gnomes, dragons and heavy metal

There is a new band in town. Underground Mayhem! They dont really play instruments but they leave a path of destruction and despair after going totally nuts. Their performances are well known among farming folks.
Underground Mayhem is a band of squirrels, sometimes with back up dancers "the go-go-gophers". This time of year, they literally go nuts. Up the trees after unripe walnuts, over chicken wire to gnaw on the trunks of young apple trees, under trees to gnaw on roots and develop dens a couple feet underground. Winter is coming and the rodents get into a frenzy, looking for food and leaving no plant unturned. 

A couple weeks ago asleep under the walnut tree next to the cucurbit field, I awoke from a fuzzy dream. Eyes still closed, my ears perked up to playful rustling sounds nearby. Dried grass and dry leaves. Spats of activity. I opened my eyes, but lay still. Is it the cats hunting and pouncing for mice? Out of the corner of my vision I think I saw a body jump into the air. I think there are three to five creatures based on the sounds. Is it squirrels playing among the melons checking to see how ripe they are? I slowly turned my head towards the noise and immediately the critters scattered in everyway before I could make eye contact. I lay ever so still again, listening into the distance and close by for more rustling to give away their position. Alas silence. I clapped my hands a couple times to keep them at bay while I fell back to sleep. I awoke in the morning with the most curious puzzlement? what were those sounds coming from? Whatever they were I had the distinct feeling they were playing, not looking for trouble as I might suspect when  rustling at ground level is heard.
I put a call out to Mr. Robert Stack, as he has some experience with strange mysteries and is somewhat of an authority on the matter. Together with much deliberation we concluded: Gnomes. Of course!

And finally on the fantasy tip. Today while preparing a hole with a digging fork I came across a blue tail.
It was a rather violent coming across. Jabbing the fork into the ground. breaking dry soil. meeting a hard layer about six inches below surface.  lifting the fork out and thrusting back breaking through the barrier to find a dry but friable texture below. Aha! moving down the bed, busting through. digging, lifting, jabbing, lifting... "what's this?!" the last lift of the fork brought up a bright blue worm. or I thought it was at first. Blue worm?! never heard of one. It was wriggling and thrashing about like red wrigglers do when exposed to light.
Upon closer inspection I could see this was no worm, but a tail.  Blue tail?! underground?! snake? lizard?...
I could not find the rest of this blue creature missing part of its tail. i felt bad for possibly killing or hurting this strange blue being. After about a minute of wriggling about, the tail lay motionless and did not respond to my touch. Time to get Mr. Robert Stack on the horn and figure this one out...  With the help of a 12 sided die and a Ouija board we concluded I had encountered a dragon. dunh dunh duhn. ok its actually called a skink.
pretty awesome!

Ok now for something you can actually sink your teeth into...

Blush Tomato: Full Moon. What a delightful little tomato. Streaks of green turning to red over golden yellow.Sweet and Juicy fruit

Kellog's Breakfast Tomato: Full Moon.  now we are beginning to see the breakfast plate size that this 'mater is famous fer.  Slice 'em up for your egg sandwich. Blend em up into salsa or a colorful tomato sauce.

Oregon Spring: Full Moon. Last harvest for these troopers. Rich tomato flavor with nice sweetness to boot. Thanks Oregon Spring! see ya next year.

Jimmy Nardello Sweet Pepper and Red Ruffled Pimiento Pepper: Leonardis Organics. Two of my favorite sweet peppers. The Nardello heirloom pepper is long and thin skinned. while the Pimiento pepper is squat and thick walled. Both are delicious and juicy. great raw or cooked.

Red Flame Seedless Grape: Dorn Vineyards. Last harvest for this year. Today I was the guest worker picking grapes. Wow! This is the tastiest harvest yet. Great fun to be in the vineyard, clipping these beautiful bunches under the canopy. Have a juicer? make fresh grape juice. make jam. super high sugar content. zing!

Ho Mi Z Mustard: Full Moon. A beautiful and unique mustard green with a unique name. A new variety coming to us from the good folks at Wildgarden seed. Sweet and spicy! Spiciness mellowed with cooking. A real delight on the plate.

Red Russian Kale: Full Moon. This kale is so robust and adaptive. Try a saute with the peppers for a new addition with an old favorite. a  nice blending of summer and fall.

