farm blog

Fall 2011 updates

2011-11-28T20:21:21Z

The summer crew is gone : ( and we miss them ofcourse, but it is a lot quieter and more restful here on the farm. We've been enjoying getting back into the routine of the chores (which the crew largely took care of this summer) and the slightly less frenzied rythm of crop planning for next year, budgeting, and coming up with lists of all the necessary repair and improvement projects that need to happen this winter.

Despite crazy late rains, an unusually cold summer, and the slow economy, we at Fifth Crow are still quite pleased with how the season went. The potatoes completely failed, but beets and broccoli did wonderfully. We lost almost all of our tomatoes, but our dry beans did great and we managed to get most of them in before the first rains. Although farming is all about growing and harvesting crops, the production is only one piece of the puzzle. Just as important is the other end of the process: the eating. We thank all of you for our success over the last several years, as we know it is in large part due to the generous and loyal support of our amazing customers, neighbors, and friends. Thank you.

We just completed our final week at the Castro Market. Although we had hoped to continue to go into December, we just don't have enough product. But, we'll be back in the early Spring when the market opens, and you can still find us at the Inner Sunset Farmers Market on Sundays and the San Mateo Farmers' Market on Saturdays. Hope to continue to see you there!

We had a successful first year of our CSA program and will be expanding delivery options & adding more members this coming year. We'll be sending out information and beginning to sign up new members shortly after the holidays. What will be changing? ... boxes will be available for pick up at all our market locations, we'll be extending the season by several weeks, and we'll be adding a little more dry goods and value added items to the boxes (jams, pancake mix, wheat berries, popcorn etc.) For information about this last year's CSA: http://fifthcrowfarm.squarespace.com/csa/-- Info on how to register for next season will be e-mailed/ posted soon.

What else is in store for fifth crow in the coming year?

Here's a little sneak preview of our to do list:

build another greenhouse and hopefully by next fall some in field hoops for late fall/winter growing

finish a real bathroom with flushing toilet hooked into our new septic tank!!

We're hiring on two full time staff next season!! Welcome Rafe Rivers and Augustin Garcia.

Plant more trees! Last winter we added more apples and pear trees, this year we hope to plant even more pears and perhaps some persimmons too

... and more

Thank you again.

Teresa (thanks little sis for our new favorite mug)

Onions are on their way!

2011-06-23T05:21:45Z

we just harvested this year's onions, which are now curing in the greenhouse.

great article about our CSA

2011-06-13T20:05:47Z

Kudos to Linda Schild-Jones, our CSA site coordinator for Belmont, and a thank you to the "Belmont Patch" for publishing an article about our CSA. The article appeared a couple weeks ago. Go read it here. It was quite thorough and well written!

May harvests

2011-05-11T04:01:06Z

The farm is all a buzz with activity (literally- we've had 3 swarms from our resident bee hives this spring). The air smells of fresh tilled ground and the glorious wet green of spring. Our interns for the season: Matt, Sophie, and Susie, just arrived May 1 and are settling in & getting trained for the busier and busier harvest weeks to come. We are also pleased to have both Rachel, and Jay working with us part time this season and, of course, thrilled to have the Garcia family returning to work with us as well. We have yet to post fotos and bios of them on the website... but we're working on it.

Rachel comes with years of experience working for Full Belly Farm, Blue House Farm, and is currently also milking goats for Harley Goat Farms while she & her fiance seek out land to farm on their own. Jay is a counselor who works with at risk teens doing wilderness therapy. A graduate of the UCSC Farm & Garden Program, he's been working for us since last year. Martin, Gerardo, & Victor Garcia work for us when they have time (they have full time jobs at neighboring nurseries). All three have worked with us for the last two seasons and we are oh so grateful to have them back this year as well. Martin is an assistant manager at the flower nursery where he's worked for over 20 years. Gerardo works at a different nursery that does flowers as well as peppers and a couple other specialty crops. Victor has been doing nursery work for 8+ years and is extremely interested in learning more about organic vegetable production. With decades of farming experience between them they are a valuable asset to the farm.

