I Heart Farms

Strawberry Fields Forever...and Cheese, Chicks, and Goats, Please

We had a farmy day today. Logan and I started out at nine a.m., headed to Dirty Girl Farm, to see how the strawberries and everything were coming along. I can start to see the season take shape there, and it feels good to visit again. 

We also stopped in for breakfast, of sorts, at River Street Café, glad I finally remembered it when it's actually open. Finally, we popped out to Claravale Farm because I'm smitten with cows, and the middle part of the day was stressful. Allow me to meander, because it was that kind of day.

To get back to Dirty Girl farm...

Chefs. More Claravale Dairy Farm photos.

I did manage to get out to a farm this morning: I dropped off a CD of pictures to Collette at Claravale Dairy out in Watsonville. As is usually the case, I had little Logan with me: he's been spending the night a lot which makes us very very happy. (Him, too!)

He'll be fifteen months old on Saturday, and he already knows to get his shoes on when his Nana (c'est moi) asks, "Do you want to go to a farm, Logan?" Surely nothing could be a better gift to a toddler than taking him along to all these farms. He's great company and everyone loves him. Even the farm animals love him. (Witness the goat giving the good-bye kiss in the photo above.)

Well, maybe the chickens aren't his greatest fans. Logan's a boy: he likes to chase birds on the ground.

The Sweetest Place

I will start backwards this time: we are home, it is late, and I just finished Logan's sippy cup of Claravale Farm milk, not wanting a drop to go to waste. I've been home for a few hours, and was going through my photographs, so happy I'd borrowed a great camera while mine's in the shop. I left Ron and Collette feeling so moved and touched both by their kindness and generosity, and the sweetness of the cows and their whole little farm, that I was pretty near to tears. But you can't be a mushpot with little boys in the car, so I kept it to myself. Just looking through the photos I got made me even mushier. But mushy in a good way, all soft and sweet-feeling.

Dr. John Ikerd: Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics

Yesterday I was doing some research on small farms—on publications, etcetera. I came across a professor at the University of Missouri, Dr. John Ikerd. Besides having a very kind and intelligent face, he has written a number of really thoughtful and well-informed papers on every aspect of small farming. I have added him to my list of links. I'm writing about him specifically because I think he's worth a special mention.

Dr. John Ikerd's publications: if you scroll to the bottom, there is a link "Home," which you can click to see more about him.

Here's one in particular about food itself that is compelling: "The High Cost of Cheap Food." This is a topic that has been bandied about, and what Dr. Ikerd concludes is very simple: "When all of the costs are counted, we simply cannot afford the high costs of cheap food."

Cynthia Sandberg and Love Apple Farm

Today the Santa Cruz Sentinel* ran a big article on my new friend, Cynthia Sandberg, of Love Apple Farm in Ben Lomond (using my photo at left, which they failed to credit). I'd heard of Cynthia from two different women: the first was Karla, an online acquaintance at Readerville.com, who referred me to Cynthia's tomato seedlings and tomato plants, as well as her eggs. Karla said that Cynthia was called "The Egg Lady" or "The Tomato Lady."

The next thing I heard about Cynthia was from my friend, Lena, who is a champion dahlia grower. She knew Cynthia from the local Dahlia Society. Lena and I drove up to Ben Lomond one day a couple of years ago to check things out. Alas, we arrived too late for tomatoes, but came home with some farm fresh eggs. The beauty of the property impressed me deeply, if for no other reason than the big back porch on the green farmhouse.

Two Small Farms: Mariquita and High Ground Organics

"Two Small Farms" will be getting a longer piece, but I just wanted to post a little about them, and promise that I will upload more photos of my visits to each this week. Today I revisited High Ground Organics, which is situated on the hills next to Highway One in Watsonville. It is surrounded by pastures and the Harkin Slough, home to waterfowl and any number of other birds, as well as the wildlife teeming around. More on the farm, individually, later.

High Ground is partnered with Mariquita Farm in both the CSA to which they both contribute, as well as emotionally, familially, and ideologically. The story of Jeanne Byrne and Steve Pedersen (High Ground), and Andy Griffin and Julia Wiley (Mariquita), and their four children and history together and apart are a good tale. And I promise to tell it, but I can't tonight, as I had two little boys at the farm with me and it's been a long, good day.

The pictures are of High Ground (above, overlooking berries and the slough), and the view of the windmill at Mariquita Farm, which I visited on Saturday with Logan. Andy and Julia were hosting a baby goat petting day, and families came from all over the Bay area to see the 12 little kids.

The Dirt on Joe Rubin

. . . is usually under his fingernails. He's not complaining. Joe's life as an organic farmer is good one. For four years, he's worked with Tom and Constance Broz on their family farm in Corralitos. Live Earth Farm is a 30-acre organic farm that grows a multitude of crops year round. (NOTE: this piece was written last spring when I interviewed Joe up at Live Earth Farm. The photo was taken in July, 2004: the baby goat is Luna, who adopted Joe when her mother abandoned her. Read on to the end for an update on Live Earth Farm in April, 2005.)

Nearly a dozen kinds of fruit, root crops, greens, herbs, beans, squashes, tomatoes and more are produced in two sunny Corralitos locations. Fruit trees and berries thrive on the hillside farm, while the lower farm is more hospitable to root crops and greens.

New Natives

Note: I've added some photos to the "Small Farms" and "Some Farmers I Know" albums.

Hardly a week goes by for me that I don't go to the farmers market, usually Saturday morning. And almost every week, I stop at the New Natives booth, have a little visit with Sandra and Ken Kimes, and come home with my most-beloved microgreen on earth: pea shoots. The Kimes got into business by growing wheatgrass—their original product, starting almost exactly twenty-five years ago this week. Sunflower sprouts, clover, mixed sprouts, and salad mixes round out the mix of products.

The Butt of a Joke

Monday, I took Logan out to Aptos to visit two farms: Thomas Farm and New Natives. Thomas Farm, a traditional farm in operation since 1971, is idyllic. Between the trees in the orchards, flowers grow. Right now, the spring flowers are coming to an end. Adieu to ranunculas, iris, freesias, tulips, and dianthus. Soon enough, dahlias and zinnias and sunflowers and statice and so many others will crowd the rows. Besides peaches and plums, there are more than sixty kinds of apples at Thomas Farm.

Potatoes were just peeking up. Jerry has quit growing the Russian fingerlings, as they were problematic. They greened up too fast, seemingly in no light at all. He has turned to a French variety. He also grows German butterballs, Carolas, and something called a Red Gold, with "superior flesh, creamy, with excellent flavor." He said people at the markets last year came back for more like they were magnets.

Strawberries That Make Me Feel Six Again

My strawberry confession: the best strawberries I've ever had in my life came to my table at K-Paul's Kitchen in New Orleans in 1982. They were no bigger than the tip of my thumb; they were small and sweet and red and I've never forgotten them. They were the kind of strawberries that make you feel six years old again.

Since then, these berries have haunted me. California strawberries disappointed me horribly when I moved here in the Seventies. No wonder: I hadn't discovered farmers markets and was shopping at Von's and Safeway. It's no secret that berries that are grown to ship well will taste wretched: they'll be hard and durable and sour and watery. They're grown with poisons. They are not strawberries, not for my money. So I lived without buying strawberries until pretty recently.