The season of winter is upon us...don't miss it

A typical array of Tierra goods that might be available this time in the season is shown above....this was actually Dominique's purchase last season prior to her joining the staff and committing her time and energy to the success of the farm. Included is one giant parsnip, a colorful carrot array, sunchokes, puntarella, romanesco, Sangre de Toro beans and perhaps a few beets squeezed into the back drop.

While this is a tough time in the season that always includes failures and items missing that you may desire (perfect spring lettuces or luscious summer Seascapes), it is also a time of unique bounty that must be enjoyed now before it is time to move on to other seasonal spring bounty (for instance, asparagus is not far away) and while the plants are in their winter prime. This includes items such as the chicories, or hearty winter bitter greens. Yum both raw and cooked, it is hard to get enough of these. They will not remain when warmth kicks in in another month or two. Enjoy them now! Dried beans will store, but this is a darned good time to make use of them when other things are lacking. We are thankful to have carrots remaining in stock as long as we do not sell them all and as long as they hold under wet and freezing soils....I think the deer have even started demolishing the carrot tops to some extent, the challenges never end. Pretty soon it will be time again to try the cardoon, a seasonal stalk that takes like artichoke, but looks more like celery. The winter squash do not hold forever and now is the time to enjoy storage crops like these and onions and potatoes before their storage time is up! Brassica plants like broccolis, kale, cabbages will eventually want to flower and set seeds, destroying their edibility for the most part, so these almost must be enjoyed throughout the winter period.

Brussels, celery root, parsnips, beets, and dried beans. To some it may seem like the dark period in farming, for me it is hard to begin to choose....

Enjoy your winter veggies, they are waiting to be harvested for your tables!

Full Field Tour-Fall Planted Crops

It is getting more difficult for me to wander out far into the field as I have been tied down to the farm stand in order to facilitate the trade of cash for vegetables. I finally squeezed in an afternoon of farm field observation yesterday. Because I saw so much, I will have to report my findings in two segments. The first is relating to those crops that were planted for Fall/Winter/Spring and how they are cooperating with the environment and season.

Let's start with the celeriac, or celery roots. They are still out there, but getting sparse and large. I have always enjoyed the way these look both in the ground and post harvest. It is a fascinating vegetable all around. A few celery and celeriac will continue to harvest for the next weeks in March, but when the spring fever hits, I imagine these plants will go over the hill if not harvested first. The new round of these are likely up and living in the green house, a long, long way to harvest. They can take weeks just for the seed to poke up from under the soil.

The leeks are still abundant. That is important because the onions have since deceased for the season and the leeks are providing that spicy onion infusion to all the cooking these days. Continue to enjoy them in abundance..as with many of these fall planted crops, the challenge is to get through them before the season changes too much. If spring hits the leek will then set up a flower shoot and try to reproduce thereby ruining the tender and edible quality of the plant. I have no doubt we will enjoy every last bit of these leeks though...between the winter CSA, the Ferry Plaza and the faithful farm stand Tierra has plenty of hungry mouths to feed.


Whatever became of all the dino/lacintao kale? Just as I described above, the spring fever flowering syndrome kicked in for many kales, broccolis and mustards about the time the yellow field mustards started blooming. When it was warmer a few weeks back, many of these shorter season winter varieties hit the end of their life cycle causing the crew to turn to other more long lasting varieties for the harvest. Swiss chard takes the spring weather much more gradually and puts out beautiful new growth this time of the year. Time to enjoy the chard and wait it out for the new crop of kale later this spring.

This is the leafy, pretty speckled Castelfranco radiccho. Heartily carrying us through the winter a a lettuce substitute, these greens are slightly bitter, but make a perfectly beautiful and tasty salad serving. They can also be cooked if you like your greens a little more wilted before eating. There are a few of these still out in the field in addition to a few more well known radicchio varieties. Not a lot though! The puntarella, a similar bitter Italian green, is over the hill and done for the season. It is the last chance for this stuff and will be ifffy to see if any of it actually makes it up to the farm stand out of the field....some times it just isn't worth while.


There is some nice looking fennel....this is something to enjoy NOW! Fennel is a nice little crop, almost weed like, as it grows most of the year round and seems to endure many conditions that the seasons present. Note the wild fennels that invade our local road sides. Leave it to mother nature sometimes to remind us what we ought to be growing.




