 11 acres we’ve farmed at the Redman House for the past decade. The property, on which sits the beautiful but dilapidated late 19^th century Redman Hirahara House, is being sold, and we are losing our lease there.  In the early 2000s the non-profit Redman Foundation purchased the property, with the intention of restoring the house and creating a demonstration farm around it. During the economic downturn they were unable to raise the money needed to either restore the house or pay the mortgage and the property was foreclosed and returned to its previous owner (a real estate company called GreenFarm). GreenFarm has continued to lease the farmland to us on a year to year basis since. What the new owners will do with the property is unclear—they also have purchased the property across the street and have plans to commercially develop that piece. The Redman property is zoned agricultural, however, so it will presumably continue to be farmed.

The silver lining for us is that this paring down of farmland will help us to be more efficient. We never expected our Redman lease to last as long as it did, and we acquired our 23 acre Lewis Road property in 2010 so we would have enough farmable ground when the inevitable sale happened. We couldn’t be happier with our Lewis Road piece, with the hoophouses helping with season extension, and the well drained soil suitable for earlier spring planting than our home site. We’ve added a few acres we’re leasing from the Santa Cruz Land Trust on the property adjoining our home farm, so we have more than enough farmable land. Now we can remove some of the inefficiencies of moving equipment and sending our crew to three different sites. And, we’ve arranged to move the farmstand we currently operate on the Redman property down the block to the Annieglass parking lot on Riverside Drive.

We’re ready and excited for a new season to begin, and can’t wait to start harvesting some of the spring veggies that are growing out in the fields (not that I’ll ever get tired of kale and fennel.) The strawberries are coming on nice and early with an occasional ripe berry already! The freshly mulched blueberries are also flowering and starting to set fruit. The greenhouse is full of starts and the in-field planting is all on schedule. We’ll take a couple weeks off to let things mature, and then the regular CSA season begins on March 18^th and 19^th!