Theme: Paul Muller

News From the Farm | November 9, 2015

November 9, 2015

There are many threads of experience over the last few weeks that might be woven into a Beet article this morning.  Last night, the board of the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance came to the farm for a tour and dinner. Fifty folks, mostly from the midwest, were here as part of their annual board meeting in Sacramento.  We had an afternoon walk down the county road that divides the farm and talked about our approach to farming and the reasons that our farm is designed as it is. Most of the farmers were corn and soybean growers and all were tied deeply to these two crops that dominate the midwestern landscape.

A walk is the best way to talk about the farm and about our approach to soil health, insect ecology, integrating livestock, cropping patterns, diversity, economic viability and creativity.  Our evolving farm design came from the fertile minds of four partners, great employees, and increasingly now, from the contributions of our children. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | October 19, 2015

October 19, 2015

We are eeking our way into fall this week. Temperatures have been quite warm and the relief of chilly nights and cool days hasn’t yet come to us. The year has been noticeably warmer in both the exceptionally warm and dry January and February, and a noticeable multi-year pattern of warm and dry fall weather. 

There have been some interesting repercussions of these patterns. Instead of the year being a gentle push between winter storms, we started the year with a sprint. Dry weather means that the soil is dry enough to plant, cultivate and harvest – and irrigate. When there is little rainfall, we have made the deficit up with irrigation from the wells on the farm and from Cache Creek flowing on the east side of our farm. The pace didn’t slow down this year. As a farmer, one doesn’t know if the window in a dry February will be closed by a cold wet March, or a prolonged wet spring that doesn’t allow one to get into the fields to plant seed and grow spring and summer crops, so one plants when the soil is ready. A dry spring means that the work doesn’t slow down – generally until late fall. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | September 7, 2015

September 7, 2015

Our crew started this morning, Labor Day, at 7:00am.  We had been starting at 6:00 and then 6:30, but as days shorten, the workday changes with the morning light. Like so many mornings over this long summer, our crew of 85 men and women came to work to pick, plant, clean fields, change pipes and pack our harvest for distribution to the many purchasers of our produce. For the more than 30 years of this farm, we have all worked on labor day—perhaps missing the central point of the day, to honor and acknowledge the contribution of those who keep our world moving. 

Most California farms probably were at work today—I know of few who can stop to relax. There is harvest for example—that window when the crop is ready and the market has a place for what you have tended and raised.  To miss or slow for even a day changes the ability to be at the market tomorrow, for example Tuesday’s farmers market would be a bit emptier. Wholesalers, restaurants and stores expect crops to appear and abundant displays to be refilled.  [Read more…]

News From the Farm | July 13, 2015

July 13, 2015

We had a farm dinner this past Saturday night, hosted here on the farm. There were 50 or more attendees – a wide-ranging assemblage – customers from farmers markets and CSA, or browsers who came upon the farm seeking closer connection to field and food. It was a wonderful dinner produced from Full Belly Farm products – tomatoes, melons, salami and ground bloody butcher cornmeal for the tortillas. My son Amon and his partner Jenna were the chefs and created a savory dinner and very enjoyable evening.

I was seated with Terril and Eva Ellis, our neighbors and friends who, in their 80’s, have lived next door for many years and have filled their lives with treasures found in a lifetime of imagination and creativity and efforts to deepen the beauty and diversity of their farm. Our conversation was about the lessons learned through experience: things to pay attention to, or best avoided. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | June 8, 2015

June 8, 2015

Farmers markets have been an important part of the Full Belly economic picture since the farm started way back in 1985. As beginning farmers, Dru and I were informed of a market in Palo Alto that was brand new and looking for growers. In those early days we were looking for access to places that might buy some of the organic crops we were producing. 

We had been selling to a local Nugget Market that was bold enough to give our white  Silver Queen corn a try. This was a corn that many of the local farmers were planting on the side of their ‘feed corn’ fields in order to have some good sweet corn for their tables at home.  The flavor of the corn was far better than anything that was on the market, but white corn was not very common. The reception at the Nugget Store was enthusiastic, not only because George the produce manager, was willing to give the corn a try, but also because flavor and freshness assured us access to crowded supermarkets. We were also selling corn to an organic wholesaler in Los Angeles and to a wildly enthusiastic woman from Berkeley named Alice, who would either drive to the farm herself to pick up the corn and tomatoes we were producing, or send someone from her Chez Panisse kitchen to do so.  [Read more…]

News From the Farm | April 20, 2015

April 20, 2015

We have had a number of inquiries about the water situation and it seems time for a Beet article on water and California’s ongoing drought. There have also been questions about whether one can eat almonds without guilt, when many are pointing fingers at new plantings of permanent crops like almonds as a clear example of what seems to be wrong with the investments being made in farming and the water needed to support that farming.

