Theme: summer

News from the Farm | 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!

One day there’s a crate or two of cucumbers to bring to the farmers market, and then this morning, there’s a tractor-load. Melons will do the same thing this week too, and the cherry tomatoes aren’t far behind. The rapid increase in certain crops is pretty astounding. Each crop behaves a little differently but most fields will have a meteoric rise followed by a decrease in production. Some things only get harvested once (corn) whereas others get revisited many, many times (zucchini and cucumbers) and then there are others in between (melons). If we want to have a constant supply of a certain crop, we need to have multiple plantings and time it just right to avoid gaps, though the weather can mess up even the most careful planning.

We had some other harvests going on too last week. We had a team cutting lavender to dry (the wreath room smells amazing right now) and Paul was cutting hay. It’ll dry in the field and then get baled for the sheep to eat during the winter.

Summer is a busy time for us, and we know it is for you too. Farmers don’t do summer vacations, nor do we take off the holidays, but we know that many of you do. We’ll be here all summer, including on Juneteenth and July 4. We can certainly work with you to adjust your schedule, provided that you give us at least two days advance notice (i.e. by Saturday night for a Tuesday box, Sunday night for a Monday box). Consider donating your box to our Good Food Community Fund, which provides five boxes a week to the Charlotte Maxwell Clinic in Oakland and subsidizes CSA boxes. Or you can skip your box, moving it to the end of your schedule, or another date when you’re around. The best way to donate or skip is via your CSA member account, but if it’s something more complicated, just send us an email.

Happy summer!

Elaine Swiedler, CSA Manager

 

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 26, 2024

Somehow, we have reached the end of August. The mornings last week were brisk; it only hit 87 degrees on Friday, and we all scratched our heads on Saturday as a light rain sprinkled down on our valley and left the fields and trees slightly less dusty than they were before. 

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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 | September 11, 2023

It’s getting to the time of the summer when everything looks a little dusty and tired, the people included, but that doesn’t mean there’s a shortage of neat things to see. Need some examples? [Read more…]

News from the Farm | August 28, 2023

August is the busiest month on the farm with a never-ending list of things to do. What was keeping us busy last week?

LOTS of harvesting, packing, sorting: 

It’s been nonstop, especially for our biggest crops of the summer: melons, tomatoes, and flowers. Our heirloom tomatoes are starting to slow down, but the heirloom harvesting crew still has been hard at work harvesting, and the work won’t be winding down for a while for the crews that harvest “regular” (Early Girls, Romas, and slicers) and cherry tomatoes.  [Read more…]

News from the Farm | August 21, 2023

Among the seemingly endless fields of melons, tomatoes, winter squash, and other warm-weather crops, we currently have several fields of cover crops going strong. Yes – that photo of the lush green above was taken this morning (August 21, 2023) on an unseasonably cool, cloudy, and drizzly day; it’s not a photo from earlier this year. Cover crops aren’t just for the cooler seasons, even though that’s when we tend to talk about them most (like this deep dive into cover crops last November)! The work of feeding and caring for the soil and “growing” healthy soil never ends, so when we have the water and field space to grow summer cover crops, we do. It seems counterintuitive to take land out of production during our peak harvest time to grow a non-sellable crop, but it’s an excellent opportunity to grow a fast-growing, healthy cover crop and invest in our soil and bountiful future harvests. [Read more…]

News from the Farm | July 24, 2023

I love looking through the years of archived Beet newsletters. They document wet years, dry years, the experiences of many interns who’ve long left the farm, important milestones (like our transition to the plastic boxes, as well as weddings, births, trips, deaths), and events that have come and gone, and bigger issues that we still deal with today (water, labor availability, organic regulations). This isn’t just a resources I have at my disposal; the archives going back to October 2012 are all available online! Not the entire Beet, but the News from the Farm portion. 

For those, like me, who are relatively newer to the farm, it’s a great window into what has and hasn’t changed, and puts everything in context. Often, when I think I have an original idea for the Beet, a quick search in archives shows that someone probably has talked about that topic before, albeit in a slightly different way, probably even on that same date, just years (or decades) before. [Read more…]

News from the Farm | June 26, 2023

With the solstice this past Wednesday, it’s officially summer. But without the calendar reminder, you’d be forgiven for not realizing. We’re due for some classic June Yolo County heat later this week, but so far, it’s been remarkably temperate and cool, only in the 80s, and slightly brisk in the morning, chilly enough to wear a sweatshirt or vest.

