I've been working at this farm in the Sierra Nevada foothills for a little over a month now. The greenhouse interior looks vastly different already- all of those eggplants and tomatoes in the center of this photo have been planted and protected with re-me. We're all really looking forward to their harvest already.
Some things stay in all season, such as this little fig tree. They tend to get damaged by frost so this little guy won't be going outside in the ground for awhile yet, when the frost damage will only injure it, not kill it out right.
We sow lettuce seeds every week. We have an 11 bed field (three rows to a bed, about 125 feet long, plants every six or eight inches- it's a lot of salad), as well as a 8 bed direct seeded field. People love lettuce and this ensures that CSA members get a head or two every week for the duration of the season.
It's fun watching the different varieties grow. He have three varieties of eggplant, and at least a dozen tomatoes, 6 or 7 lettuces, two beets, two kohlrabi, two zucchini, 12 winter squash, 5 pumpkins, among some other odds and ends. Break up the micro-mono crops and diets some.
And just appreciate the beauty of growing plants.
Here I would like to ask for three cheers to ever bearing strawberries! If they don't get too frost-bit these babies can fruit year-round. The first flush three or four weeks ago were good, but they keep getting sweeter and sweeter.
The property this farm is on has a pretty neat history. It was originally homesteaded in the mid-1850s. This house is still here, with the only alteration being a peaked roof to protect the structure. It's mostly used as storage and a place to cool off in the heat of the summer. The next building was put up in the early 1900s and the landlord lived in it until only a few years ago when he started leasing the property to my bosses to farm and look after (they only farm 10 or so acres of the whole 150 acre lot).
They've found all kinds of treasures and what isn't too mangled or dangerous is used to liven up the public places. This covered bridge crosses Wooley Creek and is where the public can access the trails that criss-cross the property and where CSA members pick up their weekly boxes.
Y'all have no idea how fond of this chandelier I am.
The trails that start from the bridge are laced across the landscape through fields and over hills. You can tell where the old farm dumpsites were, and where the new ones are as well.
Still looking for the perfect place to hang my hammock.
California is magical.