This week we’re finishing building the third greenhouse, moving manure around to mulch and feed the raspberry garden, planting 65 blueberry plants for a new blueberry garden, making way for our chicken house and run area, filling nursery boxes with starter mixes, planting our first seeds, continuing with general garden cleanup, and harvesting for Shelton’s Natural Foods Market. Last night we experimented with kohlrabi and made baked purple kohlrabi fries. We cut the kohlrabi in french-fry like shapes, tossed in olive oil and salt and roasted at 425 till crisp and brown on one side, then turned till crisp on the other. Delicious. Next, I’m going to experiment with kohlrabi-leek cakes, grated and fried like latkes and topped with plain yogurt or sour cream. I have high hopes; what’s not to love? 

Have a good rest of the week, and as always, thanks for reading! 

1. Mike and Ernie are building a third greenhouse here at 625 Sexton. We’re excited to have salvaged an abandoned carport-like structure from a nearby parcel which will work wonderfully as our largest greenhouse! Ernie and our generous friend Larry Stroud fabricated 30 redwood nursery boxes today (pics below) from scrap wood from another generous friend Steve Giacomelli. The community does help make the world go round here at Shelton’s Market Garden!

2. We have a book recommendation: this month we both read and thoroughly enjoyed “The Dirty Life” by journalist-turned-farmer Kristin Kimball. It’s a lively, loving, exuberant, tender read, chock full of real, rugged tales from the author’s farm in upstate New York. We both laughed out loud a lot, ‘wowed’ a lot, and wept a lot. Hope you grab it and enjoy it too. If you visit the blog on her web site, be sure to read her ode to winter food, recently published in Gourmet magazine. While we don’t have snow-covered green curly kale here in Sebastopol, the cold certainly brings out the best in the hearty greens and gives us a lot to love.

3. We’re continuing to harvest produce regularly for Shelton’s Natural Foods Market - took 5 cases of cauliflower, broccoli, romanesco, dino kale, green curly kale, red russian kale and collard greens to the store today – and also delivered 5 cases of our yummy romanesco broccoli to Sebastopol Whole Foods yesterday.

4. Check out the Analy High School Foundation’s online fundraiser: on this page you’ll find a $50 fresh produce gift certificate we donated to the auction, redeemable at our farm stand this summer.

5. We’re diligently working behind the scenes in preparation for expanded volume and variety this season. Ernie is thrilled to have just ordered 2500 strawberry plants, intended for the new garden on Burnside. Mike worked for hours pruning the raspberry garden. Until our regular farm stand is open, we welcome your calls and inquiries about what we might have available on an individual basis. We’re happy to put together a custom order for you if we have what you’re looking for. Don’t hesitate!

Looking forward to seeing you soon, and as always, thanks for reading!

Ernie and Larry in Larry's fantastic shop.

Working with re-purposed redwood planks to create our nursery boxes.

Hammering the components together.

Finished product - 29 to go.

The garden has spoken, and we’ve listened; it’s time to close the on-site farm stand for the season. We come to this day with mixed feelings. It’s been such a joy to grow and harvest our vegetables for all of you – with an unexpected layer of community building and neighborhood networking that has been very gratifying as well. Yet, we respect and accept the sleepy nature of the plants and their slowdown in the cool weather, and, we will use the time to regroup after a very intense three seasons of activity around here.

While our bodies rest a bit you can be sure that our minds will be busy plotting our spring gardens here at Sexton Road and on Burnside Road. You’ll note cover crop coming in on Burnside Road and a few rows of garlic popping up there as well. We may also do an early sowing of strawberry plants at Burnside – we shall see. We’ll likely construct a larger greenhouse in anticipation of increased demand for nursery space next year. Of course the goal is to open again in late spring or early summer with a cornucopia of fresh produce for you.

We wish you a safe, healthy, festive holiday season and a winter of rejuvenation and reflection. You have helped make this year so fun, so rewarding, and infinitely interesting as we’ve gotten to know you!

Appreciatively,
Susan and Ernie

Cold but happy farmstanders!

