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Posts Tagged ‘csa’

CSA begins

May 8th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

I had a good first day with the CSA. Ten members showed up at the farm and picked up shares last monday and I have 14 people signed up for next week. I was happy with the produce and I hope the members are happily eating it. Contents included 1 bunch carrots, 1 bunch chiogga beat, 1 bunch turnip, 10oz sugar snap peas, 1 bag green lettuce, 1 bag red lettuce, 1 bunch kale, 1 bunch chard, 1 red onion, 1 purple kohlrabi, 1 green garlic, 1 pound broccoli/caulilower, 1 bunch culinary sage.

The Farmers market I’ve been attending is slowly getting better…...

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The field is looking good, with the last week of sun and warmer weather stuff is really starting to grow. I have been busy taking care of everything I have growing, keeping pests at bay, as well as planting new crops.

The next two weeks I will be planting more warm weather crops….. tomatoes, squash, beans, eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, melons….. as well as more lettuce, carrots, beets, radish, turnips, onions, leeks, chard, kale, and mustard greens. I direct seed the squash, beans, cucumbers, carrots, beets, radish and turnips and the rest are from transplants that I started last month. I am fortunate to have Oscar Carmona and Jeff Kramer of Healing Grounds Nursery (completely organic and a very unique wholesale nursery, check them out at healinggroundsnusery.com) literally right next to my field. Oscar is a great guy and has been big help to my cause. He is currently allowing me to use space in one of his greenhouses to do my starts.

As far as field pests go the weeds are definitely number one, gophers in a close second, and beetles really picking up the pace. My remedies include lots of hoeing (I’ve been borrowing a Glaser wheel hoe which is amazing), consistent gopher traps (cinch traps), and the a vacuum that I’ve been sucking up cucumber beetle with (craftsman shop vac). Nothing works perfect but my remedies are slowly improving and with a bit of luck I feel confident I can keep things under control so that plants are healthy and still producing come harvest time.

field shots [nggallery id=184]

Tags: CSA, farmer's market, gophers, pests, glaser wheel hoe

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Wet weather and earthday

April 26th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

For some reason winter weather just won’t go away here on the central coast. It rained all last week and rain is in the forecast again this week, not making it easy for prepping soil and planting warm weather crops. Luckily for me the land I am farming is sandy loam and drains fast enough so even with the rains I have been able do some tractor work and get most everything I planned on in the ground.

The Earthday festival I participated in last week went great. It was a huge event and my booth was in a section called “harvest to home” that was themed all around local food. I met a lot of great people in the area that are doing similar things as myself, good contacts and networking stuff. I think this local food movement is all about everybody working together as opposed to competing and that was definitely the vibe at earthday. I handed out over a hundred CSA brochures, met many potential members, and even had a couple people sign up on the spot.

Other than that all is good here at Ellwood. Here are some photos, enjoy.

rainy day photo:

Earthday Booth:[nggallery id=172]

Tags: CSA, rain, earthday

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Worms and CSA

April 12th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

The last couple of weeks I have been spending lots of time marketing for my initial CSA season which starts the first week in May and runs through October (6 months, 26 weeks). I made a brochure with pictures and all the information that I have been handing out to anyone that is interested as well as just talking about it as much as possible and explaining the idea to everybody I know. I am looking for about 20 members and so far I only have 5 signed up so I’m really pushing to get more… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: CSA, compost tea, worm bin, vermiculture

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The market season is about to begin

April 5th, 2010
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

hey it’s me, Sara. We have been working really hard to get this season off to the right start. The two Markets that we will be attending most (if not all) of the season start this next week! We plan on bringing some plant starts, and info on warmer weather starts that we’ll have available a little later in the season. (we’re in the process of potting up about 4000 heirloom tomato, pepper, tomatillo, and ground cherry plants). I’m so excited to see all of the vendors and customers!!!… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: farmer's market, CSA is not grocery delivery, plant starts

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Ellwood Update

March 25th, 2010
Ellwood Canyon Farms | Blog

Everything has been going good here at Ellwood Canyon. Yesterday was big day, after three months of paper work, phone calls, ag-inspector visits and meetings I finally got into my first farmers market. The one they are currently allowing me to attend is every Wednesday afternoon at Harding elementary school on the Westside of Santa Barbara. It is a new market so the crowd is very slow but I am hoping that in time it will gain in popularity. I am also hoping that I will soon be allowed to… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: beans, CSA, farmer's market, peppers, squash, tomatoes, egglplants

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Greetings from the “frosty” north!

