Happy Child CSA

Happy Child Photo of the Week: May 14th 2012

jeff — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:56:13 +0000

We saw Brooks cherries in the CSA boxes this week – and we all know children love fresh, sweet cherries! Here’s a great photo from one of our members in Berkeley.

This Week’s Photo

Una (North Berkeley) enjoys cherries for breakfast!

Recipe: Peach and Red Onion Relish

jeff — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:08:07 +0000

Peach and Red Onion Relish

Ingredients
1/4 small red onion
4 ripe Rich Zee peaches
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Coarse salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Preparation
Thinly slice the onion with a mandolin or sharp knife, the thinner the slices, the better. Soak the onion for 10 minutes in a bowl of ice water. Drain the onions; remove excess water by drying them gently in a paper towel or kitchen cloth. Place the onions in a bowl.

Cut the peaches into quarters and remove the pit. Thinly slice the peaches with a knife. Add the peaches to the bowl along with the honey, lemon juice and cayenne pepper. Allow the relish to marinate for about 15 minutes or up to a day in the fridge if covered tightly.

This relish is excellent over grilled chicken, fish, or pork.

Send us your tried and tested recipes! If we publish them in the newsletter, we’ll send you a bottle of our estate grown olive oil in your next box.

Farm Focus: Compost and Beneficial Microbes

Lael Gerhart — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:26:57 +0000

Checking the temperature of compost.

COMPOST
by Lael Gerhart

Compost, sometimes called black gold, is a vital component to building healthy soil. Like soil, compost is a complex and living system. Each pile of compost has its own biology. What goes into the compost will influence the populations of microorganisms living within the pile. With careful management, compost makers can develop piles that are dominated by beneficial fungi or by beneficial bacteria.

Farmer Al has fallen in love with art of compost making, and for good reason. Research has shown that plants have preferences when it comes to the ratio of bacteria and fungi living within the soil. It turns out that annual plants, including vegetables, prefer bacterial dominated soils, while perennial plants, including fruit trees, prefer fungal dominate soils. By making our own compost, we are able to use what would normally be considered waste – unusable fruit and wood from pruning and thinning, to feed our pile. In so doing, we also save money and gas by not purchasing compost from an outside source, and we can customize our piles to favor fungi, which benefits our trees the most.

Our compost tea project is an exciting one. As we briefly discussed in our Newsletter featuring the Soil Food Web, plants produce chemicals called exudates that are excreted through their roots and leaves to attract and grow beneficial fungi and bacteria. We apply our compost all around the base of the trees to build healthy soil. But compost doesn’t stick to leaves, and that is where the tea comes in. Compost tea is a liquid form of the soil food web. We are spraying the leaves on every tree to inoculate them with our fungal dominant compost. The microbes in the tea will compete with pathogenic fungi such as mildew for space and food, hopefully out-competing them to their death! By establishing an ecology high in beneficial microbes on our trees, we also hope to evade the specter of brown – rot, another fungal disease, later in the season.

We sure will be happy if this works. Eliminating our need for an external input like sulfur for disease control, will make us more self – sufficient and sustainable. Pretty cool what a properly managed pile of “rubbish” can do!

To learn more about the composting that goes on at FHF, check out our Facebook page. To celebrate International Compost Awareness Week, we created a few videos for your enjoyment.

Fruit and News: Week of May 14th, 2012

jeff — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:43:31 +0000

THIS WEEK’S FRUIT

Frog Hollow Farm's peaches, apricots, cherries, and an avocado. The harvest has arrived!

Rich Zee Peaches
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
The Rich Zee is an excellent early variety to wet the appetite for summer peaches. It is much smaller than later varieties, and is more of a water peach than a sugar peach, but a big pleaser due to its early arrival. Rich Zee has a strong fragrance, a gentle flavor, and tender juicy flesh.

Apache Apricots
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
The Apache is one of the newest varieties of apricots introduced to growers and was developed by the USDA Agricultural Research Service. It’s early off the tree, and like our Brooks cherries, doesn’t sacrifice any flavor or texture to beat its more popular cousins off the branch. Apache’s skin is pinkish-orange, with an orange flesh that is smooth and finely textured.

