asparagus  (friday)

broccoli

cabbage

carrots

garlic

red russian kale

lettuce

new potatoes

peaches  (saturday)

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In contrast, Full Belly Farm has never been efficient at growing one or two crops because we grow one or two hundred of them, and the facts about why and how we grow so many different things don’t come in a straight line. If you start to ask questions about the crops and their byproducts, the relation of one crop to another, the use of the crop on farm or off, or the ways that the pieces of the puzzle fit together, you are likely to be found quite a while later stewing in a tangled mix of philosophy, theory and straight-from-the-fields know-how. 

At Full Belly we’re so excited about diversity – like our mix of flowers, vegetables, fruits, nuts, herbs and animal products – that we have even taken to thinking about our interns as “crops of new farmers” and our hedgerows as a way to grow “crops of pollinating insects!” It seems as if the “efficiency” here is more about the way that one thing builds upon another and how the whole relies upon the parts, than it is about yield per acre.  However, it is hard to describe this clearly in the linear language of economics or agronomy where efficiency is usually measured in terms of the production of ONE crop per acre.

There are always times when the integration of the parts into a smoothly functioning operation will be tested and found wanting. The aphids will be out of control, as they were this spring. The Johnson Grass will take over a field of asparagus. We pick green garlic that the store sends back… Sometimes these misfires seem like the result of trying to do too many things at once, or a misbalancing of competing demands.  Maybe these misfires happen just as often on other farms, or maybe not, there are probably different challenges.

The philosophy at Full Belly, the ideal that we strive for, is that reading and responding to the signals becomes less the ongoing and constant job of the farmers and more of a natural process that builds upon itself, improves with experience and sustains itself over time. We welcome all of your feedback and comments, and we are always glad to answer any questions that come up around your table!  Blessings on your meals.

–Judith Redmond

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Palo Alto Market crew summer 2004. From the left: Laura, Lois, Jan, Dru, Tony, Catherine, Rich, Alex (Jan’s little brother who was visiting) and Ali (in front).

Full Belly Farm crew, owners and extended community were together on Sunday to celebrate and remember the life of Lois Rivers, mother to farmer Dru Rivers and grandmother to Amon, Hallie and Rye Muller, all of whom work at Full Belly. Lois has been working at our Palo Alto farmers market every Saturday for 30 years, including the market a few days before she died. Her 3 children, 9 grandchildren and 2 of her 3 great-grandchildren were there for the ceremony to tell wonderful stories about her life. Thank you Grandma Lois for all you did over the years for Full Belly Farm!  We miss you so much!

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Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday & Friday –  4 boxes, $72, with flowers $102 (Home delivery – $100, with flowers $130.

Saturday – 5 boxes, $90, with flowers $127.50 

As a reminder, we must receive your payment at least five days prior to your box delivery. Call our CSA office at 800-791-2110 with any questions, or to make payment with a credit card

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We also have soup chickens for sale. (Temporarily sold out.) These are 2-year old egg-laying birds frozen and packed with heads and feet, that are great for making broth, soup or stew. The cost is $10, delivered frozen to select CSA sites. Sorry no home deliveries. Please contact Becky – becky@fullbellyfarm.com – if you are interested.

The post Lamb and Chicken Available appeared first on Full Belly Farm.

Join us for a farm tour at 11am and spend the day here at Full Belly. Bring a picnic lunch and see the farm in the early summer! 

The tour is approximately 1  1/2 hours long and may involve walking in mud, jumping across a ditch or two or exposure to all kinds of farm animals and insects. The tour will not be cancelled in the case of rain. Bring practical shoes, a water bottle, a hat and other appropriate gear!

You are welcome to spend the entire afternoon at the farm, so bring a picnic lunch! Splashing in the creek is encouraged. 

This tour is free and open to the public. The tours will leave from the main Full Belly office area at 11:00 am sharp. Please send your questions to Hallie.

The post Full Belly Farm Tour | June 2013 appeared first on Full Belly Farm.

We have some very pretty cabbage this spring!

On any given morning some people might be picking and others packing vegetables. At the same time there will be people trellising tomatoes, or weeding a field. Ricardo is using the tractor to lay two lines of drip tape into each bed, in this soon-to-be tomato field. In the foreground is a healthy field of potatoes.

In the week before Mothers Day our flower crew picked almost 3,000 bunches of flowers!

This is the crew that picks your asparagus. There is hardly any asparagus left, so they are moving on to potatoes.

Look at the size of those peaches already! Zepeda is tying ribbons to the trees in hopes that the birds will be scared away from the ripening fruit.

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Multiple problems led to Detroit’s current plight: Auto industry jobs moved elsewhere, the mortgage bubble burst and property values plunged, property tax revenues fell, and the city was not well managed. Now, having lost its ability to borrow money, the city is cutting services like transportation, street lighting, street maintenance, and fire and police protection. Once the fourth largest city in the U.S. with a population of 1.85 million, the population has plunged to 700,000.  

Michigan’s governor appointed an emergency manager for Detroit who started his state-mandated takeover in March. The emergency manager can break union contracts, cut pay of elected officials, remove elected officials from financial decision making, change labor contracts, close or privatize departments and even recommend that Detroit enter bankruptcy proceedings. What he actually WILL do remains to be seen, but the community advocates did not seem to feel a whole lot more secure now that he was in place.

No doubt it feels a little crazy to live in Detroit right now, but maybe out of this kind of darkness, a thousand flowers can bloom!  That was the feeling that we took home from our visit. There are now 1,400 urban gardens in Detroit, operating with little official support, on land that no one currently wants.  Transforming a vacant lot into a garden, they said, was bringing back pride and purpose to Detroit communities. Their goal was to feed themselves, feed Detroit communities and provide meaningful work and education.

Quite a bit of the abandoned land in Detroit has unclear title. In the foreclosure process, and with unpaid property tax, the city and the banks are often not even sure who actually owns some of the vacant lots that have sprouted urban gardens. But the gardens have appeared on vacant lots in every part of the 139 square-mile city and in an attempt to catch up with reality, Detroit in April passed an urban agriculture ordinance that adjusts zoning to make the gardens legal.

The wonderful transformative power that comes from nurturing a garden and harvesting and eating fresh food was shining bright in the stories of the urban gardeners in Detroit. Rather than abandoning the city to its decay, they were inspired and hopeful, gaining strength from each other and from their gardens.

– Judith Redmond

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