Theme: farm update

News from the Farm | March 2, 2026

March 2, 2026

Photo Credit Ella Galaty

This weekend I caught up on the phone with a friend who asked if it felt like spring yet. It was in the mid-70s on Thursday through Sunday, so the answer was an easy yes. But that’s not all – we’ve got abundant flowers and fuzzy lambs, to say nothing of the first spears of asparagus, blossoming apricot trees, almond and quince trees sprouting leaves, plus wildflowers showing up in the surrounding hills.

A glass vase of tulips with several tulips of different colors

First, the tulips. The tulips were planted in November and now they’re here and are in bloom. And they’re beautiful! Anyone who isn’t getting them is missing out! It’s fascinating to watch them open in a vase over the course of days, or even over a few hours if they’re in a particularly warm or sunny spot. 

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News from the Farm | February 9, 2026

February 9, 2026

So many exciting things from last week! It was a team effort to document all of them!

First, as promised in last week’s Beet, some photos of the new lambs. Thanks for the photos Becca!

They’re very impressive in addition to being adorable. Mere minutes after being born, the lambs are hard at work trying to stand up on their four (very wobbly) legs and after a few attempts, manage this herculean feat! As of 10:30am this Monday, we’re at 100 lambs, including 18 sets of triplets and two quadruplets!

Amon and Jenna’s cookbook is a month away from publication, but they’ve gotten an advance copy to peruse. It’s a stunning book, to say nothing of the lovely essays and headnotes with each recipe, plus the recipes themselves! You can see some of the interior pages here. You can preorder a book now through your favorite bookstore here, and after the publication date on March 10, you can get signed copies directly from us! We’ll be selling signed copies in our CSA Member Store, Online Farm Shop (for shipping), and at events. 

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News from the Farm | February 2, 2026

February 2, 2026

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.

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News from the Farm | January 19, 2026

January 19, 2026

We’re used to temperature shifts of 30-40 degrees during the course of a day, but I usually associate that with summer, not winter. But that was our weather last week: lows in the low 30s with highs in the mid-60s, even breaking 70 on Saturday! This requires some masterful layering to be comfortable throughout the day, and depending on how low the temperature goes, some adjustments to our normal routine. If it’s below freezing at the start of the day, we have to wait to harvest most crops until it warms up.

Note: all the photos here were taken after it had warmed up! 

Usually we get our first frost around the second week of November. This year it came seven weeks later, after New Year’s day. We appreciate the cold weather. This frost kills off our summer crops (peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes) that otherwise will slowly keep producing. We still had some peppers and eggplant on Thanksgiving! While the plants weren’t dead, we mowed them and planted cover crops in those fields before our break and the rain. Cold weather makes our root vegetables and leafy greens much sweeter; you can really taste it in the carrots. The frost also kills pests, both insects and summer weeds.

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News from the Farm | November 17, 2025

November 17, 2025

We think of the cooler months being a quieter, slower time. That was not the case last week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were spent trying to get as much done as possible before it rained. Thursday and Friday (especially Thursday when it was raining hard) were all about getting the harvest done as quickly as possible so folks could get home and get out of the rain and mud.

Amid all the rush and bustle, I did get a few pictures to capture some of that activity:

Paul planting winter cover crop seed after the sun dipped below the hills in the field that was the Hoes Down sudan grass maze. That’s why tractors have headlights! The grain drill was in almost constant use last week getting this very important crop planted. Learn more about cover crops and why we plant them here. 

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News from the Farm | November 3, 2025

November 3, 2025

This past Wednesday was our first olive harvest of the year. And what a day! The team of twelve harvesters got about 11.5 tons (23,000 pounds) of olives to press into olive oil. 

How do we know when it’s time to harvest olives? We’re balancing flavor and yield to get a flavorful oil with a decent amount of oil per ton of olives harvested. Green, less ripe olives yield less oil but have a stronger flavor (more polyphenols). Mature, dark olives yield more oil but have a milder taste. On Wednesday, we picked Leccino olives and Picual. The Leccino were more ripe, the Picual were more green. Oil yield varies significantly between varieties, and is also influenced by ripeness, moisture, and extraction processed. We generally expect around 30 gallons of oil per ton. 

We normally harvest olives by hand, using little rakes to comb the fruit off the trees. It’s an all hands on deck effort. You can see a video of it here. Last week, we did a modified machine harvest, which we trialed last year and found that it worked relatively well. We used the shaker that we use for almond and walnut harvesting to shake the trees, while a few folks whacked the trees with poles (another common olive harvest method). Fortunately, Andrew captured a video of the process!