Brooks Cherries
Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA
The Brooks are our first cherries off the tree. The variety was developed at U.C. Davis in the 1980′s. Though early to arrive, Brooks don’t sacrifice taste, color or texture. They resemble a Bing with a more balanced sweetness in their dark, rich flesh.

Haas Avocado
Stehly Farms, Bonsal, CA
Creamy in texture, nutty in flavor, with a small to medium seed. The Haas avocado’s skin is easy to peel and darkens from green to purplish-black as it ripens. You can tell it is ripe by the color of the skin (dark) and if it yields to pressure.

A Note From Farmer Al

Compost Central

Working with compost has made me much more aware of fungi and the major role it plays, both in the environment and the ecology of life on this planet. Fungi, along with bacteria and other microbial life, are the foundation of soil, which is of course, the source of most of our food. Most of us think of bacteria and fungi as the bad guys: causing infections in people, destroying food with molds, or a nuisance in keeping the shower clean!

Often believing the same, farmers are no exception. Fungi can cause tremendous losses for a farmer. Mildew is one of the biggest problems in a broad range of crops. In fruit, powdery mildew colonizes the skin of peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots. This happens early in the growth of the fruit, before the pits harden. As the pits harden and the weather warms up (mid May), the fungi die off or become inactive (dormant), but by then the damage is done. The mildew only penetrates the skin of the green fruit about two cells deep. As tiny as that seems, this leaves a scar or gray patch on the skin which develops into an ugly scar on the mature, ripe fruit. It is cosmetic only, but makes the fruit unsalable in normal retail channels (Whole Foods for example, will not take them).

To prevent this from happening, organic growers use sulfur. Spraying sulfur on the fruit creates and environment in which mildew cannot live, as the sulfur forms a protective
barrier on the skin. This year we are testing compost tea as an alternative to sulfur. The theory around this special brew is that the tea’s helpful fungi, bacteria, and protozoa will colonize the fruit’s skin and out-compete the powdery mildew for space on the fruit. It will take at least two seasons to have results that we can rely on, so we’ll keep you posted.

Recipe: Orange and Fennel Salad

Kimi Owens — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:43:41 +0000

Orange and Fennel Salad

Ingredients
2 large fennel bulbs
4 navel oranges or 2 navels and a few pixie tangerines
1 lemon, juiced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preparation
With a knife, remove the stalks, any feathery leaves, and the root end from the fennel bulb. If you have a mandoline, on a thicker setting slice the fennel bulbs crosswise. Otherwise, use a sharp knife to cut thin slices. You may want to cut the slices in half so pieces will be bite-sized.

Put the sliced fennel into a bowl. Peel and section the orange citrus. Set aside a few sections of orange citrus to squeeze into the bowl. Add citrus sections, lemon juice, reserved orange juice, and olive oil into the bowl. Toss well. Add salt and pepper to taste. The flavors of this salad will improve if given about 30 minutes to marinate.

Send us your tried and tested recipes! If we publish them in the newsletter, we’ll send you a bottle of our estate grown olive oil in your next box.

Farm Focus: Pest Control

Lael Gerhart — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:23:19 +0000

Organic farming methods avoid pesticides that can harm beneficial insects.

PEST CONTROL
by Lael Gerhart

Biological Control is defined as the reduction of pest populations by natural enemies and usually involves human intervention. If properly managed, biological control can be a safe and effective means to reduce the pressure of insect pests, weeds, and diseases. Many organic farmers rely on biological control to keep their crops happy and healthy. There are three types of biological control: conservation, classical biological control, and augmentation.

Conservation Control is one of the most important forms of control for organic growers. CC is a preemptive method of control where growers try to encourage and conserve natural enemy populations in the farm habitat in order to try and keep pest populations low. Earwigs are a favorite snack of birds. In last week’s newsletter we talked about how we leave our weed cuttings in the tree rows to provide organic matter for the soil. Leaving these weed cuttings in the rows also provides nest-building materials for our friends, the earwig eating birds.

