Theme: Elaine Swiedler

News from the Farm | December 2, 2024

a field at sunset

Somehow it’s December and we find ourselves almost at the end of another year. Time flies when you’re having fun. And/or when you’re really busy farming. We’ve got this week, next week, and then a four-week break (until the week of January 13).

The weather and surroundings make it clear that seasons are changing. The sun is noticeably weaker, and it gets dark so early. The trees have been turning colors and losing their leaves. The hills haven’t yet turned green, and the fields of cover crops have yet to germinate, so things are looking a little brown. We know that things will look very different very soon, but it takes time. 

Now that things are drying out, we can do more transplanting (lots of starts in the greenhouse!), planting (plenty of summer crop fields that need cover crop seed!), and taking down summer fields (mowing, pulling drip tape, etc.). There’s plenty to do when it comes to getting the farm ready to take a break, and last week was too short and too wet to get anything done. So it’s a good thing we had a few days off for Thanksgiving to rest up before the final sprint over the finish line.

One sector of the farm that doesn’t take a break and doesn’t slow down are the animals! Meet Ireland (as in Bells of Ireland – his family members have flower names) born to Violet in the middle of the rain storm on the 20th! His cuteness is a good teaser for the avalanche of lambs coming our way in February.

In the CSA realm, I have a few things of my own to do to wrap up the season.

The first is the annual reminder that if any grey/green boxes have ended up at your house, please bring them back to your CSA site this week or next. Which of course necessitates the reminder that grey/green boxes are not supposed to leave your pickup site – please bring bags, or some other container or box, to take your produce home.

But more importantly, a lot of thank-yous are in order: 

  • First, to the many individuals, stores, and religious institutions who serve as our pickup sites so that we have a place to deliver our boxes!
  • Second, a big thank you to the many generous members of the CSA community who have donated a box (or more) this year. With your generosity, the Charlotte Maxwell Clinic in Oakland received five boxes each week, and we have subsidized $3200 in CSA payments via our Good Food Community Fund to new and long-time CSA members in need of financial assistance. We appreciate your donations and hope we are able to continue to give back to the community in the year ahead. 
  • To the nice messages, fun updates, and feedback we get. It’s great to know what the CSA means to you. The photo below arrived in my inbox last week from Larissa with the note “Second generation Full Belly butternut squash – the vine grew out of our compost!”
  • And lastly, to the amazing Full Belly crew, whether in the field, shop, office, or delivery truck, who make the CSA happen, five days a week, 48 weeks of the year.

Elaine Swiedler, CSA Manager

picture of a pie

News from the Farm | November 25, 2024

transplanting tulips on the back of a tractor

A telltale sign that we’re about to get our first big fall rain is every tractor in use and everyone operating at a slightly frenetic, faster than usual pace. 

Last Monday and Tuesday, every tractor on the farm was accounted for: mowing fall crops, turning over beds, spreading compost, planting cover crop seed (until long after dark – that’s why tractors have headlights!), transplanting, and planting tulips. We even squeezed an all-hands-on-deck hand transplanting effort in the rain on Wednesday before the soil got too saturated. Did we get everything done before the rain arrived? No – the list of tasks is too long. But we still got quite a lot done, and then got quite a lot of rain, 8.5 inches between Wednesday morning and Saturday morning. 

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News from the Farm | November 11, 2024

corn in the field

I wanted to share a letter we got a week ago from a CSA member:

On Wednesday, we picked up our CSA box. As my husband was prepping the corn, he found a little corn worm. Our kids (5 and almost 3) love caterpillar friends, so as we have done many times, we put the little guy in a mason jar with some food and placed him in our kitchen for the kids to enjoy. He was promptly named Caterpilly. We also got to talk about how other animals and insects we share our world with enjoy the same food we do and how great that is. We love our CSA box, and I wanted to share this story because it is so much more than food that comes in those green boxes.  

Keep doing what you are doing. 

Thanks, Meghan

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News from the Farm | November 4, 2024

Rainbow over a green field

What’d we do last week? Here’s just a few things (a complete list would go on forever) with photos – thanks to Andrew, Becca, Dru, and Mizu for sharing their pictures!

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News from the Farm | October 28, 2024

closeup of chard bunches

This week’s Beet – a short video showing how the many bunches of beautiful, delicious chard last week got from the field to your CSA boxes. Those of you who didn’t get a box missed out!

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News from the Farm | October 14, 2024

This time of year, we’re harvesting and curing winter squash. When the squash look ready, we stop watering, then we cut the squash from the plants, line them into rows, then after a few days in the field (the exact number depends on the temperature) we pick them up and store them in bins until they’re needed. The few days in the field is called curing. While curing, extra moisture evaporates, hardening the squash skin and concentrating sugars in the squash. It also slows down the respiration rate of the squash, which is essential for long term storage. Curing also helps heal cuts and scratches and seals the stem. The hardened skin creates a protective layer that will help preserve the squash. Some squash need additional ripening time in storage for the best eating quality.

