Happy Thanksgiving! As our season draws to a close I want to thank all of you for your participation in our program this year. Your connection to us as a food source is what allows us to keep farming. I am grateful that people like yourselves are interested in exploring the specifics of our seasonality and entrusting us to provide much of the food that you eat. It is this support that lets us practice the farming and the education that we love. Thank you.

Tags: food, CSA, Thanksgiving, Community Supported Agriculture Read More

Daylight Savings always throws me a little off kilter. When I woke at a quarter to nine on Sunday, which is a little late for me, and then realized that it was actually only a quarter to eight, I was pleased. This gave me plenty of time to bake a delicious fresh raspberry and dried apple coffee cake for breakfast. Fall daylight savings is my favorite because we get a free hour. Conversely it also means that it is nearly dark at five and, recently, very cold. This is dual edged sword. I really love it when the season changes and the rains come that replenish our aquifers and change the landscape from the dead brown of late summer and early fall to the bright new green of winter and early spring. Yes, this is another story of how, as the season changes, the farm follows suit.

Tags: food, farming, seasonality, CSA, Community Supported Agriculture Read More

I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve had about our Animal Husbandry program at Hidden Villa recently. Maybe some of you have seen our eggs and meat at the Los Altos Farmer’s Market. Or you’ve visited Hidden Villa and stopped at Scarlet in her pigpen or watched Cleo the dairy cow graze in the pastures. The animals, overseen by the Animal Husbandry Department, are seemingly separate from our produce farming. However, it’s becoming clearer to me that animals are critical to an organic farming operation. For instance, we make our own compost and worm castings from the manure of our cows and pigs. These are the inputs that make our soil black gold, teeming with life from microorganisms in the dirt to the nutrients our crops absorb to grow. We are essentially creating a closed cycle in which the byproduct of animal production results in robust organic agriculture production; the compost and worm castings we make on site are better than anything we could buy (and they’re free). And though we do buy feed for our animals, their diets are supplemented with grazing in our pastures and the byproducts of our agriculture production. They happily eat our vegetable scraps, such as the sweet corn stalks that were left after you received corn in your CSA basket. Creating a closed cycle is a boon to the farming production- a win-win that is cost effective and minimizes waste.

Tags: Animal Husbandry Program, Community Supported Agriculture, CSA Read More

A lot of participants in Hidden Villa's recent* Farm School event asked about the recipe for the homemade pita bread recipe that the CSA team whipped up for their demonstration, and we're happy to oblige. Pita bread is one of the easiest breads to make, but you won't know the difference between this recipe and a really complicated one when you're munching on soft, pillowy flatbread. Use these little pockets for a nice cucumber/falafel/salad wrap, or roll them up and dip them in hummus for a healthy treat.

Tags: recipe, food, Farm School Day, community programs, CSA, Community Supported Agriculture Read More

What is organic? A broad definition would be any food that isn’t exposed to synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. But anyone who grows organic food will probably give a different definition of what organic means to them.

Tags: sustainability, permaculture, Homeless Garden Project, WWOOF, internships, CSA, Community Supported Agriculture, farming, organic Read More

For the past few months we’ve been in the part of our season where produce is overflowing from our fields. As part of the crew growing this food, I am proud to see it getting sent off to many different outlets, used at Hidden Villa events, and feeding many of the staff who live here. I’ve been reflecting on how a farmer’s work becomes very tangible, especially in the summer months. Tags: Community Supported Agriculture, CSA, Community Services Agency, Farmers' Market, 15th Annual Josephine and Frank Duveneck Humanitarian Awards Dinner, special events, food Read More

Yesterday we did a field walk to survey how our crops are doing and to prioritize upcoming work to be done. Walking through our beds of bulbing fennel and sprawling green beans, curing potatoes and sweet corn stretching tall, the plants showed me where we are in the season. As someone new to farming and having a closer relationship to my food than I have before, seasonality is taking on new meaning for me. I understood it in theory, but am now intimately getting to know it.

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