]]> http://sheltonsgarden.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/sheltons-farm-stand-open-weds-9am-to-1pm/feed/ 0 sheltonsgarden Cold but happy! http://sheltonsgarden.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/attention-barn-owls-custom-bungalows-available-now/ http://sheltonsgarden.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/attention-barn-owls-custom-bungalows-available-now/#comments Sun, 04 Dec 2011 21:53:32 +0000 Shelton's Market Garden http://sheltonsgarden.wordpress.com/?p=615 ]]> Attention West Sebastopol barn owls – Shelton’s Market Garden has four vacancies right now at our luxurious new barn owl bungalows, so please fly on over, take a look, and settle on in. Rent? Nothing you can’t handle – just a few dozen voles and pocket gophers a month!

This is "Chard Chalet" with a view of the chard rows (those humans will leave you alone, they're just very happy to invite you over).

This is "Hilltop Haven" with a view of the whole one-acre garden, teeming with gophers and voles!

This is "Meadowview Mount" - conveniently placed in an open meadow area.

This is "Raspberry Roost" - located alongside the raspberry garden.

All kidding aside, we are very excited about these barn owl boxes, which Mike installed yesterday. First and foremost we wish to acknowledge the skilled woodwork of our neighbor, friend, and farm stand customer Mark Davis, who crafted the boxes for us. We meet such amazing, talented people at the farm stand – and we love that your ‘vegetable purchase’ dollars helped buy these truly locally-crafted nesting boxes!

In researching barn owl nest boxes, Ernie came across a magnificent resource on the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society’s web page: “Build A Barn Owl Box: Modeled After an Original Design by Steve Simmons”, by Charles G. Wade and Lee Pauser, August 2010. This 27-page booklet details the reasons to attract barn owls to the garden, behavior of barn owls, preferred locations for barn owl box placement, and, most important, contains precise plans and a materials list for building the boxes. Ernie handed Mark the plans and said “How’d you like to make me a few of these?” And a few days later Mark arrived with six beautiful barn owl bungalows. Thank you, Mark!

With his usual attention to detail Mike installed the boxes atop their metal poles. We invite you to come take a closer look but here’s the basic process for each box. First, he attached a piece of scrap wood to the backside of the box. Then he ran four bolts through the box and scrap wood, from the inside so that the bolt tops were flush with the interior so as not to injure the birds. These bolts were then threaded through two pipe clamps and lightly tightened. Mike then lifted the box up and onto the pole (which had been set in concrete the day before in a hand-dug 2-3 foot deep hole). Once leveled and properly sited facing west, the boxes were tightened onto the pole via the clamps and a single screw placed through the bottom metal clamp.

Ernie then lined each box with a layer of mixed wood chips and leaves as nesting material for the eagerly anticipated owls. A few pics:

Mike Samuel discussing owl box installation.

The boxes open from the top and side to check for activity and for cleaning.

A comfy layer of nesting material for the eggs and babies.

The back of the owl box attached to the metal pole.

Close-up of the front of the box: the grooves below the entry hole are the "grip grooves".

We hope to have barn owl box updates for you from time to time with news of nesting and babies. In the meantime we’ll get the two remaining boxes installed at our garden parcel on Burnside Road, where we could certainly use some natural gopher patrol assistance. Thank you for your support and for reading – enjoy this beautiful day!

With the change in the seasons of course the stars of the show are the cool weather crops – we’ve got four kinds of kale, collard greens, colorful chard, two kinds of kohlrabi, beets, lettuces, broccoli, and broccoli romanesco. Last night we enjoyed a super hearty green curly kale soup with yellow finn potatoes, leeks and a mix of spices. Warmed us through to the inside.

Have a good week and thanks for reading!

Our signature Sexton valley red butter lettuce.

Also, the California State Organic Program conducted its spot inspection of our existing operation on September 28, and we received the report in the mail this week. After a two hour inspection the only item noted on the report is for us to keep a written record of when we add horse manure to our worm compost bins. All of our practices involving crop rotation, weed control, erosion, pest management, irrigation, composting, harvesting, record-keeping and packaging were otherwise met with approval by the inspector.

Thank you for your continued support and confidence. While our activity is slowing down given the shorter days and wetter weather, we will keep the farm stand going and continue to harvest for Shelton’s Natural Foods Market for just as long as we can. We’ll be open this Wednesday for items you might need heading into Thanksgiving weekend. Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Last week the main irrigation system for our 88 field rows was installed.

Ernie and Chris from Global Culture, our organic certifier. Chris has a sample of our greens for pesticide residue testing.