Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for all of your support this year!

In Your Box

Kale
Rutabaga
Beets
Carrots
Lettuce
Leeks
Potatoes
Butternut squash (from Durst Organics)
Mixed herb bunches (rosemary, sage, savory, and oregano)

Featured Crop: Carrots
At long last a harvest of carrots has found its way into your boxes! This summer proved quite difficult to get a crop of carrots to take hold in our fields. If it wasn't too hot for them to germinate it was the cutworms eating them just at their cotyledon stage shortly after germination. Those carrot seedlings that survived the cutworms were left to fend for themselves against the ground squirrels, jack rabbits, gophers, and voles! Indeed a challenge to grow at the ranch these carrots were cared for quite deliberately and intensively by our vegetable production manager Tom Robson. Upon direct sowing these carrots they were covered in a shade cloth to protect them from heat and predation. Sown on 8/27 and after several tedious hand weedings they are finally ready for harvest! We hope you enjoy these carrots and we are so thankful for the hard work that produced them!

Recipe: Mashed Rutabagas

Farm News
By Jared Clark

With the winds that accompanied this last storm most of the leaves from the trees in the orchards and around the office are beginning to fall. With the first frost of the season underfoot the tender annual crops and weeds have receded back to soil level. The feeling of winter is upon us. The energy that has been above ground all season and manifests itself in fruits and flowers of all kinds is returning to the earth. Likewise we turn inward and reflect upon our efforts as farmers.

The first rains of the season highlight a transition at the ranch. Land that hasn't been irrigated all summer long and hosts only star thistle is once more brought to life. In these strips of land cool season grasses and forbs whose seeds lie dormant all summer awaken with the cooler temperatures and soaking moisture. Within a few weeks all the land we don't irrigate to produce upon in the Summer becomes a lush carpet of grasses and legumes. This fresh green annual grassland becomes our winter grazing ground for our cows, sheep, and pigs. This allows the land that we grazed from May through October to rest. The perennial pasture and orchards that are irrigated all summer and grazed through once a month receive a much needed break. The vegetable production fields are mostly in winter cover crops building fertility back into the soil. As this intensively used land rests in the winter the whole rest of the land on the ranch is utilized. This land hasn't been grazed for a year therefore the life cycles of parasites that might accumulate on continuously grazed pastures have been broken. The cows and sheep are relieved. The longer walk out to the back 20 pasture is undertaken with no particular hurry. As this roughly 20 acres of pasture is broken up into smaller 1/2 acre paddocks with electric fencing, the animals efforts are concentrated. As they search for forage and walk through the grass their hooves are cutting and pressing organic matter into the soil. With each bite of grass the roots of the grazed grass slough off feeding the microbes in the soil and creating pockets of air which allow for water to infiltrate the soil to build humus and organic matter. With their movements around this piece of land they begin the process of bringing the land back to health and productivity.