What happened last week?
The biggest news of the week was the birth of Georgia Schoenig on Monday, and everyone is healthy and doing well! Congratulations to Hannah and Elliot, and the rest of the Muller and Schoenig families!
Georgia isn’t the only new member of the Full Belly community. Our first lambs of the year (twins!) were born on Wednesday morning. As of Monday morning at 10:22am (it’s changing fast), the count is up to 30 adorable, fluffy lambs, a combination of twins, triplets, a few single births, and one quadruplet (so far). Lamb photos to come in future weeks.
We got a minuscule amount of rain on Tuesday, nothing substantial. The irrigation team has gotten back to setting up and moving irrigation pipes and we’re checking the weather forecast for future precipitation. We need more rain! Meanwhile, the first of the apriums are blooming (in the top photo) and the almonds aren’t far behind. Reminder: join us for the annual Almond Festival on Sunday, February 22. We’ll be in Rumsey with a farmers market stand and we’ll be making food.
One silver lining of the dry weather is that we were able to prep beds and do some transplanting and direct seeding. It was quite a sight to have three tractors on one field, two preparing beds for planting with a third (on the right in the photo) transplanting parsley, leeks, chard, lettuce, fennel, and kale). In the adjacent field, Hannah (the other Hannah, not the one with the new baby) was spreading compost on flower beds, just visible through the sprinklers.
The fruit team was hard at work picking navel oranges and pruning trees. This is the time of year to prune most deciduous fruit trees to stimulate growth and remove large branches. There’s an art to pruning and an ideal shape for each type of tree. For stone fruit, you want an open center, like a vase, to get light into the middle of the tree.
We also did a lot of harvesting (lots of carrots to harvest and wash) and the kitchen team was busy with marmalade and tea cakes (citrus and carrot). And that barely scratches the surface! For those who want a little extra reading, Amon and the Full Belly Kitchen were featured in last week’s Ag Alert publication from the California Farm Bureau!
Have a good week!
Elaine Swiedler, CSA Manager
