Last week was a big one for harvesting eggplants and melons, just like the week before. It’s been a great year so far for both, in terms of yield and taste, especially the melons, and you’ve probably tasted. If you missed it, here’s the scoop on how we harvest both. And it was a big week for the flower crew too, but it’s always a big week for the flower crew. The everyone in the field is almost exclusively focused on harvesting crops, with some weeding and tractor work mixed in, and the irrigation team has plenty to do, setting up and maintaining drip tape, and moving sprinklers. The winter squash are up and some are starting to set fruit. Before we know it, we’ll be focusing on getting other fall crops in the ground, whether by direct seed or transplant, but we aren’t to that point yet.
Theme: summer
News From the Farm | July 19, 2021
The news from the farm from the past week is: eggplants and melons. And more eggplant and more melons. While our tomatoes are growing frustratingly slowly (we hope to have them in the boxes soon) these two crops are thriving right now and thus are worth diving into, accompanied by some photos of our crew at work.
Eggplant:
How do you harvest eggplants? With clippers, and ideally with long sleeves and gloves too since they can have thorns. Each picker has a 5-gallon bucket that they fill up and empty into the macro bins on the back of the tractor, separated by type. Right now, the eggplant plants are small enough for our tall harvest tractor to drive over them, but soon enough, they’ll be too tall to fit under, eventually growing up to four feet. Soon, the tractor will move over to one of the rows of basil we intercrop between every few eggplant rows. The rows of basil leave plenty of clearance for the tractor and attract pollinators because we leave sections to go to flower.
News From the Farm | July 12, 2021
We are having some very hot days here at the farm, an experience that we share with other inland Californians. The heat is bringing on the produce. Trucks and trailers full of melons, eggplants, peppers, beans and other delicious summer treats are driving along the farm’s dirt roads, from the fields and to the packing shed, in a parade that reaches a crescendo at the end of the day as the harvest is completed. It is ‘all hands on deck’ in the packing shed then, when several dozen people finish the last packaging, put produce in the coolers and load trucks. Each day is incredibly detail laden, full of troubleshooting, decision making and continuous attempts to balance multiple needs.
News From the Farm | July 5, 2021
We keep reaching various milestones that make me think “well now it’s officially summer.” The first sungold cherry tomato, the first slice of watermelon, the first okra, the list goes on and on. In addition to all the great produce, summer for us means there’s even more to do. More to water, sell, harvest, sort, wash, pack, load, transport, and deliver. And we still need to plant and maintain fall crops so that we’ll have things to harvest when the summer crops (eventually) wind down.
News From the Farm | June 28, 2021
There’s a farmer who specializes in Asian vegetables and sells at the Berkeley Farmers Market. Since Full Belly has no greens at this time of year I brought home a large bunch of his Water Spinach, a steaming green that has thin long leaves and hollow tender stems. I had never cooked it before so I was following my own maxim, something I find myself saying quite often when I’m behind the Full Belly market stand, “Every time you try something new, you live a day longer!”
News From the Farm | June 21, 2021
News from the farm this week is that it’s been scorching hot! The summer’s first big heat wave sent us scrambling to keep our summer crops happy. Our irrigation crew has pulled miles of drip tape out to quench those thirsty plants that have grown with only a few overhead irrigations. We are working hard to dig the spring’s last potatoes and get them into our coolers. Sheep graze cabbage fields ensuring that no more will be put into your weekly boxes! We are trying to get all our weeding and cultivating done before our impending summer crop harvest of tomatoes, melons, peppers, and more, consumes every last set of able hands on the farm.
News From the Farm | August 10, 2020
Ellis and Andrew with six bins of sunflowers that they helped to pick —
Viewed close in on a summer’s day, it would be fair to say that Full Belly Farm grows a lot of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and eggplants — all members of the same large botanical family of plants called Solanacea, also known as Nightshades. On many summer afternoons, a good portion of the crew, including owners can be found in the tomato fields picking, or in the packing shed surrounded on all sides by boxes of tomatoes.
Viewed from a bit farther out, with a different perspective, it turns out that Full Belly actually grows a lot of other things as well — but the preponderance of Nightshades in the summer has been the recent subject of many a comment from our members. [Read more…]
News From the Farm | August 3, 2020
August 1st CSA box, photo by member Maria Grazia —
People call Wednesday hump day because they are halfway to the weekend. I am thinking that the next couple of weeks are kind of the hinge or the hump of the Full Belly summer season. We’ve picked our way through the first fields of tomatoes and melons. People in stores are looking for our products because they’ve had a chance to taste some from the early summer. High school kids that were working here for their summer breaks are already talking about needing to go back to school, whatever that may mean this year. Some of the fields are starting to look tired and weedy. The first flush of Spring energy is long-gone and the familiar long-distance runner endurance is kicking in. We’ve kind of made it to the halfway point of the season. In fact, in terms of day length we really are about halfway between the summer solstice and the fall equinox (September 22), so it makes sense that it feels like hump week here on the ground at the Home Ranch.
