Posts Tagged ‘chicken’

CSA Newsletter: Farm Tour for CSA Members April 13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 8, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Is it still raining?

Is it still raining?

It’s grey and wet today, but we’re busy as ever with CSA veggie planting, bottle-feeding kid goats, and keeping our sheep in check in the vineyard. Spinach and peas are popping up out of the ground as are the beets and carrots. Potatoes have been planted in Potter Valley and starting to break the surface. Lettuce is thriving in the high tunnel. We have one soil test back and we’re calculating nutrient requirements for the different crops to see if we need to add any amendments. And our yearly organic crop inspection is coming up next week!
Yes, it’s busy on the farm, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have time for you to come visit with us! Many thanks for supporting our farm – your farm. There are currently 26 CSA shareholders, with the hope for at least 50 members this year.
Cashflowing the farm is extremely tight, meat sales are helping subsidize the vegetable cropping, and we’re making cuts in the budget to make ends meet. We are keeping up on bills, but we still need to put significant investment into upgrading our postharvest handling, including the walk-in cooler. But, we’re still getting crops in the ground and hope that commodity prices are favorable this year. We will most likely have to sell certain surplus crops to Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op and restaurants. Local restaurants are tricky to sell to because they typically pay very low prices for very low volume, but we have a good relationship with Bar Agricole (a James Beard Foundation Award Finalist this year!) in San Francisco who always wants more of our produce. The Ukiah Unified School District is also interested in our produce.
If you know someone interested in joining our CSA but is not sure, please invite them to the April 13 farm tour at the home ranch. This will be just one of a couple farm events we’re hosting this year.
We’ll also be at a big CSA Open House in Hopland on Saturday, April 20, from 11am-5pm. It’s part of the Solar Living Institute’s Earth Day Festival, and we’ll be one of eight CSA farms with farm information, looking for more sign-ups. There’s also going to be a couple cooking demos with food from CSA farms, as well as the entire Earth Day Festival happening!
Hope to see you at one of these events, and thanks!
Adam & Paula Gaska

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What’s All this Cheeping About?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on April 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

“Hi! Wow, there are so many of us, and we’d love it if you purchased a Chicken CSA share. When you pay for your chicken ahead of time, you help cover the costs to raise us. That means we have a happy, healthy life before we make it to a dinner table near you!”

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Sign Up for the Chicken CSA with PayPal

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on March 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Hi, Mendo folks! Now, you can sign up for a Chicken CSA share with credit or debit card on PayPal. Just visit
http://mendoorganics.csasignup.com
 , and in a few minutes, you can easily pay and send us your sign-up info. Note: this is for Ukiah and Willits pick-up only. If you’d like to pay with check or cash, please download the forms at the bottom of the page here.

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2011 Chicken CSA

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on January 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Hello, Ukiah Valley! It is wet and wintry, but we are busy on spreadsheets, on the phone, consulting calendars, and on our calculators planning out the main growing season – spring! (We’re also in the middle of lambing season and the Winter Veg CSA…) But, the spring fairies will be out and blooming sooner than we know it ;)

As a community-based farm, we market most of our food products through CSA – Community-Supported Agriculture. We are doing the Chicken CSA again, with some small changes from past seasons. Check out the Chicken CSA page for more detailed info.

This year, we are raising chickens from June through October. We are ending the season a little earlier in case there is a big, early rain, as happened in 2010. So, a chicken share is 5 chickens ($90.00) throughout the season. Also, we are raising and processing a batch of chickens every other week, as opposed to every 4 weeks. This should provide for a more consistent size in the chicken you get each pick-up. All the details on how the chicken CSA works can be found here. Plan on signing up for a chicken share by March 15, 2011!

Also, this year, we hope to upgrade our poultry processing station. Some things we hope to invest in include: killing cones, chiller, carrying crates, and the convenient “cryovac” bags. (You can explore small-scale poultry processing here.) We hope to improve on our poultry enterprise, ultimately making it more cost-effective and resulting in better chicken for you!

This is NOT how we market our chickens!

 

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Harvest Time!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 21, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

We have not posted news in a while, but it is no wonder – we are so very busy! And this week is no exception. As all the vineyards in Mendo are bustling with harvest, we have been assisting with the grape harvest at Golden Vineyards. It’s always exciting to collaborate with the Goldens, and although we’re doing a lot, we enjoy taking part in the grape harvest madness that has taken over the region. In some ways, the success of our farm depends on the success of the agriculture around us.

In terms of our own harvest, we have been doing a lot of it. Since September, we have been supplying the five NCO Head Start centers in Ukiah with weekly CSA produce shares. Some of the summer’s bounty have been melons, sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, sweet peppers, chard, and more. Periodically, we have supplemented the Live Power CSA produce shares with our vegetables as well.

Since mid-August, we have been supplying produce to the bar and restaurant, Bar Agricole. This week, we are sending some lamb their way. It required us driving down to Occidental and back on a Sunday night to drop off the lamb for processing, but that is what we have to do as there is no place for us to do that in Mendo…

Speaking of lamb, our sheep still reside at 3WG in Potter Valley. They have been very happy there thus far, and we’re still putting in time and labor to rehabilitate a couple of the fields there. Growing hay and pasture is still somewhat new for us, so we are going to try growing a specific mix in one field and see how it compares with the other fields. There is still some tractor work to be done so that the irrigation water flows across the fields correctly. Many of the ewes are bagging up (their udders are becoming full of milk) meaning we will have more lambs soon. If you are interested in buying our lamb for your freezer, let us know. We may have some available right now.

Also, we are in the home stretch of the meat chicken CSA. This Saturday, October 23, we will have the 5th batch of chicken shares available for pick-up at the Ukiah Farmers Market. We also plan to have extras for market sale as well.

Earlier this week, we also got together with Doug from the Mendocino Grain Project to get some of our grain cleaned. Some grain we will be reseeding and some wheat will go toward the grain CSA.

This week, we have also been harvesting and curing the winter squash for the Winter CSA. So far, we’ve harvested a couple varieties of acorn, lots of spaghetti, and delicata. The butternut, kabocha, and other plantings are still maturing.

One truckload of many!

You may not have heard, but we finally got a 4-wheel tractor in August. Fall planting has been happening much faster with the large disk and shovels for bed-shaping!

With it being autumn now, we are following the weather forecast closely; we must plan for the first substantial rain. While we are doing all this harvesting, fall is when we plant our hay/pasture and grain. This year, we will be growing barley at the south Ukiah property.

Perhaps when the days are super short and we’re inside more, we will have more blog posts for you :)

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Chicken CSA Update No.2

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on August 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

We’re doing it again! We’re pushing forward 1 week the processing of our broiler chickens. Basically, the hatchery sent this batch of day-old chicks to us later than expected, so our feathery friends need more time foraging, eating, and running around before experiencing their full lives of tastiness.

So Ukiah Shareholders & Live Power San Francisco Shareholders – your chickens will be ready on Saturday, September 11.

We should have some extras for sale at the Ukiah Saturday Farmers Market, September 11. Thank you!

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Chicken CSA Update

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on August 6, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Just in case anyone missed the message – we are waiting until next week to process the third batch of broiler chickens. That means the CSA pick-up at the Ukiah Saturday Farmers Market will take place on Saturday, August 14. NOT this Saturday, the 7th. Basically, we want the birds to be a little bit bigger before we harvest them.

We will have a few extra whole, fresh chickens for sale at the farmers market on August 14. Thanks!

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Get your BBQ on!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on May 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

This Friday, June 4, at the Mendocino Home and Lifestyle Expo, you can find our free-range, organic chicken at the BBQ Cook Off. Come see how well our chicken looks and tastes, and then buy some yourself through our chicken CSA. More information on the Expo can be found at www.redwoodempirefair.com or by calling 462-3884.

We will be dropping off our chicken to CSA members in Ukiah at the Ukiah Saturday Farmers Market, June 5. There may be some extras that we will sell at the market, so stop by our booth!

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The Season’s First Batch of Broiler Chickens

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on May 25, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Less than two weeks, and we’ll be butchering the first batch of meat chickens this year. The free-rangin’ fowl are huddled in their retrofitted water tanks for huts as the rain pours. But, they are enjoying the cover crop and fresh air. And they are growing and eating a lot!

It’s still not too late to sign up for the chicken CSA. We will be dropping off the first delivery of CSA chickens at the Ukiah Saturday Farmers Market June 5, and any surplus from that batch, we’ll be selling for $20 each. This is the place to get your local, pastured chicken. (Willits folks, check out the link above for more info.) And remember, our poultry only receive organic feed as they deserve the best, and our customers should only get the best!

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Rainy April Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Sometimes, people ask us, “What do you do when it’s raining?” As a matter of fact, we work! Regardless of what Nature feels like, there is some farmin’ to do.

Today was no exception. We knew the big downpour was coming, so the day before, we did as much vegetable transplanting as possible and dug out the trenches/culverts on the hillside to ensure no veg beds would wash away. We also had to make sure the equipment and tools were covered or put away so as not to get wet and rust.

It rained a lot! This morning, Adam and Alder dug some culverts to stop the erosion in the recently cultivated Pond Field. I harvested produce (cauliflower, lettuce, sugar snap peas, broccoli shoots, and green chard) for Head Start and made the delivery in Ukiah. While in town, I purchased 6 bales of wheat straw for mulch. The guys up-sized some summer seedlings in the greenhouse and cut seed potato in preparation for planting later. There was some lunch where we discussed techniques for growing potatoes and how to find more shareholders for the Live Power CSA (which you should join!).

After some administrative computer stuff, I joined Adam and Alder in moving the sheep and cows into a new pasture area in the rangeland. Herding the animals has gotten easier with three of us instead of just two. Cell phones help too. We took down the fence, put it up in the new place, and herded the ovines and bovines – all pretty much at the same time. It went pretty smoothly. No cows went wild, no sheep scattered. I think we are getting better at herding.

Later, Adam and I threw straw down in the gullies in the Pond Field to prevent any more erosion. So, we got a lot done despite the rain, some wind, and a short spell of hail. We did see the sun a couple times, as well as some rainbows! And of course, the daily chores – checking the meat chickens and egg layers, feeding the livestock guardian dogs, and watering the greenhouse – were taken care of.

I was able to take a few pictures of the spring vegetables when it was not raining.

We have a couple beds of broccoli and cauliflower flourishing at the Pond Field.

These are some beds of different lettuce varieties growing in the north section of the Coyote Field.

This is radicchio under the floating row cover. The birds like to eat it if they can get to it.

These are beets we transplanted a while ago. We usually sow beet seeds directly into the vegetable bed, but because the soil has been so wet these past couple months, we had to start them as seedlings in the greenhouse.

Cabbage! - up close and still growing in the south section of the Coyote Field. Many other brassicas and lettuce are growing in this section.

Here is more lettuce (left) and one of our plantings of peas (right), ready for trellising.

Driving down the hill at the ranch, I spotted a rainbow over the vineyard. You can sort of see the grapes to the right.

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