Harvest time

     

summer's bounty(thanks Betsy)

Fall is in the air. Cool north westerly breezes bring the smell of crushed grapes both from the wineries and the vineyards. Sauvignon Blanc grapes are first to be harvested in the valley.  The smell of sweet sun fermenting pears sitting on the orchard floors comes on these same breezes. On a drive to the local goat dairy for a birthday party I witnessed many deer  creeping into the orchards munching on said pears.  One orchard even had out a "deer xing" sign. Nice to see- both the sign and deers.
A large walnut crop is forecast for this season. I heard harvest should begin early to mid October. Most large orchards will shake the trees with a peculiar looking machine, something out of dune, that grabs the trunk and with great force shakes and shimmies all the walnuts to the earth. Next a machine goes up and down the orchard collecting the nuts into rows and blowing leaves and twigs into another row. Then a machine drives over the row of nuts collecting them into  a hopper  then a bin and on their way to a drying/hulling/shelling warehouse.   We wait for the nuts to fall on their own. This makes the harvest last for a couple weeks, more manageable for human hands. Details to come on our walnut harvest party. stay tuned.
I'll leave you all with a harvest chant.

Red Russian Kale: Full Moon. first harvest of this super tender kale. you may notice the whole plant harvested in your bunch. this is our thinning process. Over plant to crowd out weeds and establish a thick stand, then thin to one plant per 8-12". This gets the kale off to a good start. Quick strong unimpeded growth before frost comes. then the flavor sweetens but growth also slows. These plants will feed us all winter long. for now, cook ever so quickly or eat raw as the leaves are very tender.

Yukina Savoy: Full Moon. Spoon shaped chinese spinach. here's a tipsheet from NYC. with a couple recipes. and here's one for a quiche recipe using this great green.

Blush/ Snow white tomato: Full Moon. The snow whites are heavy producers. whoa. more tomatoes in 20 feet than 200 of the blush. I have to say the lower acidity of the blush is more appealing, but the sweet tangy-ness of the snow white is a nice treat. and oh those colors!

Oregon Spring tomato: Full Moon. Despite losing a lot of fruit to sunburn, this variety is top notch. Delightful low acid rich tomato flavor. Most beautiful bright red this week. Perfect for sauce. made a batch this weekend. last chance for sauce tomatoes, send me an email if you want some next week.

Kellogs Breakfast Tomato: Full Moon. Golden orange glowing like the harvest moon. Meaty flesh, high acid, bright flavor. Compliments most any meal. Won awards last year in both size and flavor contests. In my opnion it's still coming into its prime here.

        

"Tomato, onion, garlic, leek, okra and herbs de provence with pasta and red snapper. Yum" - Mary


Red Flame table grape: Dorn Vineyards. Another week of the Dorn's finest.

Bella Dulce melon: Full Moon. Wow. These puppies can really sweeten the air like no other melon I know.
still one of my favorites

O'Henry peaches: Full Moon. Celebrate our second peach harvest with a delicious peach! This week a little redder, a little softer and a little sweeter. mmm mmmm good!

greens under row cover.

did you ever know that you're my hero

a week off sure sounds nice right about now. As a youngster nothing beat summer vacation, and weekends were made for fun (as the song by debbie deb suggests). In my current age and occupation summer is busy as all get out, though I am still having a blast outside in the sun or shade. and weekends... rarely exist unless I am too tired or sick to move. I have been taking naps lately, not by choice entirely, a simple thought of "oh let me sit down after lunch" turns into a three hour nap. I have been totally zonked for a couple weeks, but after a thorough rest, feel sort of "normal".  Lookout weekend cause here I come. (funny I wrote this the night before I woke up feeling sick and unable to deliver...perhaps I really needed the day off)

This week is the heirloom expo in santa rosa, I hope you all can go if you are so inclined. a dramatic display of hundreds and hundreds of old time heirloom vegetables. a real treat for the eyes, nose, tongue, belly and soul. lots of presentations and speakers, some of them heros and sheras of mine. Last year was totally awesome and I am so excited about this years expo.
Lots of heirloom animal breeds too! does heirloom animal manure smell different? like roses.

This weeks box...

Red slicer tomato: Full Moon. Maybe one more week left of harvesting on the Oregon Spring beds. definitely a productive variety that we will grow again. great flavor and size for salad, stews or snacking.

Kellog's Breakfast tomato: Full Moon. After a couple weeks of spoiled fruit with blossom end rot, this is the first substantial harvest ready for the box. Blossom end rot is usually caused by lack of calcium, sometimes due to a real lack of calcium or nutrient leaching caused by over watering. The water has been turned off for a week now and seeing no more rot. yay! These heirlooms are much more sensitive than modern hybrids. Anywhoo. they are nice big golden orange with a nice acidic flavor that goes great on a sandwich, burger, salad or just about anywhere.

Blush tomato: Full Moon. gold and red striped sausage shape, delicious sweet and tangy flavour. I am really liking this tomato, love to toss them in my mouth. 

