Farm Update Week of May 10th
Hello Everyone,
Sorry to have missed the last two newsletters. The password I created stopped working for no reason but today it started working before my IT guy could help me with it. This past week seemed off - if you follow astrology Mercury was in retrograde. Something was definitely causing mix ups and unnecessary stress this past week - especially with office stuff. Anyway, I’m glad to be back in communication.
I bought some 20 new chicks and 9 turkeys to raise this past week. They are under warming lamps in a big horse trough in my garage. We have about 28 hens currently laying eggs - about 12 dozen per week. We take what we don’t consume to our favorite market - Temescal in Oakland. Since there are only a limited amount of eggs people have learned to get up early and get to our stand before they are gone. Within 20 minutes of set up the eggs disappear. I wish we had more but we are not set up for too many more chickens to run free. Too many more and they would ruin our newly planted citrus trees and our early tomato planting by scratching at the root zone.
We planted 37 citrus trees at the Serendipity Ranch - mostly meyer lemons, but a few mandarins, limes, and oranges. We also planted 2 fig trees. It is a lot warmer at the ranch so we planted 3/4 acre of tomatoes here to see if we can come in with them earlier than our mid Carmel Valley ranch. I am anticipating tomatoes as early as July, which is a month earlier than usual. I will keep you posted.
We are going to be participating in the Cooking for Solutions event next week. David Anderson, the chef from the Aquarium will be using our fava greens in a fava green pesto dish. Fish Wife will be using our cilantro in another dish.We are excited to be a bigger part of the event this year, especially when sustainable seafood and sustainable produce go hand in hand.
Restaurants on the peninsula that use our produce are: Fish Hopper at Cannery Row, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Mundaka, Carmel Belle, Quail Lodge, and soon Fish Wife. I find that the peninsula is slow to recognize the benefits of local, organic produce. Santa Cruz and San Francisco have been doing that for a long time. The more the consumer requests it, the more the restaurants will try to bring in more locally grown produce. Do you part and let it be known you would like fresh produce that supports local farmers like Serendipity.
Coming soon: snap peas, spinach, raspberries, red romaine, chard, dino and green kale, baby beets, Romanesco cauliflower.
Thanks again for being a part of Serendipity!
Jamie Collins