Unfortunately, pest populations sometimes become too high for conservation methods to control, and Classical Biological Control is employed. CBC is most commonly used to control a pest that is introduced to an area without its natural enemies, but is also used for native pests. Without the presence of natural enemies, “exotic” pests can wreak havoc on food crops, and native habitats as well, in the form of invasive weeds.

Native flowers on the farm promote a healthy habitat.

CBC identifies, collects, quarantines, and then releases natural enemies of the pest into the affected habitat. There are many successful examples of reducing pest pressure due to CBC. European corn borer populations have been greatly reduced due to the introduction of a small predatory wasp. Of course, there have been some devastating failures in instances when the introduced natural enemy does not only affect the targeted pest, but native species as well.

Our application of spinocad falls under CBC because we are introducing something foreign into our farm habitat. Bacteria, viruses, and fungi formulated for commercial use are referred to as bio-insecticides or microbial insecticides. When applied they cause diseases in target pests. Beneficial insects are not usually affected because of the product’s specificity.

Of course we do everything we can to keep pests at bay on the farm so as not to need to apply anything, soil derived or not. This leads us to the last form of biological control–augmentation. Augmentation often refers to the supplemental release of natural enemies. The release of lady beetles (aka lady bugs) in vegetable crops is an example of augmentation. The modification of a cropping system to favor beneficial insects is another form of augmentation. At Frog Hollow Farm, we have created habitats to increase the number of beneficial insects and pollinators (bees) on the farm. Over two dozen varieties of native plants in the form of trees, shrubs, flowers, and groundcover are used throughout the farm in hedgerows, orchard rows, and established meadow areas to provide shelter and food for our insect and bird friends.

Fruit and News: Week of May 7th, 2012

Kimi Owens — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:31:50 +0000

THIS WEEK’S FRUIT

Seascape Strawberries
Lucero Organic Farm, Lodi, CA
Developed at UC Davis, Seascape are firm fleshed and sweet but slightly acidic. These are great for eating on their own or for baking

Washington Navel Oranges
Etheridge Farms, Dinuba, CA
Imported from Bahia Brazil in the 1870s, the Washington Navel is a favorite. Washingtons are seedless, easy to peel, with deep colored rich flesh, and are moderately juicy.

Pixie Tangerines
Churchill Orchards, Ojai, CA
Pixie tangerines are a late season variety that begin ripening in March and April. They are moderately juicy and a little tart with a pale orange flesh. These are great eaten out of hand or try them in salads.

Hayward Kiwi
Brandt Farm, Reedly, CA
Originally known as the Chinese gooseberry due to its Chinese origins. Hayward Wright, a New Zealand nurseryman propagated his plants by grafting. They eventually became the preferred cultivar of growers due to their sweet flavor and thin skin

Hass Avocado
Rincon Farm, Ventura, CA
Creamy in texture, nutty in flavor, with a small to medium seed. The Haas avocado’s skin is easy to peel and darkens from green to purplish-black as it ripens. You can tell it is ripe by the color of the skin (dark) and if it yields to pressure.

A Note From Farmer Al

Photo © by flagstaffotos.com.au. See bottom of page for full copyright info.

Earwig invasion! Last Tuesday, the Tree Team leader, Antonio, came to me with handfuls of nectarines and peaches–fruit about the size of a quarter–that they had thinned to show me that the annual earwig invasion had begun. Each fruit had fresh cavities carved into them with holes varying in size from about 1/16″ to 1/2″ in diameter and about 1/4″ deep. Such fruit is unusable if left on the tree to mature, so Antonio was training his crew to carefully inspect each branch to remove (thin-out) the earwig damage and leave the unscathed fruit.

Young fruit damaged by earwigs.

Now my job is to figure out how to stop the damage in its tracks. I called Gregg Young, our PCA (Pest Control Advisor and Agronomist) and he told me about a new product called “Seduce” (gotta love the names the AG industry comes up with for their magic bullet materials). “Seduce” is spinocad, a naturally occuring soil bacteria which science has discovered only in recent years. It’s a biological control agent that kills earwigs but is totally harmless to humans. Formulated into granules, and sold in 50lb bags, the crews walk through the orchard spreading about 2-3 tablespoons of these granules around the base of each and every tree. Apparently the earwigs would rather stay on the ground snacking on spinocad than climb high up in a tree to munch on the fruit (thank goodness). So, the invasion is thwarted by modern soil science!