There is little that is easy or clear when it comes to the debate about water in California. The issue is complex, affects all of us and requires that we begin to plan for both times of abundance and cycles of scarcity. Indeed it will be our response to the common issue of scarcity that will require wisdom, restraint and clear thinking as to how the over-promised resource gets divided and allocated among divergent interests. It is not easy to look at water without entering into the complexities of weather patterns, climate changes, year to year fluctuations, indigenous water resources, cropping patterns and historical use. [Read more…]

News from the Farm | February 9, 2015

February 9, 2015

As if breaking a spell cast on the land, rain came and the farm breathed a sigh of welcome.  The driest January on record for the region is now past and the sobering reality of three consecutive years of warm temperatures and little to no rain and low Sierra snowpack should be reason for the farm community to consider the practices they employ and develop comprehensive strategies for the long term.

The impacts of the last few years touch many parts of our farm. Our fruit trees are short on the chilling hours that they require for healthy bloom and fruit set. Things are blooming early – by more than 2 weeks – which may mean more susceptibility to frost later in the spring. Winter rains are needed to replenish our wells. When the small side creeks that border the farm flow even for a few short days, we can measure a rise in well water levels as the ground acts as a reservoir for the beneficial winter rains. [Read more…]

Farm Partners

November 17, 2014

November 17, 2014

about-us_slide1

 It’s unusual to get these four farm owners together in one place at the same time: left to right, Judith, Andrew, Dru and Paul.

Photo by Paolo Vescia.

News from the Farm | September 29, 2014

September 29, 2014

 We are Tidy!!

We are tidying this week in preparation for our big day here on the farm. Yesterday we had a crew of 40 volunteers cleaning up, stuffing scarecrows with new wheat straw, designing and building a 500-bale straw fort, erecting the tipi, painting signs, making tamales, and spreading 25 tons of mulch to settle dust and make the farmyard neat and beautiful. This week, along with our regular pick, pack, weeding and planting schedule – we are ready-ing and steady-ing for Hoes Down.

After a long and dry summer, where days were pretty intense and a layer of dust had settled over and in about everything, a half inch of rain this past week washed and polished what was looking pretty drab. One can just see the trees and grass exhale a collective sigh of relief as the cleansing moisture wiped our world clean. It was a baptism, a purification and a regeneration. We welcomed and celebrated the transition as one of the marks of the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall. [Read more…]

News from the Farm | September 15, 2014

September 15, 2014

Shifting Seasons

The farm is shifting and easing into the start of a fall season. As days shorten, so do our work hours – now starting at 7 am and finishing by 5. The crops that we cultivate and seeds planted reflect the fall and winter approach. Andrew and Jan are planting fall greens, carrots, beets and broccoli. Potatoes are emerging and we hurry them along to size up and set tubers before any frost determines their lifespan. Gone for 2014 are melons and stone fruits. Tomatoes are beginning to show their decline as they head toward the end of a long and fruitful season.

Thoreau wrote “Love each season as it passes, breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit and resign yourself to the influences of each.” Indeed, the conversation about seasonality is a deep and significant historical awareness that we may be remembering, in turn enriching and connecting all of us to the ‘food shed’ that supplies our communities. We may be moving to the shared responsibility that is central to a vibrant and healthy food system – where those who eat are responsible for those who produce, and those who produce know their farm patrons, acting as stewards of the resources that support those patrons.  [Read more…]

News from the Farm | July 7, 2014

July 7, 2014

We Love Our Customers! 

Summer has officially started at Full Belly Farm – as evidence by the truck loads of melons, tomatoes, beans, eggplant, and dark circles under the eyes of every farmer. Exhaustion is a common side effect of the summer months, which can, on occasion, lead to a grumpy farmer or two. Luckily, glee outweighed grumpiness last weekend as we had a surprise calf born on the farm. A handsome and dark red fellow, he was born late into the night on Independence Day, perhaps forced into the world a day early by the sound of firecrackers or a Piccolo Pete. 

