Certified Organic Vegetables, Fruit, Flowers & Wool Since 1985
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…]
Barely any cucumbers make it home because they are so delicious!
(Thank you to CSA member Hallie Chertok for the photo!) ––
The story was told a hundred times and always began like this: “It was early July, the beginning of the hot summer, and Mama had fallen in love with a handsome young farmer who lived close by to Grandma and Grandpa. So Mama went out near her home and picked two big beautiful buckets of ripe, juicy blackberries that she found along the river edge. She took those blackberries home and baked them into a golden-crusted pie with the blackberries tucked inside. Later that day she drove out to where she thought that farmer lived and found his house along a long country road. She left that pie on his doorstep with a simple note that said, PLEASE ENJOY THIS PIE MADE WITH LOVE and in small letters at the bottom she wrote her name. Well, pretty soon that young man came home and ate up that pie and pretty soon after that they were married and pretty soon after that they moved to this house where you were born and where we all live now. Now Go to Sleep, Goodnight” [Read more…]
Each season’s weather passes forward its imprint on the following season’s crops. Late spring rains are remembered when there are diseases in the peaches during the summer. A spike of heat in early June can interrupt the pollination in ears of corn resulting in kernel blanks when the corn is harvested.
Sometimes those predictions come true, but not always. Our stone fruit trees are looking great, contrary to the worries during all the rain we enjoyed last spring. On the other hand some of our corn does have blanks in the ears, each missing kernel representing one silk strand that wasn’t successfully pollinated. High heat is a common explanation for blanking in corn. [Read more…]
July already. The crew just brought in four bins of orchid watermelons hopeful that they would all sell well before the July 4th holiday. This is the first big watermelon harvest of the season — each summer brings it’s string of ‘firsts’ as we look forward to each crop.
Walking across farm fields, down furrows and over graveled roads I know that crew members have also walked these furrows over and over, year in and year out. Every square foot of ground has been travelled by many other eyes and grown uncounted seasons of crops. Walking down a field of freshly prepared, unplanted beds I came across a pile of feathers, all that remained of a bird — Probably this was the scene of a fierce struggle the previous night. It was fresh and I think that I was the first to stumble upon it. [Read more…]
First sip of milk! This calf, named Twinkie was born on June 19th —
For many years, we have been fortunate to be part of an inquisitive, forward thinking, creative and passionate community of food entrepreneurs and enthusiasts. Our relationships with our customers have enriched our thinking and have been part of our farm’s evolution. We have many examples of crops that we started growing as the result of a customer or chef’s suggestion. We have been swept up in the enthusiasm of food pioneers who happened to be our customers. Alice Waters and her staff at Chez Panisse were early farm supporters. Walter Robb, Mark Squire and Bill Fujimoto are examples of passionate shop keepers who have supported us, and every week, for the past 35 years, farmers market and CSA customers have whispered likes and dislikes into our ears feeding us new ideas about what to grow. [Read more…]
The Full Belly Irrigation crew in the potato field: Jose, Conrado, Manuel and Arturo —
This is the thirsty time of year when pumps are running and water is flowing 24/7 all over the farm. There are more than 300 acres of fruits, flowers and and vegetables that have to be taken care of and at Full Belly, the fields don’t come in easy 50-acre contiguous blocks. Three acres here and four acres there, all managed differently. In the late spring, when fields are turning over from winter to summer, pumps have to be put into position, drip tape has to be set up, and systems have to be in tip top order. You see pipe trailers being pulled all around the farm, and Arturo — the irrigation crew leader — driving around everywhere in his red truck. When Arturo talks on the radio he sounds as if is running in hyperdrive. [Read more…]
Just as many of us were about to go into weekend mode, on Saturday afternoon, the Sand Fire sent the northern Capay Valley into a controlled panic. The fire started in the hills just behind Rumsey, off of a road that had been washed out and was inaccessible to fire equipment. The high winds and hot weather threatened to push the fire down the valley towards Guinda. It loomed above farms and ranches, where people, houses, animals and crops were in harms way. Around here, the evacuations include animals, so horses, goats, cats and dogs were moved in a very short time, with all the decisions and coordination that entails taking place in short order. [Read more…]
Paul and Ben found a Praying Mantis — see how it is preparing to pray?
About 30 years ago, we planted our first line of native shrubs and trees along the boundary of one of the southernmost fields at Full Belly Farm. For awhile, we planted a new hedgerow every couple of years, and maintained them during the year, making sure that the young plants had gotten established and that when something died, we filled in the gaps. Now we do very little to maintain the hedgerows and we haven’t planted a new one in years. There are some gaps along the hedges, and some non-native plants have made their way in, but the oaks and elderberry trees in some of the oldest hedgerows are 50-feet tall and the manzanitas and redbuds have filled out nicely. [Read more…]
Photo by Diane Rothery Photography.
