Organic Vegetables, Fruit, Flowers & Wool
I’ve been an intern at Full Belly for over one Full Belly year. Today I’m going to take this opportunity to share with you a sneak peek into what it means to be an intern at this very unique place, as I reflect on my experience and what I’ve learned.
First I’ll begin with some numbers. In my time here as an intern I’ve seen, met, lived with and/or been a part of: [Read more…]
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It’s wet. In the last week, we have seen nearly five inches of rainfall here in the Capay Valley. That is almost one quarter of our annual recorded rain! On Thursday morning, Cache Creek crested at 11,000 cubic feet per second ripping through the floodplain. I watched full-sized trees carried effortlessly down the river. Then, less than five hours later, the river retreated to 3,000 cf/s in an amazing display of our watershed in action. Friday left us snow-capped peaks to dazzle over. As the weather played cat and mouse, I watched in awe. Rainbows, warm sunny moments and cold torrential rain were blended seamlessly throughout the day. As the sun returns this week, I watch the water slowly recede into the ground and I cannot help but sigh with relief. I know that on cold wet days like these, trees tap their roots down a little further. Buds on the trees take one more day to swell before they flower and fruit. Birds wait and rest one more day before spring brings the nest. The carrots shiver and sugar their flesh as they await the farmer’s hands. And the farmer waits blissfully as the storm passes, eager to sow the new season’s crops. [Read more…]
One advantage of being a CSA member that you may not have thought about is the very significant amount of waste that is removed from the landfill by a CSA program compared to the grocery store alternative. We have done a little bit of analysis, comparing the packaging for the first 4 CSA boxes of the year to the packaging that we would have used if we had sold the same produce to stores, restaurants and wholesalers instead. If we had sold to stores, we would have packed the produce into 1,095 waxed cardboard boxes, 319 non-waxed cardboard boxes and 61 plastic 25-lb bags! The plastic bags and waxed cardboard boxes generally end up in the landfill so the CSA results in a pretty significant reduction in the waste stream. [Read more…]
Three beds of tulips have all started to bloom at once, the first flowers available for 2019. They will be available at our farmers markets: Berkeley on Tuesday afternoon; San Rafael on Thursday morning and Palo Alto on Saturday morning.
What You Ate Last Year – On our Full Belly web site in our description of our Community Supported Agriculture program, we promise that if you join, you will “eat the freshest, most nutritious fruits and vegetables available.” There are lots of ways to parse that promise, but this week we’re going to take a look at our program using a pretty straightforward metric: What did we deliver to you in your boxes last year? [Read more…]
Soaking potatoes before washing them ––
I had the opportunity last week to join some interesting conversations about nutrition and health — and their intersection with organic agriculture. We reported in this newsletter previously that researchers are increasingly finding that people eating more organic food have a reduced risk of cancer. Of course, other healthy behaviors, in addition to eating organic food, are obviously also very important to staying healthy — things like getting exercise and not smoking tobacco. But it turns out that healthy behavior (over which individuals have some control) may only be a factor of about 30% in terms of influencing your health outcomes. [Read more…]
We have had a week of heavy rainfall, so our fields are very wet. None of the farm work can be done by tractor when the fields are so wet and a lot of mud gets tracked into trucks, our office, and the packing shed. The crews tread heavily in boots that pick up the sticky mud in the fields. Their rain gear is coated with mud and everything is a little bit slower, adding to the costliness of keeping the doors open and the crew working during rainy weather. The crew only came in for 4-hours on most days last week since we were mostly only picking for farmers markets and CSA boxes. And besides, it was cold and messy work, not a nice walk in the rain to jump in the puddles! Full Belly has a commitment to providing year-round work for our crew, as well as a commitment to showing up at markets and CSA pick-up sites year-round without fail. But when the weather is cold and wet, it can take a toll. [Read more…]
60,000 lettuce and cabbage getting started for the first New Year planting.
There are several opportunities in 2019 for you to visit us at Full Belly Farm. Here are some of them.
Open Farm Day will be on April 6th.
Come and meet your farmers and visit the farm! Our lambs will be 1-1/2 to 2 months old and you will get the opportunity to meet them as well. We will give a farm tour and you are welcome to stay for a picnic. We will set up a farm stand, and will be selling our homemade brick oven-baked pizzas. There is no charge for Open Farm Day tours. [Read more…]
This week we will be harvesting and packing fruits and vegetables for the first CSA boxes of 2019. If all goes well, there will be 47 additional CSA-box-weeks in 2019 and we are ever-hopeful that each week will deliver a surprise, a well-loved favorite and the inspiration for nourishing meals. At least, that’s our aspiration! We are also likely to send you stories from the fields that touch on the weather, the soils and the people that are growing your fruits and vegetables — the stories behind the fruits and vegetables in your box. The meals we all create and consume are strongly linked to our health and well being, as are the connections back and forth between farmer and CSA member. [Read more…]
I love my woodstove. Every cold night in winter, I fall more and more in love with the glow of fire, its warmth, comfort, and protection. So as I sit by the wood stove, penning this note, stoking another evening log into the firebox, I can’t help but wonder how the young and emerging seedlings out in the greenhouse are faring on this rapidly freezing night. With so many young plants, most of which are very cold sensitive, checking in on them like I did with my own children sleeping in the night, is pure instinct. After a week of substantially low temperatures and freezing weather, the safe haven of the greenhouses have been nearly breached, as heavy frost has encased the poly sheathed hoop houses and fatal cold has endangered plants closest to the outside walls. In the past, I have woken up to “frozen and fried plants” many times over the years, so I know that growing plants in a greenhouse is a 24/7 responsibility. Tonight, on this especially cold evening, I will check the greenhouse one more time before I go to bed.
What was most notable about the farm this last week was how a series of gently warm afternoons created just sufficient enough enticement to inspire many plants and crops into an explosion of blooms and young leaves. The nights and mornings were cold, which meant cold fingers in the packing shed when the first of the day’s harvested crops arrived to be rinsed and packed. But by early afternoon the days were warm, and the blessings of life were impossible to ignore in this beautiful Valley.
At this time of year many of our fields are growing cover crops. These are crops that we grow to feed the soil — we don’t harvest them for sale. Cover crop roots harvest deep nutrients and bring them to the surface for future crops. Cover crop leaves harvest nitrogen from the air. When turned back to the soil these crops build organic matter and feed microbial life, and those microbes in turn play a miraculous part in feeding the crop roots that follow in our fields.
Every February, the Capay Valley celebrates the number one cash crop in Yolo County: the almond or “ahh-mand” as they are pronounced around here. While we can all agree that a glass of almond milk is delicious, in our area, local farmers don’t only grow them for their juice. They are also roasted, turned into butter, made into soap, and even eaten in ice cream!
Or rather, winter farm? It’s been so warm that even the bees think it is time to come out and look for flowers. They are finding the odd mustard flower and a few wildflowers, but it is slim pickings.
When I was little, growing up in New Mexico, an artichoke was a huge treat. My family of five would get one artichoke, and carefully divvy up the leaves and the heart. The first time I ate artichokes at the farm, I was floored when a huge steaming platter of them was brought to the table and everyone ate at least 3! It is still a huge treat, and I can’t wait for these little babies to be ready. [Read more…]
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