Receiving feedback from our customers has never been easier than now, with the invention of social media. Just a few hours after the new calf was born, we posted a picture of him on both Instagram and Facebook, asking for name suggestions. The below photo and caption elicited the following responses: 

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Baby boy calf born late into the night on Independence Day. We are thinking of calling him Firecracker. Any other suggestions? [Read more…]

News from the Farm | June 30, 2014

June 30, 2014

Conservation Tillage and the Drought

Many conversations turn these days around the question — “how are you doing for water this year?” Water and California’s prolonged drought are subjects central to long term well- being for all who live in the Golden State. Seldom has attention been so clearly tuned to our intimate relationship with the cycles of climate and the vast system that delivers rainfall and snowpack to your tap. Drought becomes a moment for social focus and attention with the potential to re-think our relationship to resource use, when that resource seen previously as so abundant becomes constrained by scarcity.

We have built much of California’s abundance on the thinking that basic resources were unlimited. Oil and water are now mixed in the same fishbowl where abundance driven systems and design expectations are demonstrating real limits. From transportation systems, how we designed our cities, to the food systems that have evolved, patterns of consumption are based on a history of plenty and the expectation that the good of the moment and the need to keep an economic engine stoked to the maximum trumps long term thinking.  [Read more…]

News from the Farm | June 2, 2014

June 2, 2014

Summer Transitions

There are periods of the season when we get caught between the ending of one crop cycle and the beginning of another. The end of May and beginning of June is perennially one of these times. We are in the middle of transitioning from spring to summer as we find interesting crops with which to fill your boxes. 

Bound by weather and temperature, the slowly disappearing hard C crops –kalecollardscabbagecarrotschard – make their exit from your boxes along with lettuce, other greens and leafy veggies. These will return next October. I think that most of us are about ready to not be missing these veggies and are looking forward to tomatoes, melons and fruits – the full expression of summer.  [Read more…]

News from the Farm | March 3, 2014

March 3, 2014

Food Safety

Think for a moment about the complex chain of connections that brought the egg to your plate this morning – the sausage, potatoes or tofu that may have accompanied it – or the garnish of parsley, tomato or spinach that found its way to your table. Think about the dazzling display of produce offered in most every grocery store today.  Its abundance, low cost, and safety should be hailed as an incredible example of a ‘modern’ food system. Literally millions of meals are served every day with few issues. We enjoy abundance derived from a very complex system of production, processing, packaging and delivery that is often international in scope 

Yet, across California’s vast and productive agricultural landscape there is a profound change taking place. The traditional role of a farmer as a steward – responsible for not only the production of abundant fresh and safe fruits and vegetables, but also the larger ecological well-being of the land –  is being usurped by clean field/ clean edge practices. Non-crop trees are being chopped down; field borders are being herbicided clean to bare earth; all rodents, ground squirrels, wild turkeys, deer, birds and farm dogs are being seen as potential carriers of pathogens that might find their way into our food supply. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | Week of February 3, 2014

February 3, 2014

Drought News

We have received many concerned inquiries from our CSA community, our wholesale buyers, and other friends of the farm about how the weather is going to affect our farming year.  This weekend’s rain made me hopeful that more wet weather is headed our way.  Nevertheless, whether it is or isn’t, this is the business we are in. Every year we have to make adjustments based on what mother nature decides to throw our way.  We will face this year like we do any year, hoping that the stars align in our favor and doing our best to make the right decisions for the farm given the information we have. Below is a letter written by Paul Muller to Val Dolcini, the State Executive Director of the United States Department of Agriculture in California.  He thoughtfully reached out to us to check in on the farm given the dry conditions. Paul’s response gives some concrete examples of how the drought is affecting us and what we are doing to address the water shortage.  – Jenna Muller

[Read more…]

News From the Farm | Week of November 25, 2013

November 25, 2013

Giving Thanks

The cycle of a year’s labor has come near full circle. This week we head into a day of Thanksgiving – a time for reflection about the many gifts received this year. Our labors this past year upon this generous land have yielded a remarkable bounty of beautiful and tasty crops. From the slow growing greens of last winter, when January and February were the driest and warmest on record, through Spring’s bloom- the lush pinks of the peaches and snowy whites of almond, apricot or apple –we were graced each month with abundant blessings and a progression of colors and flavors that were nothing more than marvelous.