We recently received a certified letter from the Central Valley Water Board, an agency striving “To preserve, enhance, and restore the quality of California’s water resources…” The Letter states that Full Belly Farm is in violation of the Confined Animals Regulatory Program! Since Full Belly has no confined animals, we had to do some investigation and in a hurry too, because the letter was full of legal Directives and allusions to fines. “Please read this letter carefully” is the first thing it said, and we did!
Our Full Belly Farm egg-laying-hen program is actually something to brag about. We have 3 to 4 groups of hens at any one time, with about 200 layers in each group. They stay in paddocks that are about 25,600 square feet in size. The hens have a movable structure to roost in at night, and every 4 or 5 days, when they’ve eaten the bugs and seeds in their paddock they get to move to a completely new site. [Read more…]
Rest in Peace John Ceteras
This past Saturday, family, friends and neighbors from our Capay Valley and beyond came together to celebrate the life of our friend and neighbor, farmer John Ceteras. John recently passed away after a long, concerted and very private battle with cancer. He was 74 years old and is survived by his wife and artist, farm partner, Gretchen, son Noah and grandson, Jack. With Gretchen, John farmed Blue Heron Farm, a 20-acre certified organic farm in Rumsey. As an elder, his passing leaves a void in our community, but his legacy inspires seasoned and beginning farmers alike. [Read more…]
Last Friday, someone found a young barn owl dead on the ground in the walnut orchard. Maybe it was one of the young owls that we had been watching in their first flights from the upstairs porch at Amon and Jenna’s house. These baby owls hatched out last spring in a cubby above the porch and the family made it their home, creating a litter on the floor of their droppings, to such an extent that it was difficult to walk out and watch them without stepping on their pellets. Standing on the porch, we would look up at them, and they would line up and look down at us. We know that most barn owls die young – 70% in their first year – so the babies and their parents have been a source of great delight as we watched and worried over them. [Read more…]
Hannah at the California State Fair.
It is Monday morning and the skies here are thick with the smoke and haze from the many fires burning in Northern California. We told our farm crew that if it is difficult to work, we may end the day early. We had shortened days this past week when field temperatures were near 112º. The sobering relationship of too little rain, a parched landscape, high temperatures, heavy fuel loads in areas where homes are being built under tree canopies, make one reflect about resilience, climate uncertainty, and our relationship with our larger landscape and wild lands. [Read more…]
The consistently triple digit temperatures for the last two weeks have been stressful for our crews who know that every day counts in terms of getting fruit out of the field in good shape. If we miss a day of picking, the quality can go downhill, but a lot of these afternoons are just too hot to pick in. Some of the fields are not only hot, but also very humid because the lines of plants are close together and the plants are transpiring continuously.
This is our full-on harvest season, with each day a “big” day, so that almost first thing in the morning, planned and necessary projects are triaged in order to get the orders filled. Tremendous quantities of beautiful fruits and vegetables are picked every day from very hot fields. Then they are brought into our packing shed, cooled down and boxed up for stores, restaurants, wholesale distributors and of course our CSA members. [Read more…]
We are on the cusp of an explosion — but you, our CSA members, might never know it from the boxes. The only hints are the summer squash and the arrival of basil. Every year, right around this time, there is a sense of expectation as the tomatoes flower and start to set fruit, the onion and garlic crops are harvested, and we check the progress of the first melons starting to swell and sweeten on their vines. [Read more…]
We have a wonderful crew of interns, keeping the farm energy young and inquiring. Every year our interns retrace the learning steps from times past. Here they are on their way to our June 9th pizza night. Next chance for you to come to pizza night is Friday July 14th. Wood fired pizza, salads and homemade farm fresh ice cream — all in a picnic setting at Full Belly!
There are times that we look at each other in despair, saying, “there’s just too much going on around here” —! With everyone going in a lot of different directions life can be pretty overwhelming. Carefully planned days can easily derail into a race chasing down one unexpected loose end after another. Happily, every once in awhile we do get a hint that our efforts may be circling around an internal logic, not actually about to spiral out of control.
One of the biggest themes of the week continued to be to complete the spring transplanting. Last Monday we transplanted our third planting of tomatoes, this time 60,000 seedlings, all in one day, into a 6-acre field. The field has been growing hay for decades, so the soil is well prepared to grow some delicious fruit. Later in the week it was flowers, celeriac and direct seeding of dent corn, melons, beans, squash and cucumbers.
Above the crew is transplanting tomatoes [Read more…]
I hope that a few photos of farm activities will give CSA members a sense of being just a little bit closer to where your fruits and veggies are coming from. These are nothing too fancy, just simple photo-snaps taken with phone cameras by various Full Bellies as we do our work.
Several times a year, Jenna and Amon and several other farm chefs put together a “crew lunch” so that we can all have a sit-down time together. The lunch usually features Full Belly-grown products. [Read more…]
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