Oak Slough Farm

Family

I thought maybe someone else would write the newsletter this week, but I know they are very busy.  It’s been a big harvest week, and I am gone in New York visiting family.  My Aunt Bobbie isn’t doing very good, and my cousin Jim asked me to come out for the yearly get-together to say my good-byes.  It’s not an easy thing to do. 

Gleaners 

Back at home, we are very happy to work with Tehama County organizations to help provide fresh organic produce to people in our community who otherwise may not have access. We discussed as a family why food access is important to us and we boiled it down to the belief that fresh, healthy produce is important for the dignity and fulfillment of human beings. We agreed that when the whole community can enjoy fresh, healthy produce it creates a good place to live. In other words, our individual prosperity is affected by the prosperity of the community. 

We currently provide produce to three organizations. (1) Tehama County Gleaners distributes to 400+ families on the third Wednesday of every month and to 12 other food access organizations on the fourth Saturday of the month (it is a double whammy this month with them both falling in the same week–this one!). Red Bluff Salvation Army provides emergency food five days a week out of their downtown building. They regularly supply 40+ families a day. Lastly, PATH recently opened a larger facility that provides cooked meals every day of the week to people experiencing homelessness and food insecurity. Working with PATH also helps us reduce waste because we are able to give the cook our odds and ends that aren’t in big enough quantities to distribute directly to people or that don’t meet market standards. For example, a few bunches of parsley here and there…or the 150 pounds of potatoes that were accidentally cut with the shovel. 

Zuc Beetles

Typically, gardens have too much zucchini.  We still have some nice zucchini, but not as much as we want.  Our first planting is being affected by cucumber beetles.  These are green and black spotted beetles that look like a mutant ladybug.  It seems like they are affecting the female flowers though, so some of the zucchini are not sizing up the way they should.  We are trying different organic controls, including picking the beetles off by hand, spraying the plants with ground up beetle juice, and trying to support the plants by fertilizing them with compost tea, molasses, kelp and organic apple cider vinegar.

Carrot Top Pesto Recipe from Fischer Family 

We were excited to learn last week that one of our customers makes a delicious pesto from our carrot tops–we just thought they were pretty but turns out they can be tasty, too! Here is the recipe, courtesy of the Fischer family. 

In a food processor or blender, combine: 

1 cup loosely packed carrot tops, remove stems 
1 ½ cups tightly packed basil leaves, remove stems
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 medium cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (plus more as needed)

You can add about 3 tablespoons of cheese if you like- they suggest Parmesan, but without cheese is delicious, as well! 

I hope you and the people you love all stay well – Josh