Sungold cherry tomato: Biofarm. Another mouth poppin treat!check previous posts for other recipe ideas.

Warba potato: Full Moon. Dug up this afternoon, super thin skin, creamy white flesh with pink/red toning around eyes. suitable for baking and boiling. most are "creamer" size, meaning small enough to leave whole and cook to your desire. I sliced mine in full moons and roasted at 425 with onion, garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper, oil and white wine. deelish. (dirt left on taters to preserve freshness, simply refrigerate and  wash before using.)

Bella Dulce melon: Full Moon. One of my all time favourite melons. we have grown this variety for the last three years and each year a little different. I usually see some fruits that resemble a lemon cucumber, melon colored but with the "belly button" seen on the lemon cuke. Awesome dulce flavor with the slightest cucumber texture. I detect notes of vanilla and caramel, truly a dessert melon if I have ever had one.

Red flame grapes: Dorn Vineyard. A perfect food. one could live on grapes alone if they were in season year round. a belly ache might ensue, but any active lifestyle can benefit from copious amounts of fresh grapes at hand.

O'henry peaches: Full Moon. Really coming into their prime this week. the o'henry peach. firm texture, (great for the grill), nice sugar content. ready to eat now or let sit on counter or fridge for later use.
If you would like 'B' grade for jamin' let me know, they wont last long!

Yukina Savoy: Full Moon. Yay fall greens. Autumn is my favourite time of year. We get to enjoy the bounty of late summer, with the addition of cooler season greens. first harvest of these great greens. if tatsoi and bok choy had a love child it would be yukina savoy. kind of like spinach without the oxcalic acid.

fruit fruit the magical...

hope you all had an excellent weekend and had a special time under the blue moon. seems there has been a lot of  significant celestial activity in the past couple months, blue moons, solar eclipses, solar flares, meteor showers, and of course the constant rotation of our planet earth. Incredible time to be alive.

The pear harvest is now underway here in lake county. In decades past, lake county was the leading producer of pears in the nation. As states like washington and counries like china and  argentina started to increase their pear production, our pears lost favor in the global market and many local farmers ripped out their orchards to plant wine grapes.  Our farm was once a pear orchard. ripped out about eight years ago, left fallow. I like to imagine what this land was like before pears. There is a mini oak woodland before you come down into our neck of the valley. I imagine this to be an example of the native flora, before agriculture wiped its  hand across the land. So before pears, acorns may have been the abundant tree crop; stored, processed and traded among the local people.

As our climate and environment changes we must adapt. As a farmer and land steward it is my goal to restore and revitalize this land, to leave it in better condition than I found it. (with the destructive farming practices in the recent past, shouldnt be too hard). With major drought conditions declared across the country, this year has been a very challenging year for farmers of all persuasions. But the resounding message I hear (perhaps from biased media), is that land managed organically has weathered this years drought better than conventional/chemical farms. While modern humans have spent billions of  dollars and countless hours bending and manipulating nature to fit our industrial scale ag model, perhaps we will see a grand scale shift towards bending our own desires to match that of a thriving harmonious nature.  I look to that mini oak woodland and the riparian zone along adobe creek to show me how a myriad of trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers thrive together without applied irrigation and fertilizer.

sungold cherry tomato: Biofarm

bartlett pear: Biofarm. A piece of Lake County history. Picked firm to ripen off the tree, these delicious pears deserve a little time to show their true potential. apply some thumb pressure to where the stem meets the fruit, if a little give its ready, if not give it some more time. here's a great article to help.

blush tomato/ snow white cherry: Full Moon. Yay new variety. Blush is the sausage shaped yellow with some red striping developed by a local tomato breeder, Fred Hempel from Baia Niche farm in Sunol. snow white is the yellow cherry tomato. I believe the snow white will hit its flavor prime in  a week or two while the blush is already a tasty hit. More of these to come.

Red Slicer tom: Full Moon. love 'em while you can. and can 'em while you can! 10 lb box for $25 to enjoy the flavor of summer all year long.

red flame seedless grapes: Dorn Vineyards. Awesome seedless grapes from an awesome family farm. Grown on the foothills of an inactive volcano, first harvest of this incredible table grape.

O'henry peach: Full Moon. One of my favorite peaches. one of the last peaches to ripen for the season and one of the best tasting to boot! Picked in the morning as the sun came up to kiss these little ones before going in your box.

satsuki midori cucumber: Leonardis Organics. Named after the woman who bred and developed this variety in Japan. delicious juicy flesh, thin skin. love it.

lemon cucumber: Full Moon

summer squash: Full Moon

on rotation:

Okra: full moon. okra for health , southern style okra , and african style okra