Broccoli or cauliflower, that is the question. Who knows for sure? Perhaps Lee who chose the seed, but even she loses track as the plants more to the field and time passes by. If you ask Wayne or myself, we might give you opposing answers. This
one looks cauliflower, if you ask me. The plant on the left is characteristic of a cauliflower, in addition to a more cauliflower-like "flower" texture. Many of our broccoli and cauliflowers are interchangeable as they are all these fancy Italian heirlooms that look beautiful and are hard to distinguish from one another. The image on the right is likely a purple broccoli which is again confusing to folks. No one expects their broccoli to be colors other than green. Don't worry too much whether it is actually a cauliflower or a broccoli...they are really all the same thing if you ask me.

Our final image for the fall crop field tour includes a characteristic, perfect cabbage by Tierra Vegetables. Are these for your fresh eating pleasure or Lee's last batch of sauerkraut, I do not know. Likely both. When getting caught up looking around for lettuces that are not to be found, be flexible and switch your perspective on over to opportunities like fresh cabbage salads and all that other seasonal, local food that has been more hearty and made it through our chilly, wet Sonoma County winter.

Spring crops to come!

In the Greenhouse-Thinning

Yesterday afternoon Lee and I found time to work in the greenhouse. It gets tougher this time in the season now that the CSA is in full weekly operation, the farm stand is open Tues-Sat, and the farm fields demand more time than all of us could ever devote all on their own.

There are small plants in the greenhouse that demand attention too. These are mostly those we seeded a couple of weeks back including celery, amaranth, and a slew of new brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussels sprouts, etc).

As Lee set to work sowing another round of celeriac seeds for the fall, I focused my efforts on thinning the current inventory of seedlings. Above is cabbage (I think, could be broccoli, I wasn't paying full attention after a while as I was in high speed thinning-mode in an effort to accomplish all we could in our single greenhouse afternoon). When seeding, you can drop one seed per cell assuming this one seed will grow and produce the plant you are attempting to have come transplant time down the road. Sometimes the seed packet contains a less than ideal germination test rate on the label as a warning that this might be a bad idea. At least two seeds per cell doubles your chances of having that germination success. This also uses up twice the seeds. In some cases, a small pile of a few seeds is better when it comes to things that are prone to poor or slow germination. This is the case with the celery and celeriac. Additionally, sometimes the seeds are so small that it is nearly impossible to drop in just one seed, like the amaranth. One must juggle the seed success rate, with personal ability and experience, with seed supplies, and then optimal greenhouse conditions and watering to follow through and make all this effort worthwhile. Lots to consider at once as usual and this is just in the seeding stage of farming!

So, my job yesterday was to thin all these plants down to singles to prepare for their new phase of growth and life prior to transplanting. Now that the seeds are up, we can see the success, in this case the cabbage seeds popped up ideally and we are thinning it down to one plant to eliminate the growth competition and have the single seedling ready for transplant when that time rolls around. I could have just sown one seed, but what if that seed never came up? Then I'd be here three weeks later with no plants. A little extra insurance is good when you are providing food for people who are relying on you to do so.

I snipped away the small stem of the brassica-type plants, lettuces and amaranths. I found the celery plants a little easier to simply weed down to one plant as the disturbance was minimal to the roots. This is moves along much quicker since I can drop the cumbersome scissors and work with two hands, doubling my efficiency. Technique with this task aims to optimize growing conditions for the plants you will save, that means the least amount of root disturbance while you eliminate the competition.

The tiny little celery plants above now have all the room their roots systems need to grow big and strong to prepare to go out into the wide-world that is the farm field.

Vegetable in Season: Celeriac

'Tis the season to be enjoying celery root, or celeriac (however you prefer to refer to this flavorful root). As a component of the winter CSA box this week and a popular item at the Ferry Plaza market the last few weeks, many Tierra customers have had the chance to enjoy this ingrediant already this season. Don't stop there! It is celeriac season and we are lucky to have such unique and flavorful ingrediants coming out of the ground fresh and local during the depths of winter. Celeriac is a very long season crop. This means that the seeds were planted almost a year ago in Lee's greenhouse and the plants have undergone care including watering, transplanting, weeding, taking up precious growing space in the fields for all these months leading up until now during their abundant harvest when much else has frozen away. It is foresight like this that keeps you supplied with year-round local veggies.

Here is a great article by NPR for additional information and ideas about how to prepare celeriac.

Before missing this seasonal opportunity to enjoy the celery flavor in your favorite winter and root vegetable recipes, consider all the TLC-from seed to harvest-that has gone into bringing you this beautiful and delightful bowling ball of a root.