But if you look a little closer, the signs are there that we’re in summer mode, or at least gearing up for summer, even if it’s been a slow start. [Read more…]

News from the Farm | September 5, 2022

What’s the news from the farm?

We are working this Labor Day Monday, as we do every Monday (we’ve got Tuesday CSA deliveries, store deliveries, and a farmers market) though we did take Saturday off. This week is going to be a series of scorchers – 110 and above every day. We’re prioritizing everyone’s health and will likely try and wrap up as early as possible to get folks out of the heat, which means limiting orders. [Read more…]

News from the Farm | August 15, 2022

It’s August, which means it’s time to start prepping for fall. It can be difficult to think about the next season and its crops when it’s so hot and we’re so busy harvesting and packing summer produce. However, all of those peppers, tomatoes, and melons will eventually wind down and we need to have the cooler season crops ready to take over at that point. [Read more…]

News from the Farm | June 27, 2022

What’s the news from the last week (or so)? [Read more…]

News From the Farm | September 20, 2021

The last line of peaches, Autumn Flames — small but tasty  —  

It seemed to me that all of a sudden the gentler light, a cool breeze and a bluest of blue sky were announcing a change in the season. After another remarkably hot week, the nights are cooling down. As you walk through the walnut orchard, you have to make an effort to avoid stepping on the walnuts that have fallen from the branches and if you listen for a moment you will hear more of them falling to the ground.  Fig leaves are piling up in my garden and soon the peaches will be showing some fall color.  Persimmons and pomegranates are starting to look pretty ripe.  The heat of the sun doesn’t seem quite as intense.   [Read more…]

News From the Farm | September 6, 2021

We’ve reached that time of the summer: Almost everything and everyone is pretty hot, tired, dusty, and ready for the end of summer, but we aren’t there yet. September is a very busy month that bridges summer and fall. We continue summer harvesting activities and get prepared for the cooler months by clearing old fields and planting new crops. Members of our summer crew who are students have headed back to the classroom, so our workforce has shrunk while the workload still is high. We had a bit of a reprieve from the heat and smoke last week, with blue skies and maximum temperatures in the upper 80s, and days are getting shorter and nights a little cooler, but it’s just a tease of what’s to come; we’re back in the 100s this week and have more summer ahead. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | August 30, 2021

At some point, every CSA member will open their box to find something that’s not what they were expecting. Perhaps they’ve never seen or eaten a kohlrabi, Paloma eggplant, or persimmon. Or it could be because the size or shape of the produce is not what they’re used to seeing.

Produce in a CSA box can be larger, smaller, or differently shaped because CSAs are not governed by all of the strict rules and expectations of the wholesale produce world about size and appearance. It makes sense for the industry to have a set of norms and accompanying vocabulary to help farmers, wholesalers, and customers communicate what we (the farms) have and make sure that buyers are getting what they expect. Some of that language describes size or appearance and you’ve probably seen some of this: Size A, Extra Fancy, No 1, etc. Most produce also has an expected pack size, usually a combination of weight and count that is expected in each box. There is a recognition of variation, but each order is expected to be fairly uniform and having to follow certain grades and pack sizes leaves out a lot of what we, and other farms, produce. [Read more…]

News From the Farm | August 9, 2021

How to eat a Full Belly Watermelon  —  

Grateful Harvest Gala  —  

The fall at Full Belly Farm for more than 30 seasons has been a time when more of our attention reaches outward, as planning for various events, including our Hoes Down Harvest Festival, reaches a crescendo.  We have cancelled the Hoes Down for the last two years because hosting thousands of people at the farm during the pandemic seemed like a bad idea.  Nevertheless, the work of the Ecological Farming Association one of the beneficiaries of the Hoes Down Harvest Festival, continued.  EcoFarm, as it says on their home page, “nurtures just and ecologically sustainable farms and food systems through education, alliance building, celebration and advocacy.” [Read more…]