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News from the Farm | October 27, 2025

October 27, 2025

What happened last week?

Rye and a hardworking crew planted next year’s strawberries on Thursday, 13,000 plants in total, all by hand. We had an amazing strawberry crop this past spring and we hope these humble looking crowns will do just as well, if not better!

After planting the crowns, the most important final step is to make sure that the irrigation lines are correctly set up to keep these plants hydrated and happy.

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News from the Farm | October 20, 2025

October 20, 2025

It’s fall and things are falling! 

We got almost two inches of rain last Monday afternoon through Wednesday morning!

Temperatures have fallen too. Last week got a little cold, even into the high 40s at night. The remaining summer crops in the field don’t look too happy.

Then there’s the walnuts and tomatoes. Lots happening, some of which is captured in this video:

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News from the Farm | September 15, 2025

September 15, 2025

It’s the last full week of summer – the autumnal equinox is next week! What’s happening as we wrap up summer?

Harvesting! Lots of things, including lots of gorgeous eggplant which went in last week’s CSA boxes. Look how tall some of those plants are! Some varieties have thorns too, making long sleeves and gloves a must!

We’re still going strong with melons. We have one more planting to harvest. Last year, that field was our summer flower field and you can see a few volunteer plants among the melons, like the amaranth in this photo.

It’s not just us enjoying the melons, the sheep are too! They clean up the field after we’re done harvesting and they make fast work of any remaining fruit in the field, plus the vines. 

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News from the Farm | August 25, 2025

August 25, 2025

As mentioned last week, this is the time of year to plant our fall crops. So far, we’ve direct seeded beets, carrots, and spinach (more about that process here), and have transplanted broccoli and leeks, with many more to come. These cool weather crops don’t like the heat, but we have to start them now. By the end of September, summer crops will be done or winding down and we need a new supply of produce to harvest for you, so we’ll be planting and transplanting a LOT over the coming two months. 

August is always hot, and September too. So how do we start growing cool-season crops during triple-digit summer days? It’s all about moisture management.

Seeds need a moist and warm (but not too warm) environment to germinate. They also need moisture. Too much water will rot the seeds, but they’ll fry if there’s too little. Water also helps with temperature control. Optimal carrot germination temperature is in the mid-70s, but if it’s over 100 degrees, as it’s been the past few days, the soil is far above that optimal temperature for all but a few hours. We also use floating row cover, the white, lightweight fabric in the photo above. Row cover is most often used in colder months to trap in heat and protect plants from frost, but a lightweight summer version reduces the intensity of the sun, similar to what the shade cloth does for our peppers. The particularly finicky carrots get the row cover, but the other direct seeded crops just get water.

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News from the Farm | August 18, 2025

August 18, 2025

While keeping incredibly busy harvesting summer produce, we’ve also got fall on our minds and lots of fall prep on our To Do lists!

We’re starting to cut and cure winter squash. The first samples showed up in the office last week. It happens every year around this time, but still feels like a surprise. And it also feels a little early to start cooking with winter squash, but regardless how we feel, they’re here!

Paul started planting potatoes (top left photo), the first brassicas (broccoli) were transplanted last week, along with a field of leeks (top right), and Andrew planted the first carrots on Saturday (lower photo)! The planting and transplanting will continue in earnest over the next few weeks. In addition to finding the time to plant, the trick is keeping these cool weather crops happy in non-cool weather. The carrots especially need a bit more tending to than some crops to germinate and thrive. They’ll get about an hour of water per day to keep the soil moist enough to germinate the seeds and we cover them with row cover to help keep in the moisture.

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News from the Farm | August 11, 2025

August 11, 2025

It’s estimated that there are 50,000 pepper varieties grown worldwide. We grow only a small portion of that diverse world. What we grow changes every year – I’ve conducted a pepper census and here’s the 2025 list: 

Sweet

  • Corno de Toro
  • Lunchbox
  • Jimmy Nardello
  • Sheepnose pimento
  • Shishito

Hot

  • Cayenne
  • Chilaca
  • Espelette
  • Jalapeño
  • Pepperoncini
  • Poblano
  • Serrano
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News from the Farm | June 30, 2025

June 30, 2025

We are a highly diversified farm, growing countless types of vegetables, fruits, and flowers and even within a single type of vegetable, often many varieties of each. We don’t just grow food for humans though; we’re also growing food for countless soil microorganisms and macroorganisms, including our sheep! 

