Basil, Melons, and Making Lemonade

Every week, someone at the Farmers' Market asks me the best way to keep basil. I always tell them to treat basil like flowers and put it in a vase or glass of water in a sunny spot in their kitchen. Kept like this, basil will last for weeks (literally, weeks!) and will actually start to grow again, eventually sprouting roots from the stems. If you're so inclined, you can go ahead and plant your newly rooted basil and keep it going in the garden. I have had the same bunch of basil in our kitchen for about three weeks now and the roots have been growing like crazy for about the last 10 days. Here's a picture to see what I mean....


Other news....

We have melons! Jeff impresses me with his farming abilities on a regular basis. His scientific knowledge (gained by his university level plant science education) combined with his years of hands on experience and his unbelievable ability to intuitively know what plants need (green thumb!) make him an extremely competent grower. His latest triumph is his melon patch. I'm uber picky about my melons...they have to be perfect or else I'm not really a melon fan. That said, Jeff's melons are the best I have ever had. Perfectly sweet, tender, not over or under ripe, and with a consistency like the perfect mango. Last week, I raved about our melons in my weekly farmers' market email and people flocked to our booth at the Market to try a melon for themselves. The day after the Market, I received an email from a friend/customer that informed me that the melon was so sweet and juicy that juice dripped onto his shirt. He told me that I should really warn people about the likelihood of that happening : ) Nothing makes me happier than when our customers enjoy our produce as much as I do.

At this point, it's no secret that Sonoma County growers are dealing with the coolest season on record. A colder than normal Summer season is challenging since so many local farmers plan to make the bulk of their income in the Summer months, but it's not the end of the world for Redwood Empire Farm. Over the last couple of years, we have moved toward being a year round farm. Summer is only one of the seasons and, with our system, we are able to adapt and try to make up for the dismal and minimal Summer season with booming harvests in the other seasons of the year. To that end, I've been seeding broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, roots, and lettuce with gusto. Indian Summer or not, we're going to have a good Fall.

The delayed harvest of tomatoes afforded us the opportunity to get our of town for two whole nights a couple weeks ago. We headed to Downieville, which is Jeff's favorite place in the whole wide world. Downieville, which is about 40 miles north east of Grass Valley, is a very rustic gold mining town and is one of California's meccas for mountain biking. We camped out, rode our bikes, and relaxed! It's incredible how a short break from work can put everything back into the right perspective. Here are a couple photos from our adventure...

Jeff panning for gold. Yes, he really did pan for gold by his own volition. I could hardly believe it. Unfortunately, he didn't strike it rich. I was shocked and disappointed.

Here I am reading next to the rushing creek. You can call me the librarian of Downieville.

Lastly, since the blog entry in which I detailed the difficulties of this Summer, friends, family, and customers have expressed their concern for us. The interest and support means so much to Jeff and myself. Let me assure everyone, though, that we're not quitters. We will continue to farm because we are farmers and that is what we do. We will adjust to the changing climate and circumstances and we will be successful. And right now, I'm still getting to live my dream. I get to work outside doing meaningful and fulfilling work with my best friend and love and am able to work on building the foundation for our future and that of our family. And we have successfully provided food for our 40 family CSA despite the crappy weather. I don't think that adds up to failure...not one bit.

Is it August or March?

We're reaching an impasse. This season is starting to feel like a disaster. It's August 3rd and here, in Santa Rosa, these days we're lucky to break 80 degrees. We have fog until noon and then a cool afternoon sea breeze that drops the temperature immediately. Our tomatoes are sitting there shivering, conserving the energy they should be putting into ripening fruit just to keep them alive. Melons are cracking before they ripen because we haven't had the heat needed to up their sugar and ripen them, so the melons actually outgrow themselves and explode. Don't get me started on this year's ongoing battle to get cucumbers to grow successfully - yet again, not enough heat for the plants to thrive and more bugs this year than animals at the zoo.

Luther Burbank once declared Santa Rosa to be the most ideal place for growing things in the whole world. I'm afraid that's no longer the case. The weather has become so irregular that Santa Rosa no longer seems to be an ideal place for growing heat loving Summer crops, of which we (try) to grow so many. Hopefully we'll get some heat eventually this Summer or Fall, but it's getting awfully late in the season to still be in the red. I wish I could say that Jeff and I didn't depend on the income we earn from our farm, but we really do depend on that income. Farming is both of our full time jobs and we both put in 80+ hours a week. We are pretty frugal folks and certainly don't require riches to feel adequately compensated, but as of today, we have put more cash into the farm in the form of soil amendments, equipment, irrigation, tools, plastic mulch, seed, rent, utilities, and insurance than we have gotten out. We have a lot riding on the outcome of this growing season, our future business development depends on us being able to make enough to fund our next step forward. You may be asking why we always feel the need to be moving forward. The answer is this : we want to constantly move forward because we want to constantly get better at doing our job, which is growing real food for people to eat. We believe in the importance of what we do, for our community, our nation, and ourselves, and want to do it to the best of our abilities. To reach our potential as farmers, we need to improve at consistently growing large quantities of high quality produce, which, first and foremost, requires that we be able to sustain ourselves in our daily living, which allows us to operate a sustainable farm.

I don't mean to be dire, but something needs to change. We either need the local weather to become more consistently warm and dry in the late Spring and Summer months, or we need to farm in a climate that is more suited to our needs, or we need to make a large financial investment in greenhouses and other season extending and stabilizing systems. I really hope the weather turns around soon and we can finish the season in real style. Keep your fingers crossed for us and keep eating those Redwood Empire Farm veggies.