This photo seems like a microcosm for this last couple weeks. Young Brassicas in the ground (interplanted with lettuces) in between mature crops of summer goodness (tomatoes in this case).

As day lengths are shortening, we have a strict plan for when to get our winter brassica and amaranth crops in the ground. I’m talking about our Broccolis, Cauliflowers, Cabbages, Kales, Chard, Spinach, Beets and even Brussels Sprouts.

It’s Caprese Salad Season! Recipe inside.

We’ve been asked a couple times how the heat affects the farm. Honestly, we’re really still reeling with the fact that we had such a cold June and July. Please note… we’re only finally happy with our tomato quarts NOW and it’s September. Our summer crops have certainly been hurting AND all of our thoughts are on winter. We only just now are feeling barely flush with Heirloom Tomatoes.

Yesterday we said goodbye to a long time farm resident, Theo the Cat. Theo has been with us 17 years. He had a brain tumor and neurological issues (his hind legs didn’t work and he became blind and in the end couldn’t find his food). Theo and his two brothers Yaki and Suki were barn cats, our neighbor and CSA member Anne volunteers at the SPCA and helped us find these brothers that had their cage near a window and swatted at every bird outside. We build a cat sized attic in the downstairs of the barn and locked them in there for a month and then eventually let them out and they’ve been with us ever since. Read more….

Mid-August can often be a time of burn out for farmers and we need to find ways to invigorate ourselves. One way is through summer vacations but another way is new excitement.

We have found is that we often need extra labor end of the season. Bringing on one or multiple new employees in August has an amazing effect on our energy. Usually we only bring in one but this year we have THREE! They all have an eager energy and excitement about the farm that is infectious and keeps us feeling new.

Read more to learn about our new farm crew Kayce, Maggie and Brandon.

It’s time to give you our 2025 Tomato Line up. Everyone has a quart that includes at least either a couple heirlooms.

We farm in the cool Atascadero Valley bottom. We’re much cooler than most of Santa Rosa or even Sebastopol. And that’s the normal situation, not counting this year being the coldest summer on record. As such, early on we trialed over 50 types of tomatoes with a focus on early and cool tolerant tomatoes and continue to do trials. This year we’re doing three varieties from a seed company in Carbondale Colorado that selects for cool varieties. Our older varieties often have Russian names, they have cooler climates and therefore those tomatoes do amazing for us here. This morning would be a perfect example, it was 45 degrees as we started harvest. This year we’ve spent more time than many a year pruning our tomato plants and so fruits are larger. We’ll see if this will be a win-win at the end of the season.

We’re thrilled to have Bi-Color Sweet Corn for all CSA members. In our opinion bi-color is the best. Bi-color corn was first developed by crossing traditional yellow and white corn varieties to get the rich, sweet flavor of yellow with the delicate tenderness of white. Sadly this week we have the lowest number of CSA boxes as so many members are on vacation and missing this summer treat.

Photo of our crew harvesting corn for you this week in the first corn patch!

Lesson in Patience

• Corn & Tomatoes in a cold summer

• Tractor Woes

Read more in article.

Photo collage is an ode to our John Deer 4520. From top left clockwise: Elizabeth and Paul talking compost, Oskari and our son diagnosing the problem in the wheel hub, essential equipment for creating amazing compost, winter squash harvest, Hayley, Jeremy happy with a new bucket in 2020, current farm manager Sean.

At the moment, this cool weather is slooowing down our summer crops tremendously. I was sure we’d have tomatoes for you… today’s Summer Pint is Strawberries OR Shishitos (see last week’s newsletter for write up on Shishitos). Tomatoes will be here soon.

As such, here’s a dewy bee on a dewy scabiosa on a cold morning for you.

Can you believe it’s July 16th. We’re sort of in shock!

Some cool things happening on the farm right now.

Let’s start with seed and take you through harvest…

The nursery is looking great and about to explode. End of July nursery is one of the biggest of the year as every week that we plant now for autumn may come to fruition 2 or even 3 weeks apart as the days shorten and growing time too. We just put in a big seed order for fall and winter seeds which include more cut and come again lettuces for lettuce leaf mix, a new spinach, arugula, cauliflowers and more chicories including radicchio.

A Goodbye to Sarah and Gratitude to all working at Singing Frogs Farm.

Farmer Elizabeth and Paul are the founders of our farm but it is truly our Farm Crew that does the great majority of seeding, planting, bed prepping, compost making, planning, weeding, harvesting and even selling and delivering. Paul was a the guiding inspiration. Elizabeth keeps the ship sailing with support from everything from human resources, running the CSA, managing the finances and risks, guiding the farm managers, education and the voice of the farm in our local and farming community.