News From the Farm | July 20, 2020
Bonifacio with melons & basil —
Full Belly has sold our produce to dozens of restaurants over the years, sometimes over a span of decades, and we’ve learned a lot about cuisine and community through those relationships. It was at one of those restaurants that I lunched with my father and mother many weeks in a row, after I had finished a farmers market and my father had finished chemotherapy treatments nearby. Many of the restauranteurs have supported community events in the Capay Valley year after year. I have a wonderful memory of a radiant Judy Rodgers (then the chef at Zuni Café) making an enormous bowl of her famous bread salad at our “Day in the Country” fundraiser for the Yolo County Land Trust many years ago. Special occasions and visits with friends — the restaurants are full of memories. They are places to have a good meal and so much more. [Read more…]
News From the Farm | June 15, 2020
I had an opportunity to walk around the farm this morning just to take in the early summer crops and enjoy the mildness of the morning weather. What made the walk really engaging was the patchwork of constantly changing crops and fields. Here were some young eggplant — and there were some older ones. Here were beds of melons, sunflowers, beans, corn and summer squash, next to an irrigated pasture soon to be home for chickens and cows. [Read more…]
News From the Farm | September 30, 2019
Howdy y’all! Full Belly Farm’s Education team – Sierra & Haley here! We’re back to teach you the ABC’s of the Hoes Down Harvest Festival! If you like these, you’ll LOVE what we’ve got cooking for you, coming up on October 5th.
O – Only a few days until the Hoes Down! [Read more…]
News From the Farm | September 23, 2019
For the past thirty-one years, there is one particular autumnal day where Full Belly Farm is magically transformed into a bustling festival. That festival is what we lovingly call, The Hoes Down Harvest Festival. It is a time to throw down our hoes from our hard summer of work, and kick our heels up in celebration!
If you’re reading this, chances are that you already know about Hoes Down. You’ve tasted the heirlooms, visited the marketplace, sat-in on workshops, and camped beneath the trees in the walnut orchard. But do you know how it all comes together? [Read more…]
News From the Farm | September 9, 2019
Produce cornucopia at Day in the Country —
Full Belly has been pretty busy lately. First of all, we hope to put our best foot forward for the Hoes Down Harvest Festival on October 5th and with the summer focus on harvest and crop production, many corners of the farm have been overlooked and now need to be tidied up. We hope that our CSA members are able to visit the farm for the Hoes Down since it is one of our favorite days of the year. Note that your tickets have to be bought on-line in advance this year. There will not be ticket sales at the gate. [Read more…]
News From the Farm | September 2, 2019
Seems like we may have a great crop of pomegranates, come October and November.
We recently wrote a letter to Governor Newson’s office about two climate change bills introduced into the legislature that have very little funding for agriculture. The bills would enact a bond act in 2020 that the Governor’s office is developing. Here are excerpts from our letter:
I am thankful that increased attention is being given to prevention of and restoration after drought, wildfires and floods. I am a farm owner in Yolo County California, farming along Cache Creek in the Capay Valley. My farm and home have been directly impacted in the last decade by significant wildfires (County Fire, 2018 and Sand Fire, 2019), frightening flooding of Cache Creek, and the impacts of the most recent California drought. [Read more…]
News From the Farm | August 26, 2019
Alex and Frederick raking the almonds into a central line, ready for the sweeper (shown below) to pick them up.
An Ode to Thank the Capay Valley Farm Shop for the Use of Their Awesome Forklift
It was late on a summer’s night
Many hands had not been on deck
Projects were piling up
bellies were growling
Worry wrinkles were deepening [Read more…]
News From the Farm | August 19, 2019
Here are a few photos snapped on a Saturday at Full Belly:
Leo bringing in the Jimmy Nardello peppers coming out of the field by the bin.
Rye sorting Red Lasota potatoes. [Read more…]
News From the Farm | August 12, 2019
Our wonderful intern crew transplanting broccoli —
This column, News From the Farm, is a chronicle in the life of the Full Belly Farm organism, through the eyes of various writers who are ridiculously immersed in every aspect of farming and thus want to reflect upon the hidden underbellies, layers and intricacies that are part of the life of a farm. I want to state at the start that I understand that not everyone finds farming quite so fascinating, and only mention this because I have a fear that such might be the case with this week’s topic which touches upon farm liability insurance and the reasons why the Full Belly policy was abruptly cancelled. The reader has now been warned and may move on to other more scintillating topics, as he or she might wish. [Read more…]
News From the Farm | August 5, 2019
Our onion harvest is quite picturesque at this stage, with burlap bags full of onions lined up along the beds. First we undercut the onions with a tractor blade, then we pick them up off the beds and fill up the bags. We have about an acre of onions ready to be harvested, the question is, how to fit the onion harvest in between giving our attention to all of the more perishable crops that need our constant daily vigilance? [Read more…]
News From the Farm | July 29, 2019
We have benefitted tremendously from our Full Belly internship program which brings energetic, positive and inquisitive young people from all over the world to the farm to learn about sustainable agriculture. The benefits go beyond a great work team and into the realm of life-long friendships. Yuma moved on from the farm last week. He hails from Japan and is going to be at UC Davis for a couple of months — but that feels like a long way away after 15 months of working and living together.
Deeper Significance in the CSA Boxes
We are writing to introduce you to Mary Cherry, who is helping to start Family Harvest Farm, a 3.5 acre urban farm that will be located in Pittsburg, California. The farm will employ transition age foster youth and teach them to grow organic produce, along with other skills. Family Harvest Farm is still getting off the ground, and in the meantime Mary has been busy organizing cooking classes for youth using facilities available through the Contra Costa County Independent Living Skills Program (ILSP). [Read more…]
News From the Farm | July 22, 2019
Alfredo’s crew picking tomatoes —
I want to comment on an Opinion that appeared on July 16 in the New York Times, “The Sad Lesson From California.” The article laments the lack of union representation for farm labor in California despite statute that allows union organizers on farms. The author states that despite the right to collective bargaining, farm worker “wages and conditions are for the most part arguably no better than decades ago.” [Read more…]