Our sheep graze on fields of cover crops and vegetable crops (once we’re done harvesting them) but there are times of the year, especially in winter, when this isn’t an option so we feed them hay. For those who, like me, need a reminder, hay is cut green from the entire plant and is used for animal feed. It can be a number of different crops. We’re currently growing alfalfa for hay. Straw is just the dry stalks left behind after a grain crop is harvested and is used for bedding or mulch, not a food source. 

The Beet from two weeks ago (which you can read here) had a picture of the alfalfa crop mid harvest. After letting it dry, we got it out of the field with the help of two machines: a hay baler and a bale wagon. Here’s a video of Rye using both pieces of (very vintage and very loud) equipment:

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News from the Farm | June 16, 2025

June 16, 2025

This Friday is the first day of summer and we’re (almost) ready. The gang’s all here (almost). Last week, right on cue, several of the summer classics were ready to start harvesting. Too many to document but it gives a glimpse of what you can find this week at one of our Farmers Markets and hopefully soon, we’ll have enough to put in our CSA boxes!

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News from the Farm | June 2, 2025

June 2, 2025

Farmers love talking about the weather. With good reason – it impacts everything that happens here. In that vein: Friday and Saturday marked the first 100+ degree days, a milestone that often happens this time of year. According to the calendar, it’s still technically spring for a few more weeks and the forecast is showing cooler 90 degree days this upcoming week. After a month or two of real summer weather, even the mid 90s can start feeling cool. But it’ll be a while until it’s anything resembling cold again, usually mid October.

The characteristic Capay Valley summer heat, while unfathomably warm at times, enables such amazing melons, tomatoes, and other fruits of summer. It also helps us quickly dry our flowers to make wreaths later in the year. 

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News from the Farm | May 26, 2025

May 26, 2025

Wow – the end of May already? This notoriously busy month has been quite the whirlwind of activity, and it marks one of our many seasonal shifts. It’s a month that includes plenty of elements of spring, but this is in combination with lots of time-sensitive preparation for summer. The temperatures have risen and the pace of our work has heated up too. Our work (the tasks and the tempo) is as seasonal as the produce and flowers we grow and harvest!

One big event of May is Mother’s Day week. The flower team harvested and bunched an unfathomable number of stunning mixed bouquets and single variety bunches and since then have had more marathon days. 

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News from the Farm | May 5, 2025

May 5, 2025

The transition from April to May brings warmer weather, often ushered in, as is the case this Monday morning by fiercely strong winds. The hills dry out and transition from green to brown. It’s a notoriously busy month for us as we prepare for summer. 

What’s keeping us busy? Definitely a lot of irrigation, like in the photo above of the apricot orchard. That’s just one of many activities. Below is a brief video to capture just some of the activities happening late morning last Thursday, accompanied by a unique soundtrack:

Yes, that cacophony of noise really is what it sounds like when you stand in the sheep pen for a minute and a half!

What’s happening in these little snippets?

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News from the Farm | April 21, 2025

April 21, 2025

The idiom “like watching grass grow” means that something is dull, boring, or tedious. What about watching snapdragons grow? Or lettuce? Or potatoes? Or basil? Corn? Kale? Turnips? Apricots? Or any of our many other crops growing on the farm currently! We think that’s pretty exciting.

Growing doesn’t feel like the right word. Maybe exploding? It really feels like the plants get noticeably larger during the course of a day.

Some photos and updates to share:

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News from the Farm | April 14, 2025

April 14, 2025

Spring is a really lovely time of year here. By mid-April, everything is green, there are flowers everywhere (in our fields and wildflowers in the hills and borders of the farm), and things are growing so fast. It seems like in the course of a day, you can see noticeable plant growth!

Even faster than the plant growth is the dramatic transition from lush fields of cover crops, to something we can plant into. In fall, we planted a mix of legumes (vetch, peas, bell beans), mustards, radish, and grasses (rye and wheat), each chosen to provide a different benefit to the soil. You can read more about cover crops and why we use them here.

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News from the Farm | April 7, 2025

April 7, 2025

Last week felt like quintessential spring. We had a little bit of all the elements of early April:
spring weather (a wet and rainy day, a windy day, some warm days)
– lots to harvest
– lots of flowers 
– our first events and school groups of the year 
and more!

I challenged myself to capture as much of all the spring-ness between Thursday and Saturday in one minute to share here:

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