This is coming into highlight this week as we have a major shift on the farm. Sarah has been our Field Manager the last year and has been working on the farm since September 2022 but is moving on. We are excited for her to stretch her wings, take a break and do some farm adjacent work.

We have Kittens!!! The last two weeks I’ve written about animals on the farm, but I just can’t NOT write about animals again this week.

This week we welcomed two feral kittens onto the farm with a third expected to come next week. A friend and farmer lives on a busy road had a mama with babies and seeing so many cats get killed by the road decided to capture, fix and relocate them. The crew has been asking for new hunting barn cats for some time but without luck. We adopted three semi-wild kitties 17 years ago  (Theo, Yaki and Suki). Theo was an amazing hunter bringing in a rodent a day, Yaki brought in a couple a week and Suki was a fat cat who barely ever hunted. Suki has passed and the other two are now geriatric and sleep all day on the Kaiser front porch…

Sometimes, like last CSA, I wax poetic about farming with nature and then it bites us in the butt… or rather it tears up $1000+ worth of lettuce! See Photo.

The past 2 weeks we’ve seen a skunk mom and 4 kits shuttling into culverts in the neighborhood above our house. Skunks are amazingly smart and sweet creatures. Saturday afternoon we spied them in a culvert on our property. Saturday night they went hunting in our fields. Skunks (and Raccoons too) love Earthworms.

Late spring and the farm abounds with life. Our family of Canada geese have moved on (thankfully because they decimated over 100 heads of lettuce). Our daughter is home from school and has been scoping out our bluebird nesting boxes. 3 of the 6 boxes have active sets of young mouths looking for food. We have a family of quail living in our perennial flower beds. The birdsong has been incredible, especially on a cool morning like this morning…..

Photo of mixed beet inspired salad from recent high school grad CSA member Eden! Thanks, we love having photos and recipes from members.

One of the things that’s exciting about the CSA is truly eating seasonally and this week’s box feels Ultra-Seasonal with two items that you really can not get out of season: Fava Beans and Garlic Scapes. AND these are two items that I really only see locally. As such, you may not be super familiar with them and I’ll spend quite a bit of space writing them up. This is one of the joys of a CSA, exploring the seasons through food.

Photos of Ultra-Seasonal Farm Goods… Scapes, Favas AND Clarkia

We have 23 new members joining us today for a June start! Our CSA is now back to having a waitlist. For those of you new in this third and final wave of the season, but also those of you who joined in April or May… please, please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions.

Photo of Cosmos flower with native bee this morning.

Every year on the farm we do a few trials but this year with a team of very astute farm managers (Sean, Sarah and now Bobby!) we are doing a lot of trials and hopefully will be taking our varieties and diversity of veg to a new level for this year and beyond! Having farmed for 18 years sometimes you get into the, “well we’ve always grown X” or “X just doesn’t do well” even though it’s been 12 years since we last trialed it. I love being pushed by younger energy, change is hard and yet the one constant in life, right?

Photo of Bobby watering in new Winter Squash.

It’s nesting and fledging season, a busy time for birds on the farm.

Read more about the Canada family that made their home in one of our ponds, the barn swallow drama, a bird nest in the Fava beans we harvested for you yesterday and much more!

We love supporting Mother Nature while growing food for you in a healthy and vibrant ecosystem.

We’re thrilled to have accepted the Land Stewardship & Regeneration from Northern California Public Media, our local PBS and NPR stations this past weekend. This is the 7th award

In more day-to-day news… today’s newsletter Celebrates Cucurbits. We’re thrilled to have Summer Squash or Cucumbers in all CSA boxes again today and we have many more Cucurbits coming down the line.

Today’s Baby Bok Choi is very “lacy” with pin pricks from Flea Beetles. We’re sorry, we really aim to give you more model produce but aside from this they are delicious and luscious. But I thought it was a great opportunity to talk about pest insects on the farm.

First off, we pride ourselves on not using any pesticides, fungicides, algicides, insecticides or herbicides on our farm… not even organically approved ones. Even organic approved sprays have all sorts of warnings: do not harvest for certain amounts of time, do not spray where pollinators are active (which is everywhere!), wear protective gear and wash thoroughly after application, and more. In addition, whether organic or conventional, sprays kill both good and bad insects, ie: both pests and beneficials!

Photo: Lady Beetle Pupa

This Spring has just been flying on the farm! Early Spring is marked by lots of planting and light greens. We’re moving into Late Spring and it’s exciting to see things grow at lighting speed as the days get longer.

What does this mean? We now have 95% of our Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant plus our first 3 successions of Cucumbers, 1st succession of Basil, 2 successions of Summer Squash and 1st succession of sweet corn all in the ground. Summer Squash are already being harvested (read more below), Basil is close behind and Cucumbers behind them!!

Photo: Elle planting succession #3 of Cucumbers. #2 is in the right bed with Eggplant between.