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News from the Farm | September 30, 2024

Scenes from the past week:

The transition from fresh flowers to dried. The 2024 CSA flower season has come to an end. Thanks to all those who got a bouquet! There are still some fresh flowers out in the field, but this week, the flower team will need to spend some time with the dried flowers to make sure we have wreaths ready for the Hoes Down on Saturday. After that, we can turn our focus to making wreaths and mixed bouquets for CSA members, farmers markets, and stores!

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News from the Farm | September 23, 2024

Now that we’ve passed the autumn equinox, it’s officially fall, but with a few 100+ degree days this week, it’s not quite sweater weather just yet and we haven’t slowed down. There is SO much going on right now; a full list of activities would go on for pages, especially if we included all of the many things, big and small, that go into planning and executing the Hoes Down Harvest Festival, now less than two weeks away.

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News from the Farm | September 16, 2024

The fall equinox is this upcoming Sunday and we’ve got a week of cooler, autumnal weather in the forecast. In order to have something to harvest when summer crops slow down, we have to plant in the August and September heat. Hot temperatures stress transplants and many seeds won’t germinate in high temperatures, so cooler temperatures are very welcome. Otherwise, we have to be vigilant with watering, using our sprinklers to keep the soil damp and cool enough for seed germination.

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News from the Farm | September 9, 2024

Whew – another week in the summer sprint done!

Some notable moments from last week included:

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News from the Farm | August 19, 2024

Farming requires being very aware of the current conditions (weather, crops ready for harvest, etc.) all while thinking about the next day, week, month, season, and year. In August, we start pivoting to fall. We’re undeniably still in summer, even with cooler temperatures over the weekend and continuing into this week, but autumnal elements are starting to creep in. Here’re a few examples from the past week:

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News from the Farm | July 29, 2024

July is always a very busy month, when seemingly everything is ready to harvest. Plus there’s the heat. Last week and the week before have included many long, hot days.

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News from the Farm | July 22, 2024

There’s a regular rhythm to each day, though every day here is different, largely influenced by the time of year, and the day of the week. During the summer, everything is taken up a notch, not just the temperature. There is a lot of produce to water and harvest and only so many hours in the day to get it done. However those two Herculean tasks, tending to crops in the field and harvesting, are just part of what keeps us busy. A huge part of what we do is packing the produce, flowers, and other goods and then figuring out logistics to get everything on the correct truck so that everything arrives to its intended recipient. There’s no point in carefully growing great produce, and harvesting it at prime condition if it won’t get to you, or doesn’t arrive in good condition. 

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News from the Farm | July 8, 2024

Full Belly watermelon (orchid, yellow doll, and sugar baby) at the Guinda Fourth of July potluck

I think there’s only one word to describe last week: HOT. The coolest high temperature was Monday when it still got above 100, and it only got hotter as the week went on. Being outside when it’s 110 or above feels similar to the blast of hot, dry air you get when you open the door of an oven. Except that you can’t close the oven door, and you still have to work and get things done at home (including cooking), and for us, our work is outside. 100 is a standard summer temperature for us, and it’s also fairly normal that we’ll have heat waves for a week or two (here’s a chronicle of a few past heat waves), but that doesn’t mean that it’s comfortable or easy.

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News from the Farm | June 24, 2024

The solstice was last Thursday so now it’s officially summer. But even without looking at a calendar, we knew it – it tastes, looks, feels, and sounds, and smells like summer. 

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News from the Farm | June 17, 2024

We’re just at the start of the peach season, and while every variety is a little different, it’s fairly safe to say that we’ve got a small crop of peaches. In this case, small refers to the size of the fruit, not the total amount of fruit. 

Why? I checked in with Andrew to get the scoop, plus some farm history and insight into farm decision-making.

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News from the Farm | June 10, 2024

Farming is more than a full-time job, but somehow between a busy schedule of planting, weeding, harvesting, and farmers market schedules, we host folks at the farm to enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor and to take in the sites and sounds of the season. 

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News from the Farm | June 3, 2024

May is a busy month for us. It’s a crucial time for summer preparation, all while we’re in peak spring harvest, so a blur of activity and change. It’s the time of year where things happen fast; seemingly in the blink of an eye, the hills around us changed from green to golden brown and spring crops are either harvested or bolt in the heat before we can get to them. Fruit, like peaches and plums, are sizing up and starting to take on some color.

Here’re some photos and notes to show some of what we’ve been up to the last couple weeks of May:

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News from the Farm | May 13, 2024

Mother’s Day week has come and gone. It’s different from other weeks in May, or any other week during the year, because of the enormous number of flower orders. In total, the flower team harvested and bunched over 5,500 bouquets last week, about 3,500 mixed and 2,000 single variety. In comparison, the week before, it was 2,900 bouquets, 1,160 mixed. WOW! How’d they do it? What’re the secrets to pulling off this feat?

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News from the Farm | April 22, 2024

Last week was another very busy spring week: 

  • Planting and transplanting – over the past few weeks we’ve planted basil and the first melons, basil, tomatoes, and eggplants
  • Preparing other beds for planting, including mowing cover crops with tractors and sheep
  • It got pretty warm, and we got a long enough break in the rain that we’ve needed to start irrigating
  • Lots of weeding and harvesting
  • and more! 
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