This week, our story begins with a family of turkeys- five adults, ten babies - who have found a perfect home in the lush wild spaces in and around our fields. Turkeys are charming beings, and while we’ve occasionally found frustration with their antics (eating our table grapes the moment they’re ripe, disturbing straw mulch on our garlic, occasionally nibbling on row crops, etc.) we’ve managed to sustain a quiet peace. But much to our dismay, the turkeys had other ideas. In an astonishingly small amount of time, they’ve managed to decimate several plantings of lettuce, despite our best efforts and most furious fist shaking. Which brings me to this week’s box, which will hold an offering of lettuce from our friends at Coke Farm. We’re grateful for the support of farmer friends in helping us get this staple item into your boxes until our lettuce supply has made a comeback, and excited to beat the heat this coming week with refreshing summer salads. Enjoy!

It’s been a wild year for the farm thus far, full of twists and turns, challenges, and triumphs both big and small. Our membership is at an all-time high - a fact our farmers have taken on whole-heartedly in an attempt to feed as many folks as possible. One major constraint we’ve had to work around throughout this process has been the size of plantings made long before we knew what we were dealing with. The bulk of our planning is done in the winter, with seeding starting as early as January, and many crops going into the ground at the earliest opportunity. What this all means, really, is that we planted enough tomatoes in February for 700 CSA members, but are now harvesting and packing tomatoes into more than 850 boxes each week! Add to this the existing risks of farming, and multiply it out by many other crops, and it becomes clear what a puzzle we’ve been dealing with for the past few months.

As August approaches, we keep bustling to the same speedy rhythm - plant, harvest, pack, weed, rest, repeat. This is ‘peak season’ on the farm, an elegant way of saying that right now, everything happens all at once. Our crew is at its strongest and swiftest, using all the energy we can spare to get everything that needs doing, done. But with storage crops like onions and potatoes ready to come out of the field, the tempo can only increase from here on out. Wish us luck!

Ode To the Onion

by Pablo Neruda

Onion,

luminous flask,

your beauty formed

petal by petal,

crystal scales expanded you

and in the secrecy of the dark earth

your belly grew round with dew.

Under the earth

the miracle

happened

and when your clumsy

green stem appeared,

and your leaves were born

like swords

in the garden,

the earth heaped up her power

showing your naked transparency,

and as the remote sea

duplicating the magnolia,

so did the earth

make you,

onion

clear as a planet

and destined

to shine,

constant constellation,

round rose of water,

upon

the table

of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.

I have praised everything that exists,

but to me, onion, you are

more beautiful than a bird

of dazzling feathers,

heavenly globe, platinum goblet,

unmoving dance

of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives

in your crystalline nature

I’m happy to announce, with much joy and gratitude, that the ‘Forever Farms’ fundraising campaign has been a huge success! This 7-week campaign, led by the Bear Yuba Land Trust, Sierra Harvest, Briar Patch Food Co-op, and Tahoe Food Hub, raised over $780,000 towards the protection of critical farmland in Nevada County. Much of the funds raised will guarantee the purchase of the Birchville farm site where the majority of our produce currently comes from, to be held as agricultural land in perpetuity by the land trust. What an overwhelming relief it is to know that this incredible land we steward will be protected, that local land and food access will be that much more secure, and that our farm will be able to continue growing food for all of you far into the future. This is a huge triumph for local food and the future of our community, and we could not have done it without all of you - from the bottom of our hearts, thank you, thank you, thank you! To learn more about the Forever Farms initiative, or to donate, check out their website at https://www.bylt.org/foreverfarms/.

Last week marked the celebrated return of hundreds of shimmering dragonflies to the skies above our fields. It happens every year around this time - only a few at first, and then many more, floating quietly overhead. The nature of their flight is so unobtrusive, it’s easy to miss them until you take a minute to look up. For many of us, they act as a mark of the season, an ephemeral sign that time marches on and that we’re right where we’re supposed to be. And so we move through our days accompanied by these breezy creatures, until the moment comes when they vanish as mysteriously as they first appeared.

With all the scorching heat this past week, our crew is looking forward to the relative bliss of a week in the 80’s! This is the busiest time of year for us, with summer crops (and summer weeds) really coming into their own, even as we continue to seed and transplant for the fall. It never fails to amaze me how quickly things grow during this time of year - beans fatten and tomatoes ripen before our very eyes. Soon, we’ll be transplanting the first of our fall brassicas, like broccoli and kale, at about the same time as we’re saying goodbye to the spring iterations of these favorite vegetables. Beloved cool season crops will be back in good time, but for now we make room in our hearts, and in your boxes, for the undeniable summer bounty of beans, corn, melons, and tomatoes. Enjoy all that this week’s boxes have to offer, and stay cool out there!

This past week, it was time to take down our high tunnels. Since February, they’ve held our very first plantings of tomatoes, summer squash, and beets, offering refuge from rain and freezing temperatures on cold winter days, and promising an abundance of frost-tender vegetables at the earliest possible date. But the moment finally comes when sweltering summer sun renders these plastic tunnels irrelevant, and so the tops come down. Zucchini and the very first tomato harvests at last take place against a background of clear blue sky.