I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief as this new strategy is put into place and executed, but will remain vigilant for more earwig outbreaks as the tree team works through thinning each block of trees.

Oh, and did I mention mildew? It’s yet another specter which haunts us at this time of year, but more about that next time. Until then….

Anxiously,

Earwig photo © fir0002 (flagstaffotos.com.au). Usage permitted via the GNU Free Documentation License.

Week of March 19th, 2012

jeff — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:17:21 +0000

In This Week’s Box

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Navel Oranges, Hass Avocados, Olsen Organic Farms, Lindsay, CA
Kiwis, Brandt Farms,Reedly, CA
Fuji Apples, Rider and Sons, Watsonville, CA
Grapefruit, Sundance, Oceanside, CA
Nectarine and Plum Conserves, Frog Hollow Farm, Brentwood, CA

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From Farmer Al

Greetings from Pear Pollen Puffing on Frog Hollow….

“What!?!?” You Ask. “us this one day to get the job done– the entire pear crop could depend on this day of work. Stay Tuned, we’ll let you know in about 3 weeks if it worked! What is Pear Pollen Puffing?”

We can’t rely on bees to pollinate the pears because pear flowers are NOT the bees favorite place to get their pollen. And since the bees are not attracted to pear pollen, we need to give an assist. “How?” you ask…first we buy pear pollen (which is more expensive than gold per ounce) and then we hire and ATV fitted with a custom pear puffer to distribute the pear pollen for us. We affectionately call it “pear pollen puffing” because we used to do this all using a hand held puffer that distributed a “puff” of pollen in each tree as we walked by (applied by Sarah AKA: The Pear Puffing Princess).

The window for pollinating pear trees is only about a week– when the trees are almost and then in full bloom. This year, the one week window we are allowed by nature has been very wet and muddy, and worse; windy, making the job difficult or next to impossible. But today, no wind, no mud, and we’re on the road to pear puffing pollen which should lead to enough Warren Pears, Taylor’s Gold and Bosc Pears to grace your tables beginning in October, though the holidays!

So, we’re breathing a sigh of relief that Mother Nature granted

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Asian Tempeh Kebobs
Ingredients:
Marinade

1/4 cup Tamari or soy sauce
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons rice syrup, honey, or agave syrup
1 teaspoon ginger juice, or small piece of ginger peeled and grated
1 tablespoon garlic (2-3 cloves in garlic press or minced)
Juice from half an orange

Kabobs

1 package tempeh
3 tablespoons olive oil or high heat safflower oil
6 6” inch skewers.

Procedure:

1. In a small bowl, mix tamari, vinegar, rice syrup, ginger juice, garlic and orange juice until rice syrup has dissolved.

2. Cut tempeh into 1 inch cubes. Heat oil in frying pan over medium heat. Add tempeh and cook until browned on each side, about 2 minutes per side, turning over with tongs.

3. Pour marinade into frying pan and simmer, about 8 minutes, turning tempeh occasionally so that they soak up the marinade evenly. Remove from heat. Place tempeh cubes onto skewers, 4/5 cubes each, and place on serving dish.

The key to really good tempeh is all in the marinade. Frying the tempeh first creates a crunchier texture and the marinade gives it a rich meaty flavor. Make extra marinade and save it in the fridge for quick meal prep later, or use it to marinate beef or other meat/tofu for a stir fry.

Recipe from Andre Boje– CSA Member, chef, and creator of theholisticchef.com

CSA News

Next season’s CSA, the Beloved Spring/Summer season, is almost ready on happchildcsa.com! You can enroll in the Spring Season, which begins in May, shortly! Thanks for your patience and support.
As continuing members from one season to another, you will be eligible for a discount of up to %15 if you pay for the whole season.

We have a new CSA Community Outreach position, filled by Lael Gerhardt. We’ll formally introduce Lael to everyone soon, but if you hear from Lael in the meantime, be sure to welcome her to Frog Hollow!