We just did our first harvest of baby greens, radishes, sweet peas, and strawberries last wednesday (soooo nice to have salad after months of leeks, broccoli & kale). We'll be starting to harvest head lettuce this weekend and will are looking forward to sampling the 6+ new varieties we are trialing. Our potatoes are all in the ground now and beets, carrots, and turnips have germinated and are growing well. The first round of zucchinnis and summer squash are being transplanted as we speak and next week we'll be transplanting the third round of brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi).

But... we still have a ways to go before we can shift the focus from tilling in cover crop and planting (lots of tractor work into the twilight hours these days), to weeding and harvesting. This year's dry beans, corn, tomatoes, & peppers have yet to go in the ground, but soon....

March Showers and April Flowers?

2011-03-27T21:25:08Z

As we slog through ankle deep mud in the fields it's hard to believe that what is now a cold, slippery mess will be turned into a thriving garden of food in the next couple months. The last two weeks have brought us over 7 inches of rain! No major damage, but our season will certainly suffer a setback.

We're keeping busy with building projects, taxes, and catching up on other office work, but the greenhouse full of plants awaiting drier soil for plant out. For all you greens fans, here's how it works:

1. We started sowing head lettuce in the greenhouse three weeks ago.

2. The first round will be ready to transplant in a couple weeks

3. Next we transplant, after which we wait another month or so before they'll be ready for harvest.

4. But here's the catch... to transplant we have to mow down the cover crop, till it in, and then wait at least 10 days for it to break down (i.e. rot) before we can transplant.

cover cropped fieldmowing down cover cropIf you love salad, then send out a little prayer that the rains are over for at least a month.

February Showers February Seeds

2011-02-17T22:32:22Z

After a freakishly long dry spell with frosty morning and crystal clear days, the wet season has returned in full force. Though we would like nothing more than to curl up by the fire on rainy days the farm's own rhythm keeps us pretty busy.

Though most of the fields are tucked away under a verdant blanket of legumes and grasses, our egg production is picking up, the over wintered broccoli is vibrantly green and slowly but surely growing, the alliums (garlic, onions, leeks) need weeding as they always do, we still harvest some bunching greens (chard and kale), we continue pruning of our young apple orchard, and we plug away on the building projects and paperwork that winter's slightly slower pace allows. And thankfully, the owners have all got a little R & R down Mexico way.

Most exiting news of the week: Greenhouse sowings are underway. Just yesterday, we brought the tables in from the cold where they had been languishing for a couple months, having made room for the new flock of tender young chicks to grow into adulthood. Now the young hens are out on the pasture and the greenhouse tables have taken back their rightful place on the Greenhouse floor where they now carry the weight of two dozen flats of moist soil and the promise of thousands of tiny seeds.

Winter Projects

2010-12-29T01:30:00Z

The winter has definitely set in here. We, as well as the chickens, the cats, and our resident ravens are all going a little stir crazy I think. The fields are turning bright green with cover crop, but weeding, planting, and harvesting are all a very muddy affair- if not outright impossible.

Even if not much is happing in the fields, there's lots of new news at Fifth Crow.

hopi blue corn drying before grinding

Our next flock- we got 350 more chicks in October- have just started cockle doodle do-ing. They're fully feathered and ready to move into coop number two that Mike just finished building for them. They should start laying in March at which point we can lift our "1 dozen per family" farmers' market ration.

We're also starting a CSA! Yup, you can now further your support of our farm by signing up to receive a box of our veggies and eggs (optional) from June through October. We're still signing up new members and looking for drop sites, so if you're interested in perhaps hosting (drop site volunteers get a special deal on their CSA membership) please contact us.

We're still growing... This next season we'll be leasing 5 more acres adjoining our present lease. We'll also be continueing to grow in a field near Pescadero High School. We call this the Mitton Field as it's owned by the wonderful Mitton family whose two kids Laurel and Robbie are quite the budding gardeners. Thanks to Mike its also shaped like a mitton.

Pickle (aka Michael Meehan) and Eric Broberg, our interns for 2010 have moved on to the luxuries of indoor toilets and showers for the winter. We're sad to see them go, but excited to be hiring for this coming season. We're still in the process of selecting who will join the team next season and it won't be easy. Lots of amazing candidates this year.

Also new... this website! Let us know what you think. We're trying to make it more useful and informative than our last one, but there's still lots of work to do.