“Great lettuce weather” has always been my mantra for consoling myself through wet, overcast days. Who knew that the same mantra would carry me through the spring and summer of 2010, which we have now dubbed The Year of the Lettuce. A season marked by cool, moist days have made growing conditions ideal for lactuca sativa. We have been steadily sowing, planting and harvesting several varieties–our most successful being Little Gem baby romaines and Red Butterhead.

The Little Gems are crisp, sweet and delicious and the butterheads have a wonderful, silky texture that our customers and Belmont and San Mateo farmers markets can’t get enough of.

It is still “winter” here in coastal California and  though we Cabbages are mostly taking time away from the farm, the soil and our cover crop is still hard at work soaking up the rains and fixing nitrogen. Our fields are such a beautiful emerald green lately.

Speaking of green…we are kicking off the 2010 growing season with a brand new greenhouse. The frame went up pretty easily.

As for the plastic….

It’s worth noting that one of the biggest challenges Fat Cabbage Farm has faced this year has been: weeds. Without going into too much deconstruction of “what is a weed anyway?” we can say that the primary offenders to our operation have been amaranth, lambs quarters (both of which are edible), poison hemlock (yes, it is quite poisonous) and horsetail (high in silica and possibly a foliar innoculant against fungal plant diseases).

Despite the potentially useful qualities of some of these plants, the truth is that they compete in the rows with our veggie crops for water and nutrients, and for that, they must go. To make them go has cost Fat Cabbage Farm countless hours of weeding in various forms: hand weeding, knife weeding, flame weeding (definitely the most fun) and hula hoeing (see picture below).

Sam demonstrates use of the hula hoe.

The weed pressure is actually so intense on our plot that we are planning to reserve an entire acre to “weed flushing” alone next year. The process will look something like this: Step 1: Irrigate; Step 2: Observe the carpet of weeds as they emerge; Step 3: Use the tractor and disc implement to cut down weeds; Repeat. The idea is that we will reduce the weed seed bank over a 4-6 month period of “weed flushing.”

In the meantime, I have shared two pictures below that show before and after a two-person, full day, hand weeding and knife weeding session on a ~120 foot row of celery.

Look at all those weeds! Celery? Where?

Ahhh. Now I see the celery.

After an amazing first season, we Cabbages are starting to look towards putting our fields under cover crops. Simultaneously, we are planning next year’s production with some exciting new changes…stay tuned!

Miranda lovingly cradles a Tendersweet variety Cabbage. (Thanks to Brian for the photo)

Farming is quite the balancing act. There is always a long list of work to be done and just as soon as items get ticked off of the list, more tasks appear. This balancing of tasks–weeding, harvesting, planting, sowing–has kept us very busy indeed. The work is paying off and Fat Cabbage Farm has many excellent crops to be proud of this season.

Let me begin with. . . Garlic! Despite our late planting and a serious rust problem, we unearthed a beautiful crop of California Late Garlic, which has been cured and sold to both Flea St. Cafe and New Leaf Community Market-Half Moon Bay. We are also retaining a minimum of 30 lbs. for seed.

California Late Garlic curing in the greenhouse

Another crop that we have anxiously awaited is our heirloom tomatoes. We were late getting them planted due to some seedling losses early in the season. Also, the cooler coastal climate makes for a later tomato crop. At long last, however, we are starting to harvest beautiful varieties including Oregon Spring, Sungold Cherries and Red Oxheart.

We are also pleased with our flower offerings this season. We love to integrate rows of flowers into our veggie crops; they add beauty, attract pollinators and beneficial insects and did I mention beauty?  Now for the pictures. . .

Heirloom tomatoes!

Sungold Cherry Tomatoes.

Snapdragons.

Fat Cabbage Flowers.

Well, unbelievably, the summer solstice is here. Today is the longest day of the year and the official first day of summer. Every day from here out will be a march towards winter. “Farm time” seems always mindful of the future, and in our minds it’s as if the season is rapidly slipping away.

Yet, Fat Cabbage Farm still has a solid four months of growing to do. Our crops are really looking great these days and we are proud of the work we have done. Some highlights…

Early transplants of broccoli, cabbage and leeks have been harvested and delivered to Flea Street Cafe.

Our strawberries have turned red and deliciously sweet. More and more come off of the plants every week.

Our first direct sowings of beets, carrots and cilantro have matured and we have begun harvesting.

Tomato fruits are forming on the vine and the cabbages are indeed getting fat.

As a first introduction of the official Fat Cabbage Farm Blog, here is a series of photos capturing the progress we have made since our October 2008 completion of the UCSC Farm and Garden Apprenticeship.  Please enjoy, and check back to see how the season continues to unfold.

January 2009

March 2009

April 2009

The rains had stopped and the soil had dried down; it was time to break ground! First we mowed the cover crop.

We used a spading tractor implement to incorporate the cover crop deeply into the soil profile where microorganisms break the crop residue down into nutrients our plants will draw from all season long.

Fat Cabbage farmer, Brian, driving the spader.

We used a bed shaping tractor implement to form raised beds.

It was finally time to plant out our first crops (Pictured: Fat Cabbage farmer, Paul).

We pulled the plants from the greenhouse that were ready to be transplanted into the ground and we tucked them into our freshly cultivated soil. (Pictured: various cabbage varieties, broccoli and kale)

May 2009

Now it is May and after much patience and some unexpected late season rains, those first transplanted crops are looking great.

Now that the soil has warmed up a bit, we are able to skip the greenhouse stage and sow many crops directly into the soil.

We’ve come a long way since we started Fat Cabbage Farm back in January and we still have many more exciting months ahead. We look forward to harvesting early crops soon and sharing our harvests with Flea St. Cafe in Menlo Park, CA.

The Fat Cabbage Farmers (left to right) Miranda, Brian and Paul