Week of March 12th, 2012

jeff — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 21:25:06 +0000

In This Week’s Box

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Pink Lady Apples, Cuyama, New Cuyama, CA
Navel Oranges, Hass Avocados, Olsen Organic Farm, Lindsay, CA
Kiwi, Brandt Farms, Reedly, CA
Ruby Red Grapefruit, Sundance, Oceanside, CA
Golden Nugget Mandarins, Cunningham Organic Farm, Fallbrook, CA

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From Farmer Al

Dear CSA Members,

Rain in the forecast! OK, let it rain. We’ve got our “cots”. They’re on the tree and growing……some of them are already the size of my index finger nail. Plums? Still too early to tell. Some varieties are just now at full bloom, so we’re spraying compost tea to; hopefully, prevent the dreaded brown rot. Peaches and Nectarines, same story. So, we’re not out of the woods, yet, but we’re hopeful, if not confident, that our ‘good’ compost tea will work. We know our tea is good because we (Christophe and I) analyze it under an electron microscope before applying it and it’s got lots of good guys in it: beneficial fungi, bacteria, protozoa, amoeba, ciliates, and nematodes, all of which will compete with or consume brown rot spores.

Meanwhile, we’re also applying pollen to the blossoms using a specially designed blower which is mounted on an ATV, driving between the tree rows, blowing pollen up into the trees (we get the pollen from companies who gathered it by hand last year and kept it frozen for use this year. The fruits that require this cross-pollination are cherries, pears, plums, and some varieties of apricots. Historically farmers rely on bees to do this work, and we do have lots of bees here on the farm. The mechanical application is just that extra effort we take to insure good pollination. Now, it’s all about the weather. “Mother Nature” is still in Command!

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Join us on March 18th, 2012 for a Blossom Walk in the Orchards with Farmer Al!

2012 Blossom Walk at Frog Hollow Farm
Sunday, March 18th, 2012 (10:30am – 2:30pm)

FROG HOLLOW FARM
11435 Brentwood Blvd.
Brentwood, CA 94513

Farmer Al will be giving walking tours of the farm between 10:30am and 2:30pm. Bring your friends & family for this beautiful look at Frog Hollow Farm. The cherry, apple, and pear trees will be in full bloom!

Bring a picnic lunch for your group

Wear comfortable walking shoes! Shoes that can get muddy if it’s wet! We don’t expect it to rain heavily Sunday, and will likely proceed if it’s raining, because we don’t expect serious showers.

Call us for more information: 925.634.2845 x 206 or email csa@froghollow.com

CSA News

Postcards! CSA postcards were sent in last weeks’ box. These are for you to enjoy and distribute to anyone you think might want to know more about the CSA. Some call it a Froggy Box, some call it a fruit box…whatever it means to you, please share fresh fruit with friends and let them know about Happy Child CSA. If you’d like to have more to give out, please let Melissa know.

Spring/Summer 2012 Store Policies

jeff — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:12:53 +0000

Please read the terms of your membership that display when you complete your CSA order. They are posted below for your convenience. It’s important that you understand your commitment to the farm when you become a CSA member.

-I understand that I am making a pledge to receive weekly (or bi-weekly) delivery of fresh organic produce.

-CSA Membership is for the time period selected above and is to be paid in advance.

-I understand that the farm does all it can to ensure a full harvest. I am committed to sharing in the gain or loss of each season due to weather conditions beyond Frog Hollow Farms’ control.

-It is my responsibility to pick up my produce during the designated delivery time period, within 48 hours of my delivery time. If I am unable to pick it up, I will send someone to do so on my behalf.

-I understand if my produce is not picked up within 48 hours of delivery, it will be donated at the pick-up site hosts’ discretion. Late pick-ups are not eligible for credits.

-Holds must be placed by Friday of the previous week. If I do not manage my own holds, I will call or email the CSA coordinator before Friday and notify him or her that I will be skipping my delivery. If I am not managing my own hold, I understand that it is possible the CSA coordinator will not be able to process the request by end of day Friday.

-By participating in the CSA, I am supporting Frog Hollow Farm as my local farm. I understand that refunds are not given for any reason.

I agree to the above conditions.