We’ve been truly grateful for the cool weekend days and bits and pieces of rain we’ve received over the past few weeks. Anything that keeps the heat of summer at bay for just a bit longer means much happier late-spring vegetables. Your boxes this week are certainly a reflection of this moment where spring and summer stand shoulder to shoulder - broccoli, lettuce, chard, beets, and more continue to shine while summer treats, like new potatoes, are just beginning to make an appearance. We hope you’ve all been taking in the end of spring as happily as we have, welcoming all the goodness that these days have to offer.

This moment in time offers us all an incredible opportunity to drive forward authentic, lasting change in our country, and we encourage all of you who are able to get involved and make this happen. To fight and dismantle these flawed systems is very, very hard work, but it is work that we absolutely can and must do.

Thank you for paying attention, and doing your part to make change happen.

This week, among many things, we’ll begin to harvest the first of our highly anticipated sugar snap peas. For many years, we’ve grown ‘bush’ peas with reasonable results- low growing, and, you guessed it, more or less bush shaped. Not entirely satisfied, however, we decided to try something new. Peas are a delicious, seasonally specific treat, and this we deemed very worthy of our attention. So with a little extra energy, we’ve grown and trellised a truly lovely planting of climbing peas, which have astounded us each week with their immense volume, stretching tendrils, and teeny, dainty flowers. Over the next couple weeks, as you snack away on the snap peas in your boxes, remember that they are carefully and lovingly grown, and picked entirely by hand! Truly a labor of love from our farmers, to all of you.

Welcome to our CSA! Here’s lots of helpful information about our CSA program.

Thank you for your support of our farm.

-Grace Debbeler, CSA Manager and Farmer

Many thanks to all who have already contributed so generously!!! We need to raise $250,000 for the BYLT to buy the property. As I write this, 237 amazing people have contributed a total of $32,395 over the 5 days since we started this phase of the project. That’s about $137 per person on average. If all of our 800 CSA members gave $137 each, that would add up to almost $110,000, getting us within striking range of our goal. Of course not everyone can contribute that much, and some can contribute much more. Please help us, and do what you can.

Well here we are, in the 25th and final week of the Winter CSA share. What a roller coaster it’s been. We are so incredibly grateful to all of you for supporting us as a farm, and for believing in the food we grow and the people who grow it! This has certainly been a year like no other, and is only the beginning of what has been shaping up to be our biggest season thus far. Whatever challenges we might meet, it’s certainly bound to be an adventure.

This week, our crew has been going about the task of mowing down our swaths of grass and cover-crop that flourish on-farm throughout the winter. The soil moisture that tends to keep us out of our soggiest fields until later in the year is not long for this world. Meanwhile, around the farm, and all over the ridge, our many amazing neighbors have been hard at work clearing brush and pushing it back from the roadways. The hum of chainsaws and weed-whackers has never sounded so sweet! Their effort has been inspiring, and reminds me of what I realize constantly when working with a big crew of people - that the breadth of what we can accomplish when we work together is truly incredible. Thank you to everyone out there for building renewed hope and strength into our community in whatever way you can. We hope you enjoy this week’s box and all it has to offer - happy eating!

Looking at our fields right now feels a little bit like bending time. For the past two months, we’ve seeded, planted, weeded, watered, and dreamed fervently of this moment - when lettuce would fatten and peas would stretch. And here we are, on top of it all, with a mountainous season still laid out before us. This is the oh-so exciting moment when we finally begin to harvest food from our fields for all of you, and as a result, you’ll find more and more Mountain Bounty produce in your boxes with every passing week. We sincerely hope that you can taste all the love and care that goes into it! How lucky we are that, despite the state of the world, our planet just keeps on turning. Here’s hoping that this week finds you well, with very full hearts and bellies!

There is an art to assembling the perfect bunch of radishes. A trick really, of swift decisions and balance, that transforms five green rows stretched across a field into piles of rubies stacked end to end in crates. On harvest day, our crew spreads out down the bed, kneeling, each set of hands manipulating their bunch into a five point star, a triangle, or perhaps an oddly shaped cluster that retains its form only by the grace of small miracles. The sought after result, radishes held perfectly in place by the snap of elastic, never fails to feel like true accomplishment. How strange that the radish never seems to be the star of the show when they are so simple to grow, a treat to harvest, and a joy to eat. This week, we’re proud to offer you these tiny works of art, the first Mountain Bounty radish bunches of the season! Whatever they may lack in practice, they are bound to make up for with spice and crunch.

I want to start with a wholehearted ‘thank you!’ to all of you for the overwhelming support you’ve shown us over the last few weeks. We are proud and honored to be your chosen source of produce during this time. Thank you for telling your friends and family about us, for sharing photos of your boxes, and for sharing recipes you’re enjoying with your family as you reconnect around the dinner table. We appreciate you all so much!

This yearly ritual of cleaning up and caring for the less utilitarian parts of the farm is deeply gratifying. Physically challenging, even frustrating at times, but also quite intentional and filled with love for this land that gives so much of itself to us. It’s a moment to think about responsibility and stewardship, and to reflect on the ways in which we work outside of our immediate purpose to respond to the needs of a bigger picture.

Here’s hoping this week finds you all safe and well! Wherever we might be, home or otherwise, there is always good work to be done.