Even here in Santa Cruz you can’t expect to have anything and everything all throughout the year. There will always be drawbacks and great costs to having strawberries and tomatoes in January.  We believe that getting to know the cycles of the growing seasons will enable people to make informed decisions on how to achieve a more sustainable food system for themselves and their communities.

Getting to know what grows in your local foodshed is the focus of The Foodshed Project that was instituted by the Santa Cruz Community Farmers’ Market Association last year. Their goal is to provide an educational vehicle to get people to understand what is available in our region and what you can do with it.

Joining the Route 1 Farms CSA will also help you learn what grows when in our region and allow you to enjoy the seasonal variety as it unfolds.  We are so lucky here on the Central Coast to have a cornucopia of choices year round and hope you will join us in sharing this amazing abundance of variety as we explore and expand on what is possible to grow close to home.

Speaking of seasons… summer is here early in Santa Cruz!  Monday we had a 93°F day out on Ocean St. Extension. That is about as hot as it ever gets out there! Those are the kinds of days that you want to have harvest done with before noon when temperatures are at their highest.

The good news is that it’s looking like basil will be on for the first week of the CSA which starts this Tuesday, May 28. It’s easy to eat with the seasons when it’s summer ha ha : ) Here’s to another great summer season of growing!

We are going to have to be vigilant about monitoring pests this year. Droughts usually increase pest pressure on crops in the fields and this year will be no exception. We’ve already noticed a lot of Cucumber beetle damage on our young summer squash transplants and there’s lots of evidence of flea beetles on our harvest of Mei Qing Pac Choi. The Pac Choi is still perfect for consumption but it does show the tell tale signs of little critters feasting.

We had to replace the motor on our 20 horse power electric pump, which had burned up, with a more efficient and cooler running one, always a good investment. As a matter of fact, we had to replace all of our pumps. Seems they all reached the end of their lives at the SAME time.

Each week a few more crops come on and it’s getting a little more active around the farm. We are very excited about the coming season. There are lots of new crops and varieties being planted which always makes things more interesting and offers a greater choice to our customers.

All four varieties of eggplant that we grow have been transplanted and seem to be spreading their roots into the soil nicely.  We are pushing the climate envelope growing eggplant around here but that is kind of our modus operandi, trying to grow things that aren’t normally grown close to the coast. Things are looking good so far and we will all enjoy the benefits of it.

On Sunday, we had a farm visit of 40 students from the Culinary Institute of America. This group of students was from far off Singapore. This was the first time that most of the young adults had visited a farm as Singapore is an urban city-state that imports practically all its food.

Having lived mostly in tall apartment buildings, they were very excited to see crops growing in the ground.  It was like herding cats to keep them all focused on the tour because they were so excited to explore and examine.  They graciously listened to my rant about sustainable food and how getting closer to your food supply is important.  I think they understood but they are dealing with a food system that is very far from “local”.

We are very fortunate to live here where such a wide variety of crops are available to us so close to home for the better part of the year.

Our first rounds of plantings in February are growing very nicely with few problems due to the good weather that we have been graced with.

We have encountered some insect issues with the zucchini transplants that were planted in March. Cucumber beetles (Diabrotica) always seem to be an issue when the squash get planted on the early side. These pests are abundant and can really put a dent in the growth of young transplants. Most of the plants will grow out of the damage but a few had to be replaced as they were munched beyond any hope of healthy new growth.

We tend to water most of our crops with overhead irrigation. Overhead irrigation uses the long silver pipes that you see in many farm fields that spray water over several rows of beds at one time. This year though, we will have to make more extensive use of drip irrigation (black tubing that emits water at the base of the plant and directly into the soil) due to the lack of enough winter rainfall. We are going to have to face the reality that water levels and water tables will be lower this year since we didn’t receive the usual replenishment.

The danger of frost is mostly gone so we have gone ahead and transplanted all the sweet bell peppers and tomatoes. Eggplant is the only hot weather loving crop yet to make it out of the greenhouse. They really like warm weather and warm soil temperatures so we are going to wait a bit longer before we transplant them into the soil.

We are already looking forward to the summer and its’ bounty of different colors, textures, flavors and nutrients.

Chioggia Beets- Rancho del Oso

Carrots-Ocean St. Extension

Rainbow Chard-Rancho del Oso

Meyer Lemons- Rancho del Oso

Red Leaf Lettuce-Martinelli Ranch

Green Little Gem Lettuce-Martinelli Ranch

Curly Parsley- Rancho del Oso

Spinach- Rancho del Oso

Mint- Ocean St. Extension

Oregano- Ocean St. Extension

Thyme- Ocean St. Extension

The practical side of it is that we learn from nature first and don’t rely solely on man-made technology for our solutions. Nature has solutions for keeping things in balance but if you go too far away from it, it will slap you in the face at some point.

In an organic or ecological farming/food system, we’ve learned that it pays to learn how nature does things and apply that to our daily farming activities. Using locally produced, high quality compost, and cover crops and maintaining an ecological balance through crop diversity and beneficial insect habitat, are all methods using nature.

