Trombolino Squash

My brother is growing Trombolino squash in the Zazu garden. He tells me it can be used as both a summer squash-when small-and a winter squash-just allow it to get big.

When Sarah and I were watering at Zazu today we found a really big one:

They sometimes grow in curlicues and can make great hats:

Sarah the Crazy Canner!

Sarah making pickled green beans!

Shone Farm

Last week Sarah had a field trip to Shone Farm for her ag economics class at the Santa Rosa Junior College and I got to tag along. Shone Farm acts as an outdoor, hands-on classroom and laboratory for the SRJC. They have forest, pasture for the ewe and lamb program and beef cattle, horses, 60 acres of wine grapes, and a sustainable agriculture area which includes olives, a market garden, and an organic vineyard. It is located just north of Forestville in the Russian River watershed.

They have a problem with predators gobbling up their lambs so they pasture llamas with the sheep to keep the lambs safe.

The organic farm section of Shone Farm sells produce at farm stands on the SRJC campus and through a CSA program. This white board shows what was in the CSA boxes for that week.

The ag program works with the culinary program, providing ingredients for the culinary students to cook with. In return, the culinary students give the farm cooked food to put into the CSA boxes, making them unique as most CSA boxes have only fresh produce. This week the culinary students made foccacia.

Water is an issue on Shone Farm. They use surplus water from the Russian River--this means that years when the water flow is too low the farm does not get water. For these dry summers they cannot grow vegetables.

Below you can see their sprinkler system for the veggies:

Shone Farm also irrigates with reclaimed water, but not their veggies, only the pastures and the vineyards (via drip to avoid contaminating the fruit). This means that even during dry years their vineyards and pastures have water.

Broiled Tomatoes!!

Broiled tomatoes are quick, easy and tasty way to prepare tomatoes that partially cooks them but does not take away all the wonderful qualities of fresh tomatoes.

Ingredients:

Fresh Tomatoes

Mayonnaise

Basil

Paprika

Toaster Oven

Here is an example of one of the beautiful tomatoes my mom has grown; it is called a pineapple tomato. They are very similar to the 'Mr. Stripey' tomato.

First cut the tomatoes in half. At this point you can put them into the toaster oven for a few minutes to bake if you would like them more cooked, or you can skip the pre-bake step for a less cooked dish.

Second, put scoops of mayonnaise on top. This mayonnaise can be very slippery so carefully smush it onto the top with a spoon. It helps if the tomato halves are propped completely upright. My mother cuts them so the two halves still have a little piece of skin attaching them and this helps them stay upright.

Then take fresh basil, rip it up and stick it on top.

Stick them into the toast oven on broil for a few minutes, until the basil gets shriveled and the top of the mayonnaise turns golden. Take them out and sprinkle a bit of paprika on top.

Yum yum!!

Sarah Silva with her pigs

Silva Star Farms

Today I went to Silva Star Farms with my brother, Milo and his friend and colleague Colin. Just west of Sebastopol, Silva Star Farms has an excellent model of sustainable, healthy and happy livestock farming. Sarah Silva met us there and gave us a tour, explaining how they farm in rotation. First they graze the sheep, then the chickens, which benefit from the parasites in the sheep feces and keep the parasites from becoming too prolific. The final animal to use the land is the pig, which turns up the soil. Currently they have hogs in a relatively uncleared area to dig up the root balls of the blackberries. Sarah Silva also has milking goats, whose milk she turns into yogurt and curd for the pigs; and an apple orchard, whose apples she feeds to the pigs as well.

Sarah Silva has an ingenious system for watering her chickens; she has set up pvc pipe that is connected to nipples which the chickens peck at to release clean water. The system is fed by a gravity system of buckets filled with water. This system keeps the water clean which helps reduce health problems like parasites.

My brother and Colin are making u-tube videos of Sarah Silva's farm. I will be posting these as soon as they are added.

Back in California!

These are my siblings, Milo and Sarah. We are starting Three Leaf Farms together. Here we are at Zazu--restaurant and farm. My brother is the farm manager here.

Market stand

Jay and I made the most beautiful market stand displays; as all our customers attested to. Here are some pictures from late August. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera the day that Jay made a kale waterfall or the day the potatoes were making a splash into a puddle of leeks.

These are our gorgeous purple, yellow wax, dragon tongue and french fillet green beans, with Jay selling them:

fuzzy chicks

Sooooooo many carrots!

Intertwining

Octo-carrot:

pooping carrot:

twirly carrot:

taking a walk:

interracial love:

gotta go pee:

purple penis carrot:

piggy back ride:

more interracial love:

indentations caused by being intertwined with another carrot:

siamese twins:

penis, shorty and twirly:

space carrot:

twisted carrots: