Mendocino Organics

Mendocino Organics Vegetable CSA – Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Potatoes growing in Potter Valley

Greetings, adventurous eaters and members of Mendocino Organics CSA! We are happy to have you all join the farm this year. This is our second season with the Spring-Summer Vegetable CSA, and many of you are new to our farm this year. This growing season already started off quite differently than the year before – it has been an incredibly dry and warm early spring. Water is always precious here in the West, and we are fortunate to have water available for food agriculture. 

In Your Share This Week

• Lettuce
• Radishes
• Snap Peas or Young Turnips (depends on your pick-up site)
• Fava Beans
• Spring Onions
• Shallots

This is a typical early spring harvest. No tomatoes or watermelons yet, although it has been warm enough to crave them! In one or two weeks, the cooking greens will be ready to harvest. We were lucky with the fava beans, which were over-wintered at the 3WG Ranch in Potter Valley. They were hit badly by frost but bounced back in late winter. Fresh fava beans require some preparation, but the work is worth it. They are delicious just sauteed in butter or olive oil. First you pop the beans out of the pods. Your kids can help with this. They you parboil them for a couple minutes, just so that you can slip the beans out their hulls. The recipe below suggests using a knife, but we just use our thumbnail. CUESA is a great organization with loads of information about different Northern California local produce, along with recipes.

http://www.cuesa.org/recipe/baby-fava-bean-breakfast-radish-and-spring-onion-crostini-bellwether-ricotta

Throughout the season, we will include recipes in your weekly newsletter. You will also find useful Vegetable Tip Sheets, or Veggie Tip Sheets at your pick-up site. They include nutritional info, storage and preparation tips, suggested recipes, and some interesting factoids about your vegetables. Many of these come from Just Food NYC’s “Veggie Tip Sheets” booklet, along with other good reference books and cookbooks. Feel free to grab a copy for each of the vegetables, especially if you are unfamiliar with a particular crop.

The shallots were stored from last fall. Shallots are a sweet substitute for onions in your cooking. The radishes will spice up any salad. If you want to try something different with your lettuce, check out this suggestion from Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express. We are just discovering Mark Bittman’s cookbooks, and this one is pretty good. It’s divided up by season, the recipes are so simple, and there’s a whole section at the beginning of the book about what to keep in your pantry and substitutes for different ingredients. It’s everything to make you feel like a confident cook, even with a busy schedule.

Seared Fish with Lettuce Leaves

Use anything sustainable, good, fresh, and firm.

Warm a couple of tablespoons of sesame oil (or use olive or peanut oil; something with flavor, in any case) in a skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle fish chunks with salt and pepper and sear until just done. Wrap at the table in leaves of Boston or other tender lettuce, or grape leaves from a jar, garnished with lemon juice and fresh mint or lime juice and basil, mint, and/or cilantro.

Field Notes

A lot of the lettuce is maturing much earlier than usual due to the warm spring. We were able to get a January planting of broccoli in the ground, which should be ready to harvest in one to two weeks. Just like every spring, we are waging a war with the mice in the propagation greenhouse and the gophers in the garden (aka Coyote Field) at Heart Arrow Ranch. If you were unaware, we grow crops at three different locations. We have been growing early spring and greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers at Heart Arrow Ranch near Redwood Valley. We also lease 3WG Ranch in Potter Valley for main season vegetables, and we lease another smaller parcel also in Potter Valley for more veggies (potatoes and some melons this year). 

The potatoes will be ready earlier than usual; they are looking very healthy and will get mounded with our cultivating tractor. With potatoes, you have to mound, or draw dirt up to the plant so that the potatoes – the roots – develop properly. We are growing five different kinds of potatoes this year, including our favorite to eat – German Butterball. 

Until next week, eat well!

Adam & Paula

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There is lots going on at Mendocino Organics as we prepare for the 2013 Vegetable CSA season, which starts next week. The climate is definitely changing and being less predictable, making crop planning and farming more challenging. As local farming changes because of this, we farmers will need to work with the community, like you, our CSA shareholders, to ensure longterm food security! We do not usually count on the late winter and early spring being so dry and warm. Cultivating and getting crops in the ground is usually challenging on the North Coast. This year, many farmers are needing to irrigate or were hoping for more rain, as the ground has been TOO dry to cultivate. We’re also going to be cutting our hay almost a month early this year.

Nonetheless, we are still on track for our first CSA harvest next week, and the crops are all doing generally well. We’ve been fortunate to hire a little part-time help from a couple young farmers in Potter Valley. They are helping us transplant crops and may work some harvests. One piece of equipment still on our wish-list is a transplanter. For now, we still transplant vegetable seedlings, alliums (onions, shallots), and potatoes by hand. It’s a big help getting all the crops out when we need them in the ground. Plus, we can provide some mentorship and a small source of income to these new farmers. Organic vegetable production is very labor intensive, so us two farmers and our one full-time employee need the extra help now that it is spring. We are also working with another young farmer to grow 1.25 acre of field corn – Oaxacan Green corn and Abenaki Calais Flint corn. We are growing it for nixtamal or masa, which you can use for tamales, tortillas, posole, etc. (This is outside of the Vegetable CSA…)

Our application to accept SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits has finally gone through at the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, but it will still be some time before we can process SNAP benefits (aka food stamps) for the CSA. For us to accept SNAP benefits, instead of paying upfront, those member will pay each week when they get their vegetables. If not this year, by next year, we hope to do much more outreach to SNAP users.

Next week, we expect to harvest lettuce, radishes, sugar snap peas, fava beans, spring onions, and various greens – your typical early spring harvest. We are starting to transplant greenhouse cucumbers and tomatoes to have some early for you. If you are unfamiliar or new to eating seasonally and locally, we hope these weekly newsletters will help you understand the unique climate of Inland Mendocino County. Our region, the North Coast, has a different growing season than other parts of California, like the Central Valley, Central Coast, or Imperial Valley. Most of the vegetables you find in the grocery store come from these regions that are typically drier than here and have a longer growing season.

We also aim to provide you with food preparation and meal planning tips in your weekly e-newsletter. Along with borrowing cookbooks from the library, we like to check out FOOD52 http://food52.com/ and the USDA recipe finderhttp://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/ There are so many resources available online, and we’ll share with you our own experiences with meal planning with the weekly CSA share. Of course, don’t be shy – connect with your fellow CSA shareholders for ideas on using your veggies, and if you want to contribute something to the newsletter, feel free to contact us!

Just to refresh your memories – next week’s pick-ups will be

Ukiah - Westside Renaissance Market, Ukiah Valley Medical Center, Head Start on Orchard Street - Tuesday, May 21

Redwood Valley - Heart Arrow Ranch - Tuesday, May 21

Willits - J. D. Redhouse - Thursday, May 23

In the next couple days, we will be sending each pick-up site group an email with details relevant to your individual site, like specific times and how the distribution sorting system works. Remember, if you are planning on missing a pick-up anytime this season, please find someone to pick up your share for you.

Also, if you are interested in purchasing a 100% natural cotton tote bag (19″ x 15″ x 6″) with the Mendocino Organics logo, please let us know. They are perfect for carrying your vegetables each week! There is a quantity discount, so the price will depend on how many people are interested.

Just for fun – check out this fun infographic from the Union of Concerned Scientists explaining their vision of a healthy farm!http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/solutions/advance-sustainable-agriculture/healthy-farm-vision/ Mendocino Organics strives to accomplish many of the aspects valued here for a healthy farm using agro-ecological practices…

Eat well,

Adam & Paula Gaska

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IN YOUR BASKET

(Tuesday)

• Farao Green Cabbage
• Snow Crown or Cheddar Cauliflower
• Rhubarb or Golden Chard
• Green Leaf Lettuce
• Spring Onions

(Saturday)

• Farao Green Cabbage
• Endive Frisee
• Choice of Lettuce
• Choice of Kale
• Salad Turnips

NOTES FROM THE FIELD

As the shifted Winter Vegetable CSA comes to a close, we’re filled with a mix of relief and sorrow. We hope that everyone has been enjoying the bounty these past couple months.

After some thought, we have decided that we will not be continuing the Winter Vegetable CSA in it’s current format. It is too difficult to consistently provide cool season crops from December to April when the actual cool season starts in October, and there is a lull in growth from January to March.

We are instead contemplating providing a Winter Storage Vegetable CSA, which mimics the local winter diet. While we are in California, until we can have a couple acres of greenhouses, it’s unrealistic for us to consistently grow greens and broccoli in the middle of the winter. In such a scheme, we envision the season starting in October or November, deliveries would be less frequent, and shares would focus on storage and root crops; fresh greens, peas, etc. would be distributed when available. The farm events we are planning for later this summer and fall would complement such a CSA. The other alternative we see is not doing a Winter CSA.

For the first time, we will be hosting farm events focused on food preservation. Invitations will be sent, but you’ll be welcome to a potato harvest party, a tomato-canning workshop, and a sauerkraut workshop, all with food from the farm. As farmers, we see people coming to us for education as well as food. There are many ways to enjoy healthy vegetables in the dead of winter, without trucking it in from the desert!

Please visit our blog, MendoOrganicsCSA.com for updates. And stop by our table at the Ukiah Saturday Farmers Market and Willits Thursday Farmers Market. We are increasing food production a lot this year as we get a little closer to a truly sustainable, economically viable farm. We recently purchased a weeding tractor that has already saved us significant time, and we plan to make a few more capital investments this year to help us grow more affordable healthy food.

FYI, we are officially raising Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys. If you are interested, you can reserve one with a deposit, and we can give you more details. We are also planning to raise out another batch of pigs soon, so more CSA Pork Shares and Berk Shares will be available. New this year, we’ll also be selling Holiday Hams! Lastly, we still have many chicken CSA shares for purchase.

Thank you all for being a part of the farm. Without a community committed to sharing the risk and to eating our produce, we would not be able to pursue our passion of growing great food.

Adam & Paula

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IN YOUR BASKET

(Saturday)

• Nancy Butter Lettuce
• Ripbor or Red Russian Kale
• Arugula
• Curly Endive
• Arcadia Broccoli or Snow Crown Cauliflower
• Green Garlic

(Tuesday)

• Nancy Butter Lettuce
• Rhubarb Chard
• Arugula
• Curly Endive
• Arcadia Broccoli
• Spring Onions

A view of the south section of the Coyote Field at Heart Arrow Ranch. Some fruit trees on the hillside in the foreground.

NOTES FROM THE FIELD

   Perhaps calling this a “Winter” CSA is still appropriate considering all the rain and cool weather we have been getting! Fortunately, we had some lovely spring weather last month such that we have a bountiful harvest this week. The broccoli we planted in a small greenhouse in March grew well, but the cauliflower was still set back and stunted by the rain. So, you have a choice of a few baby heads of cauliflower or a single head of broccoli this week. The romanesco cauliflower is starting to head, and we will have lots of cabbages and sweet salad turnips soon. If you are unfamiliar with endive or chicory in general, we recommend you check out Farmer John’s Cookbook section all about it, link here: http://bit.ly/kxqzer

Cabbage and cauliflower.

French breakfast and cherry belle radishes.

Since all of the greenhouse lettuce and spinach has been harvested, we transplanted cucumbers in their place. Potatoes are doing really well and growing rather quickly that we almost can’t keep up with mounding them. The 2 acres of durum wheat we planted is also growing well; we might be able to dry-farm (not irrigate) it at this rate. While we are behind in planting warm weather crops from when we normally would, we had somewhat planned for this late rain per the National Weather Service’s predictions. So, we are harvesting spring crops for longer than what we normally could in the past.

Don’t forget – we have two more deliveries to make up for the winter season.

Eat well,

Adam & Paula

Various chicory and lettuce in the north section of the Coyote Field.

Kale Chips

• 1 bunch of kale
• Olive oil
• Sea salt

1. Cut the kale leaves off of the big stems. Then cut or tear the leaves into chip size. Bigger pieces take longer to crisp up, but don’t make them too small. If you washed the kale, let it drain.

2. Put the kale in a bowl and dowse it with olive oil, like you would a salad. Sprinkle salt on it, then toss it.

3. Spread the kale on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven at 350 degrees until crisp. You can check the kale and stir them around to even out the cooking. Let it cool, and enjoy.

Sheep and lamb pasturing in Potter Valley.

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IN YOUR BASKET

• Leeks
• Spring Mix
• Mixed Winter Squash
• Hakurei Turnips

NOTES FROM THE FIELD

Happy Valentine’s Day! At the time of writing this, it seems like we’re back to the normal California winter. While this may be good for the water supply, we hope for more warm weather for the vegetables to grow. During this unseasonably long, dry spell, we’ve seen noticeable growth in the crops. Some areas in the CSA garden are ready to be planted with late winter / early spring crops, while other areas have crops newly planted.

Plastic laid out over beds in the Coyote Field on Sunday, before the rains started to come again.

We realize that the amount of produce and the variety has been lacking this winter season. It has not been from lack of effort. Normally, we suffer a higher rate of attrition among the winter vegetables, compared to spring and summer vegetables. Because of the ample moisture, different challenges like fungus and slugs created more damage than what we’ve experienced in the past. Unlike in the spring and summer, we can’t easily plant a replacement; at a certain point in the winter, crops stop growing. Hopefully in a few weeks, Nature will be on our side, and it will stay warm and sunny. Thank you for supporting the farm.

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