August 2, 2009
Lynda with the newly arrived Ginger, the kid…our wee little Nigerian Dwarf Goat.
The view from the field at dusk on a harvest evening.
Emmett and his freshly dug garlic.
Lynda and our friend Sofie, harvesting for the CSA. Sofie harvested one cauliflower head and Lynda harvestedone whole plant! Everyone has their own technique here at Foggy River Farm. To each her own!
One week’s CSA box, including basil, summer squash, cabbage, carrots, garlic, fennel bulb, bagged arugula, spaghetti squash (and apples and pears for the fruit share.)
Sofie, tending our market stand in Healdsburg on a mid June morning.
Fennel, purple-top turnips, and garlic all snuggled together on our market display.
May 19, 2009
The CSA is well underway…heading into week 3. Below is a photo tour of some of our crops in their current state.
Broccoli is heading up as the heat arrives.
Curvaceous cabbage.
Head lettuce. Get it?
Lynda and Hanna (our wwoofer from Sweden) planting “Russian Banana” fingerling potatoes.
Romanesco summer squash plants starting to size up.
We’ve got hundreds of heirloom tomato plants in the ground– tomatoes will be red, green, yellow, orange, big, small, striped, solid, round, heart-shaped, cherry…. (you get the idea — LOTS of different varieties of tomato).
Bok Choi, destined for this week’s CSA boxes.
April 15, 2009
Today we harvested our second round of spring arugula to sell to the Windsor Green Grocer, and had to pull up the plants to make way for a new direct sowing. We had transplanted the original arugula seedlings maybe 1 month ago, hoping to get a good jump on the CSA season with some tasty arugula. As it turned out, the darn stuff grew so fast that we’ve harvested some of it twice and it is bolting skyward to make flowers already! In the fall we can typically get several months of harvests from the same arugula plants, but this dry spring the plants aren’t so patient. That’s the nature of farming, I guess. You just can never predict how things will turn out– get an early start and end up being too early.
But with any luck, the seeds I sowed today will be ready for harvest by week 1. Here’s to hoping.
And, in the meantime, pay a visit to the Green Grocer for some knock-your-socks-off arugula. Mmmm…so delicious! (I munched some for breakfast while I was pulling out the plants.)
-Emmett
April 15, 2009
Hi all — we’re extending the CSA early sign-up deadline to May 2nd (the day of the Open House)…so don’t fret it you haven’t sent that check in yet. There’s still a little time. If you already know you’ll be signing up, please still get in touch with us as soon as you can–because it will help us with our planning.
And don’t forget the CSA open house Saturday, May 2nd. We look forward to meeting a lot of you at the farm!
-Emmett
April 11, 2009
Come visit the farm! We will soon be opening our farm gates to everybody–our new CSA members, as well as anybody who is interested in learning more. Mark your calendars for Saturday, May 2nd (tentatively set for 3-6 pm). We’ll have some farm-fresh snacks, do a little baking in our wood-fired oven, give informal tours of the farm, and introduce you to our beautiful hens. It’s an opportunity for new members to start to get to know their farm, and a time when interested folks can come to meet us and learn more.
Foggy River Farm CSA Open House (a.k.a. “Open Farm”)
Saturday, May 2nd — 3-6 pm
Hope to see you there!
Address: 8250 Eastside Road, Healdsburg, CA 95448 (Follow the gravel road between vineyard rows all the way to the farm and picnic area.)
(RSVP: it would be helpful if you think you might come if you could email emmett.hopkins@gmail.com to let us know… if it’s last minute and you aren’t able to rsvp, don’t worry about it…just come on over.)
April 11, 2009
Kea, our fearless farm helper, deep in thought.
April 11, 2009
These are the 5 dozen eggs we found hidden in three nests in the tall grasses around our house. Naughty chickens! We’re preparing for a mega Easter egg hunt tomorrow…
April 7, 2009
I’m inside during the April rain (which is much appreciated by our onion and garlic). The main field is full of tiny plants, growing bigger every day, protected by white row covers that flap when the north winds pick up. We took our first spring crop of arugula to the Windsor Green Grocer last weekend; it had become stressed in the greenouse and started to put our flower buds only weeks after we transplanted it. So we said “Off with your ‘ead!” and cut the plants all back to the ground. Fortunately, the Green Grocer is always eager to take arugula off our hands, so it went to a good home. And with any luck, we’ll have another nice crop coming back from the same plants in a few weeks. Also coming along nicely is the spinach, head lettuce, kale, chard, beets, and broccoli… carrots and salad mix just sprouting. We continue to fight the tomato seedling battle in our plastic hoop house, coaxing the tempermental little things to life.
We started some flats of herbs a few days ago. From my experience, the most impossible herb to start from seed is oregano. The seeds are so small that there is a second packet inside the normal seed packet (to keep them from falling through the seams)! Instead of covering the seeds you simply press them into the moistened soil. We’ll cross out fingers and hope for sprouts!
In other news, our seed potatoes are on their way. They’re begin shipped from the east, so couldn’t come until the danger of deep frost has passed. We’ll be planting Red Norland, All Blue, Russian Banana Fingerling, and Yukon Gold. Red, white, and blue…maybe after harvest we can arrange them for an aerial photo of the stars and stripes.
Until next time,
Emmett
March 3, 2009
Well, we’re finally getting the rain we’ve been needing. But of course it comes just when I want to work the soil and start sowing seed and setting out transplants! It’s hard to do anything in the field when the clay just stick to everything and gobs up all over the tools. In the meantime, the plastic house is full of seedlings — and struggling to stay upright in the windy afternoons. I am almost done putting up the fence that will protect our crops from roaming wild pigs. These beasts come in at night and absolutely thrash the field, digging in zig-zag patterns for grubs and who-knows-what-else. If only we could harness their power to do a more systematic rototilling of the rows then we’d be in business. The pork-o-tiller!
February 7, 2009
We’ve added a new page to the blog. It’s listed under “CSA” and explains everything you need to know about our CSA. For those who aren’t familiar with the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) model, members sign up and buy a “share” of the farm at the beginning of the growing season and then receive a box of delicious local produce every week. We’ll also be incorporating opportunities to experience the farm, build a strong community with fellow members and farmers, and learn some farming skills for those who are interested.
Today we visited our neighbor (just over the hill by foot), Golden Nectar Farm, who we’ll be partnering with to provide fruit to those members who opt in. They’ve got an amazing array of fruit varieties and we feel so lucky to be able to work with them. They have plum and apple trees already blossoming because of the warm winter we’re having! (This might prove problematic if the buds freeze later and the fruit doesn’t set on those early trees…but they’ve got such a diversity of trees that they’ll be able to bounce back.)
The plastic hoop house is up (15 x 25 ft, photos forthcoming), the cover crop on the new field is disced in, the garlic and onions are bulbing and need weeding(!), and we’re sowing new seeds as fast as we can! Spring is always an exciting time on the farm.
Sign up for the CSA!