This year was, for many farms, an exceptionally abundant and fruitful year. For the past 30 or so years, we have been planting trees and vines on the three parcels that make up Full Belly Farm, and now we are in the maturing landscape of a four-season farm. The young orchards are now moving into their peak bearing years. The fruit we enjoyed this past year reflects our work – nurturing seed, planting cuttings or rooting saplings. All were planted thinking about the harvest window we were aiming for – peaches to start in June and picked until October, figs in August, almonds in September, grapes mid-summer through the fall, and plums, pears, apples, citrus, walnuts and pomegranates to fill out the year. In this amazing environment and ecology of California, we are thankful for the generations before us who have selected, improved, delighted in flavor and helped to develop the many types of fruit we enjoy. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | Week of October 28, 2013

October 28, 2013

A stroll around the farm this last week of October provides striking colors, seasonal shifts and summer’s slow adieu. I took a Sunday stroll with my 14-month-old grandson, Rowan, tasting our way around the fields, spying on beavers working in the creek and exploring the elements of a changing season. Walks around the farm are usually accompanied by farm dogs that tag along for security purposes – chasing off a killdeer, squirrel or gopher that may have violated territorial understandings.

We stop, 5 dogs and a curious new-to-walking child, and pick some of the last cherry tomatoes, a lingering watermelon, a crimson Jimmy Nardello pepper, an unpicked Valencia orange, a dried fig, hanging apple, pomegranate, persimmon, plum or grape and we savor these waning treats. All around trees are dropping their summer’s green for the rich hues of fall-golds, straw browns and deep reds. Tomato plants are engaged in the last flurry of flowering to see if they can set a few more seeds before frost. It is all, at the same time, beautiful, redolent, quiet and tasty… quite a treat for the senses. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | September 2, 2013

September 2, 2013

Tomorrow is Labor Day, a holiday that honors the work of all who place their effort as a brick in the edifice of this amazing society. For most it is a day to stop work and take a rest – hard won through the struggles, marches and demands of workers in the late 1800’s. It is a day to honor, as Peter J. McGuire, co founder of the American Federation of Labor said in 1882, those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the Grandeur we behold.”  

Often acknowledged and celebrated is the vision of the successful entrepreneur, but Labor Day demands that we equally respect the patient, persistent and diligent contribution of those who labor at all levels, showing up every day to do the tasks that often are not acknowledged. Those who labor are linked together by the ethic of sustained dedication – the factory worker in a foreign land, the office worker in the Bay Area, the teacher, software developer, machinist, fast food worker and the farm worker in our fields – all have a personal commitment to the task at hand.  Most work for more than pay. There are rewards in the dignity that is linked to making something more whole. There are rewards from doing good, serving all creatures great or small and being linked to the common effort. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | Week of August 5, 2013

August 5, 2013

I am sitting in the kitchen late Sunday evening putting some thoughts together regarding proposed rules to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), a massive new set of regulatory proposals that are open for public comment until the middle of November. FSMA will affect many aspects of our integrated farm: the compost we apply; the management of our sheep and chickens; the record keeping; and the ultimate authority over the definition of ‘Good Agricultural Practices’.

Many of the farm practices used by entry level farmers use the same integrated design as at Full Belly, for example, pastured poultry as a cornerstone of soil restoration and fertility needed to produce healthy fruits and vegetables. FSMA will be a huge new barrier to entry for these beginning farmers.  At their heart, these ‘sustainable strategies’ employ the microbial world as workers in a system to create a healthy plant/soil/human ecology. FSMA sweeps all of these strategies into a category of suspect practices and overlooks many issues that should be at the heart of today’s food safety discussion.

Even the title, ‘food safety’ and ‘agricultural modernization,’ delivers a shot over agriculture’s bow, implying that the present system of food production is both unsafe and backwards, ignoring the incredible volume of safe food delivered by American farms to the marketplace each day. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | Week of July 1, 2013

July 1, 2013

The rainy days of last week have been replaced with one of the widest temperature swings in memory. The 42°difference between 70° and 112° has been mind numbing without the gradual swing that allows a body to acclimate. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are forecast to be 116° at the farm. This high has extended throughout California and into the deserts of Arizona where farm fields were closer to 120°.

[Read more…]
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