March 14th, 2010
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

Sara here! Just wanted to drop in and say how excited I am about this season! Jared and I have both been working the farm full time essentially. Jared hasn’t toured since last season and has been working part time in seattle, and also working with me for a landscaping company in nearby Bainbridge Island. We’ve been both trying to blend our farm work styles (with, admittedly, a little conflict) but so far I feel that we are on track (although, feeling a bit behind…). We’ve… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: CSA, seed starts, first market, work styles

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Wrapping up the Winter Harvest

January 17th, 2010
DeepSeeded Community Farm | Blog

Well… It’s been a great, long season of harvests; and now it’s over. We kept it coming for 32 weeks this year, which is longer than any of the CSA farms in the area, and longer than I’ve ever kept it going before. For the 6-week Winter CSA add-on we had 94 member-households. The harvests were abundant and diverse, and folks were pleased to be getting farm-fresh produce long after the Farmer’s Markets had ceased. But I’m glad to have stopped when I did. … Read the rest of this article »

Tags: CSA, winter, climate, hardiness, diversity

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The Winter CSA has Begun!

November 28th, 2009
DeepSeeded Community Farm | Blog

This year at DeepSeeded Farm, we’ve decided to keep the harvest coming for a few weeks into winter. I planted an acre or so of crops that would mature in the fall and provide harvest a ways into winter. Though it is possible to harvest something from the garden all year long in this climate, I decided to keep the winter CSA to just 6 weeks for a couple of reasons. One, it’s great to get a break from harvest at some point in the year. Secondly, after a while into winter the diversity… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: winter CSA, variety, oakhill organics, mendocino organics

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Transition

November 15th, 2009
DeepSeeded Community Farm | Blog

Among the things I love about farming is the seasonality. Though there is much work to do throughout the year on my farm, and I can definitely feel run through the wringer at times, I feel lucky to not be doing the same thing day in and day out. Next week marks the end of our mainseason CSA, and our winter CSA begins the following week. We will shift from two CSA harvests each week to just one. In the fields, cover crop is now germinating on all the crop-free ground, our overwinter crops are… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: cover crop, winter CSA, seasonality, overwinter

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What we’re selling now

November 11th, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

Today was another Briar Patch Co-op delivery. We’re still keeping up 3x/week with the deliveries. And they’re still sizeable. Here’s what we’re selling today: 36 heads each of: Red Leaf, Green Leaf, Bibb Lettuce 36 Bunches: Radishes 100lbs Butternut Squash 15 Lbs Shallots On Monday we delivered 500lbs of mixed winter squash, the same amount of radishes, shallots and lettuce as today, and some Mustard Green Bunches. We’re coming into Kale, Broccoli, carrots and… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: CSA, Terry Firma Farm, Briar Patch co-op

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Three farms are starting from scratch.

They are turning the dirt and hoping to be successful enough to turn a profit, and to become a valuable part of their communities as suppliers of organically grown food.

Peaceful Valley is giving them a head start by offering them special pricing as part of this Freshman Farmer program.

The Farm Blogs

Freshman:
New Farms Coming Soon!
Sophomores:
	Daily Grace Farms Crescent City, CA
	Freestone Family Farm Vernal, UT
	Wise Moon Farm Redding, CA
Graduates:
	Coyote House Farm Palermo, CA
	DeepSeeded Community Farm Arcata, CA
	Driftwood Farm Fort Bragg, CA
	EarthDance Farm St. Louis, MO
	Ellwood Canyon Farms Goleta, CA
	Four Frog Farm Penn Valley, CA
	Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm Poulsbo, WA
	Home Plate Organic Farm Orleans, CA
	Honey in the Heart Farm Nevada City, CA
	Willow Springs Farm Penn Valley, CA