Jason standing proudly in his field, getting ready to plant celery.
Hey guys!
It was super hot last week while Jose and Jason were out planting our new little field on the Carpinteria Bluffs. They planted a 1/2 acre of transplants during the two hottest days last week and were reminded why fall is such a tough time to plant in this area. It’s always strange when you’re putting winter crops into the ground on the only 100 degree day of the year, but all of our little kales, cauliflowers, cabbages, broccolis, and chards survived and have started to puff up just ever so much to show that they are happy.
I thought it would be fun to put Jason on the hot seat, and try to figure out why he is so desperate to start a new farm for us right now.
Q: So, what’s the deal? Why are you frothing so hard to start planting new farm fields for us. Can you give our people your farming back story?
A: Jason: This is our third farm field that we have started. We had the one on toro canyon that we started when Katie’s dads farm moved to Buellton which we stopped because of the drought, we then started doing the 1 acre market garden, chickens, and orchard for Pacifica Graduate institute. Now we are seeking to start 2 acres of exotic types of things that our main growers don’t grow.
Pacifica has been great but it sucks to not be able to put anything we grow into our own boxes or on the farm cart. Which brings us to why I’m so frothed to start farming for our people. I want to bring them awesome stuff and do it in the Bio-dynamic permanent bed style of farming that Ive been doing at Pacifica in a tractor farm scale. I think that there is a lot to learn and a lot of positive practices to suss out.
Q: What do you plan to grow?
A: Jason: In the long run, you can expect more varieties of boutique lettuces, asian cabbages, broccolinis, different kales, colored carrots, cooking herbs, and some medicinal herbs and tea bunches.
Immediately, we are running into some lease problems on the bluffs already and may be retreating from that site after we harvest the leeks, rainbow chard, black kale, cauliflower, broccoli, Daedon cabbages, and broccolini.
But, we have another field in the works so we shouldn’t gap too much. We are stoked to be farming again, and can’t wait to share our progress through the winter.
What do you guys want to see growing on our farm this winter? Most of these crops are going straight into your boxes, so we would really love your feedback.
Shoot us an email with your favorite winter crops, they may just end up in our next round of plantings!
Thanks for your input, and thanks for your endless support, we really wouldn’t be here without you.