Once we learn how to grow with nature instead of combating it, we turn our focus to how to distribute everything in an efficient and hopefully, ecological way.  By now, we all realize that we have become addicted to fossil fuels.  There is room for changing that dependency by finding ways to store our produce and to get it to consumers and markets alike.  There are no free lunches, so any alternatives we can come up with has its’ costs but we see some light at the end of the tunnel.  It’s something that we are working towards for sure.

There is something found in nature we call an economy of scale that applies well to our endeavors. Not too big and not too small is where our farm fits into this economy. We think it’s better to bring a truck load full of produce to our destinations rather than dropping off a box here and a box there. We are stoked to combine bringing our CSA shares to designated pick up sites within the community along with the delivery to our local stores, to achieve our goals of a more sustainable link in the chain.

So what’s happening on the farm? As we head into the warmer months of the year, our on farm activity is really ramping up.  We got off to an early start due to the dry weather and are now planting the warm weather crops in addition to our year round mix of cool loving coastal greens.  It also appears that we have a pretty good fruit set on the trees this year.  We are keeping our fingers crossed because who doesn’t love fruit?

Orange Chard-Ocean St. Extension

Dill-Ocean St. Extension

Romaine Lettuce- Martinelli Ranch

Red Little Gem Lettuce-Martinelli Ranch

Curly Parsley- Martinelli Ranch

Spinach-Rancho del Oso

Red Mustard- Martinelli Ranch

Navel Oranges-Ocean St. Extension

Spend a lovely evening on the farm, sharing a meal prepared from veggies and fruit grown right in the fields you will be dining in.

Our farm dinners (purchase tickets HERE) have been so much fun the last few years that we are going to do it again this year! This summer we will host three more dinners held in our fields and orchards. Each one has its’ own flavor and feel due to the seasonal changes on the farm and the what’s in the fields.

For each dinner, we collaborate with local chefs to create menus that highlight what is in season and abundant on the farm at that time.  You’ll share the table with friends and family and make new friends as we dine, family style, in the fields and under the trees for a magical evening.

The evening starts with a welcome reception and a chance to catch up with old friends and to introduce yourself to new ones. Once everyone has arrived, we head out on a tour of the farm led by farmer Jeff Larkey. Jeff has been farming in Santa Cruz for over 20 years and has a lot of knowledge about the history of the lands that he farms. The tour will wind its’ way through the fields and orchards to the site of our dinner.  As the afternoon melds into evening we will feast on several courses prepared right in the fields ending with a wonderful dessert.

Our featured winery for each of the dinners is Odonata Wines from the Westside of Santa Cruz. Winemaker Denis Hoeys’ wines pair wonderfully with the various menus our chefs have created for our field dinners. He is always on hand to share information about his wines and how he came to be a winemaker. We’ve even been so lucky that he’s debuted new varietals at our dinners before releasing them to the public. It’s a great partnership!

JUNE 30 @ Ocean St. Extension-Chef Santos Majano of Soif Restaurant & Wine Bar.

AUGUST 11 @ Rancho del Oso-Chef Kendra Baker of The Penny Ice Creamery & The Picnic Basket. Please not this is a change from the earlier announcement.

SEPTEMBER 29 @ Ocean St. Extension-Chef Damani Thomas of Oswald’s.

All dinners will have vegetarian options.

Tickets can be purchased here for the dinners.  You will need to create a member login to access the ticket sales site (if you are not a CSA shareholder). Each dinner is listed under the Add-Ons section by date.  Tickets for the general public are $100. Route 1 CSA members receive a $15 thank you discount.  Price is all inclusive.  Detailed information will be sent out a week before the event.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Chioggia Beets- Rancho del Oso

Cilantro-Ocean St. Extension

Green Kale- Rancho del Oso

Red Leaf Lettuce-Martinelli Ranch

Red Little Gem Lettuce-Martinelli Ranch

Navel Oranges-Ocean St. Extension

Mint- Ocean St. Extension

We’ve had a couple of big hitches over the last week that made the to-do list even longer. Several of our water pumps burned up a as they had reached the end their life expectancy. The lucky part is that they all happened at the start of the season instead of the middle

Our goal is to keep good, clean and healthy food affordable for everyone. As organic farmers, we’re also striving for more integrity and are doing away with the old school of farming thought that says “Bigger is better”.  The new mantra is “Diversity is better” and although it gets pretty complex during the spring push, it keeps us from becoming susceptible to bugs, diseases and market fluctuations that happen later on.

The costs related to farming, just like other businesses, have skyrocketed and competition is fierce. Outdated cookie cutter farm models are falling prey to economic and market conditions that plague farmers these days. Our diversity is our best strategy. Instead of creating new food products from commodity crops, the new farmers who are going to survive are asking their local customers what they would like and are learning to be adaptable.

That being said, it isn’t easy for everyone to have that kind of farming system.  Fortunately it works well with the science and practice of organic farming. The way we achieve this is, is by being diverse and consistent. By doing this, our direct market customers can be confident in knowing what crops we have and when they are ready.  We pride ourselves on having loyal customers week after week and year after year who appreciate our diversity and consistency.

Thank you.

Orange Chard- Ocean St. Extension

Red Little Gem Lettuce-Martinelli Ranch

Romaine Lettuce- Martinelli Ranch

Dino Kale-Rancho del Oso

Spinach-Ocean St. Extension

Thyme-Rancho del Oso