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"Nature
speaks in symbols and in signs."
- John Greenleaf Whittier
What’s in the
box this week:
Broccoli
Carrots (small)
Cucumbers
Green Beans
Leeks
Lettuce
Onions
Potatoes
Radishes
Summer squash
Tomatoes
Fruit (either a basket of berries or a bag of peaches)
... and if you have
an extra-fruit share:
One bag of peaches and one basket of berries (either strawberries, raspberries,
or blackberries)
CALENDAR
Sat/Sun July 28&29 -
Wood Fired Bread Oven Building project
Sat/Sun Aug. 4&5 - Children’s Mini Camp,
10m Saturday - noon Sunday. Optional early arrival Friday night.
Sat. Sep 22 - Fall Equinox Celebration,
3pm - 9pm
Sat. Oct 20 - Halloween Pumpkin U-Pick,
all day |
What's
Up on the Farm
Summer
has arrived here on the coast, with its cool, moist, and foggy weather
pattern. As Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever experienced
was a summer in San Francisco." This makes for a good day to transplant
our lettuce, broccoli, spring onions, and flowers, but slows down the
ripening of our favorite summer fruits, i.e. tomatoes, peaches, plums,
etc. Where is the basil? This year we got off to a late start with basil.
Typically we transplant it in early April, however it was cold and the
slugs decided to have a early summer feast. So your pesto will have to
wait about 2 weeks, but when the time comes you'll know... as you will
recognize your box by the scent of fresh basil.
If you ever thought farms were isolated, rural, sort-of backward kind-of
places, you’d be surprised. Live Earth Farm seems as popular a destination
as San Francisco, with five languages spoken and visitors from places
as exotic as Thailand and Brazil. This morning as I stepped out of the
house I said, "Guten morgen" to my German nephew Bernhard, visiting
from Thailand, "Bon jour" to Constance’s stepbrother visiting
from Paris, "Bon dia" to Tina, a friend visiting from Sao Paolo,
and Juan, who was loading seedling trays on the pick-up, greeted me with
"Buenos dias." "Good morning Kara" was my first greeting
in English, as I see her waking up with a cup of coffee in her hand. Diversity
at Live Earth Farm doesn’t stop with the crops in the fields, but
spills over to a place where the land seems to enjoy connecting with a
variety of human flavors as well. 
Of Interest
UPDATE from Constance on the
MINI-CAMP:
Hello mini-farmers! Our summer "mini-camp" is coming right up
(Aug. 3rd starting at 10am until Noon on the 4th, with an option to arrive
on Friday the 2nd to set up camp) and already we have 7 families registered.
Our maximum this year is set at 12 families, so please call Constance
at (831) 763-2448 if you want to join in the fun.
What is mini-camp? It is a special opportunity for children (and their
parents!) to spend time on the farm, as a community, and to experience
a close relationship with the land. Most of our time is spent going into
the fields and harvesting crops that you would otherwise find in your
box. You can imagine how making a salad for 30 people can easily take
2 to 3 hours just for harvesting: lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, onions,
carrots, radiccio, spinach, summer squash and cucumber all need to be
located on the farm, introduced properly (which family do they belong
to, how do you harvest them, and how do you identify the ripe ones), harvested,
and placed in each person's or child's basket... all without losing a
few toddlers in the tomato patch or getting side-tracked by the ripe peaches
in the orchard! Actually, getting side tracked by the beauty, vibrance
and taste of the fruits and vegetables is integral to the process! Ummmmmmm...
now you understand how almost all of our time is spent having fun in the
fields. Other times will be spent in the pool relaxing after our hard
labor, doing art work such as painting with Nature's own materials, and
of course preparing a meal with the food we harvested (as well as cleaning
up!). Since Saturday will be a full moon, we will also have a night walk
with the kids, to interact with the plants and the trees under the moonlight
(which I particularly look forward to!). Naturally we will spend a fair
amount of time around the bonfire as well, so anyone who wants to bring
"organic" marshmallows is welcome. What do you need to bring
besides marshmallows? The camp starts at 10am after breakfast on Saturday,
so if you arrive on Friday night (which I recommend), bring food for the
pot-luck dinner at 7pm, as well as breakfast food for Saturday morning
(we will have hot water for tea and coffee). The rest of the weekend we
will provide the food, which will be mostly vegetarian. So bring all your
camping gear, some wine or beer if you like (we will not provide alcohol),
warm clothes for the evenings, bathing suits (floaters for kids who do
not swim well) and towels, lots of sunscreen and hats, and your musical
instruments. One last note: we are hoping that the wood-fired bread oven
will have been built the weekend before mini-camp (you may contact Charles
at (831) 663-1161 if you want to help in this great project!), and that
we will be able to use it to make bread during the mini-camp... yummy!
See you soon at the farm! -- Constance.
Member to Member Forum
If you wish to communicate
something to the rest of the CSA membership, or start a dialog among members
on a particular topic, you may use this forum to do so. To submit something
to be included here, please contact the editor (see below) by Sunday to
get it into the following week’s newsletter.
Crops and Critters
My son and his friend got attacked
by a bunch of angry yellowjackets while biking at Nisene Marks (a Regional
State Park near Aptos) the other day. Yellowjackets are in season now,
so as we spend time picnicking, hiking, camping, harvesting or selling
fruit, or taking out the garbage, the threat of their sting make them
unwelcome intruders. Yellowjackets are a far more severe threat than bees,
because they do not have barbs on their stingers, which makes them able
to insert them repeatedly into a victim. Honey bees can only sting once,
losing their barbed stinger (and their life at the same time) as it is
left behind in the victim's skin. On the other hand, yellowjackets play
an important role as scavengers and predators of such insect pests as
caterpillars. So how do we strike a balance of coexistence? Yellowjackets
are attracted to sugary (i.e. soft drinks) and protein-rich (i.e. meat
and dog food) food substances. One of the most common food sources for
jellowjackets is garbage. One strategy to avoid stings is to reduce their
habitat. Keep their attractants to a minimum: be careful when cooking
and eating outdoors, and avoiding wearing perfumes or bright colors. Walking
barefoot puts you at risk for stings because they nest in the ground.
Barefoot or no, be aware that squashing yellowjackets releases a chemical
alarm signal to rest of the hive to attack the intruder. A good way to
control them is by trapping, and you can find specially-designed traps
in most hardware stores. If you have a nest of yellowjackets on your property
and you feel it’s necessary to have it removed, we recommend you
get professional help. The least of all toxic methods is removal by vacuuming.
If you are hypersensitive to wasp or bee stings, consult with your physician
for recommendations of proper treatment. Otherwise, the most common treatments
are applying ice and/or commercially available products like Sting Stop
(herbal & homeopathic). (The reference I used for this information
on yellowjackets is a book called "Common Sense Pest Control"
by William and Helga Olkowski and Sheila Daar. -- Tom)
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