Last week marked the celebrated return of hundreds of shimmering dragonflies to the skies above our fields. It happens every year around this time - only a few at first, and then many more, floating quietly overhead. The nature of their flight is so unobtrusive, it’s easy to miss them until you take a minute to look up. For many of us, they act as a mark of the season, an ephemeral sign that time marches on and that we’re right where we’re supposed to be. And so we move through our days accompanied by these breezy creatures, until the moment comes when they vanish as mysteriously as they first appeared.

With all the scorching heat this past week, our crew is looking forward to the relative bliss of a week in the 80’s! This is the busiest time of year for us, with summer crops (and summer weeds) really coming into their own, even as we continue to seed and transplant for the fall. It never fails to amaze me how quickly things grow during this time of year - beans fatten and tomatoes ripen before our very eyes. Soon, we’ll be transplanting the first of our fall brassicas, like broccoli and kale, at about the same time as we’re saying goodbye to the spring iterations of these favorite vegetables. Beloved cool season crops will be back in good time, but for now we make room in our hearts, and in your boxes, for the undeniable summer bounty of beans, corn, melons, and tomatoes. Enjoy all that this week’s boxes have to offer, and stay cool out there!

This past week, it was time to take down our high tunnels. Since February, they’ve held our very first plantings of tomatoes, summer squash, and beets, offering refuge from rain and freezing temperatures on cold winter days, and promising an abundance of frost-tender vegetables at the earliest possible date. But the moment finally comes when sweltering summer sun renders these plastic tunnels irrelevant, and so the tops come down. Zucchini and the very first tomato harvests at last take place against a background of clear blue sky.

We’ve been truly grateful for the cool weekend days and bits and pieces of rain we’ve received over the past few weeks. Anything that keeps the heat of summer at bay for just a bit longer means much happier late-spring vegetables. Your boxes this week are certainly a reflection of this moment where spring and summer stand shoulder to shoulder - broccoli, lettuce, chard, beets, and more continue to shine while summer treats, like new potatoes, are just beginning to make an appearance. We hope you’ve all been taking in the end of spring as happily as we have, welcoming all the goodness that these days have to offer.

This moment in time offers us all an incredible opportunity to drive forward authentic, lasting change in our country, and we encourage all of you who are able to get involved and make this happen. To fight and dismantle these flawed systems is very, very hard work, but it is work that we absolutely can and must do.

Thank you for paying attention, and doing your part to make change happen.

This week, among many things, we’ll begin to harvest the first of our highly anticipated sugar snap peas. For many years, we’ve grown ‘bush’ peas with reasonable results- low growing, and, you guessed it, more or less bush shaped. Not entirely satisfied, however, we decided to try something new. Peas are a delicious, seasonally specific treat, and this we deemed very worthy of our attention. So with a little extra energy, we’ve grown and trellised a truly lovely planting of climbing peas, which have astounded us each week with their immense volume, stretching tendrils, and teeny, dainty flowers. Over the next couple weeks, as you snack away on the snap peas in your boxes, remember that they are carefully and lovingly grown, and picked entirely by hand! Truly a labor of love from our farmers, to all of you.

Welcome to our CSA! Here’s lots of helpful information about our CSA program.

Thank you for your support of our farm.

-Grace Debbeler, CSA Manager and Farmer

Many thanks to all who have already contributed so generously!!! We need to raise $250,000 for the BYLT to buy the property. As I write this, 237 amazing people have contributed a total of $32,395 over the 5 days since we started this phase of the project. That’s about $137 per person on average. If all of our 800 CSA members gave $137 each, that would add up to almost $110,000, getting us within striking range of our goal. Of course not everyone can contribute that much, and some can contribute much more. Please help us, and do what you can.

Well here we are, in the 25th and final week of the Winter CSA share. What a roller coaster it’s been. We are so incredibly grateful to all of you for supporting us as a farm, and for believing in the food we grow and the people who grow it! This has certainly been a year like no other, and is only the beginning of what has been shaping up to be our biggest season thus far. Whatever challenges we might meet, it’s certainly bound to be an adventure.

This week, our crew has been going about the task of mowing down our swaths of grass and cover-crop that flourish on-farm throughout the winter. The soil moisture that tends to keep us out of our soggiest fields until later in the year is not long for this world. Meanwhile, around the farm, and all over the ridge, our many amazing neighbors have been hard at work clearing brush and pushing it back from the roadways. The hum of chainsaws and weed-whackers has never sounded so sweet! Their effort has been inspiring, and reminds me of what I realize constantly when working with a big crew of people - that the breadth of what we can accomplish when we work together is truly incredible. Thank you to everyone out there for building renewed hope and strength into our community in whatever way you can. We hope you enjoy this week’s box and all it has to offer - happy eating!

Looking at our fields right now feels a little bit like bending time. For the past two months, we’ve seeded, planted, weeded, watered, and dreamed fervently of this moment - when lettuce would fatten and peas would stretch. And here we are, on top of it all, with a mountainous season still laid out before us. This is the oh-so exciting moment when we finally begin to harvest food from our fields for all of you, and as a result, you’ll find more and more Mountain Bounty produce in your boxes with every passing week. We sincerely hope that you can taste all the love and care that goes into it! How lucky we are that, despite the state of the world, our planet just keeps on turning. Here’s hoping that this week finds you well, with very full hearts and bellies!

There is an art to assembling the perfect bunch of radishes. A trick really, of swift decisions and balance, that transforms five green rows stretched across a field into piles of rubies stacked end to end in crates. On harvest day, our crew spreads out down the bed, kneeling, each set of hands manipulating their bunch into a five point star, a triangle, or perhaps an oddly shaped cluster that retains its form only by the grace of small miracles. The sought after result, radishes held perfectly in place by the snap of elastic, never fails to feel like true accomplishment. How strange that the radish never seems to be the star of the show when they are so simple to grow, a treat to harvest, and a joy to eat. This week, we’re proud to offer you these tiny works of art, the first Mountain Bounty radish bunches of the season! Whatever they may lack in practice, they are bound to make up for with spice and crunch.

I want to start with a wholehearted ‘thank you!’ to all of you for the overwhelming support you’ve shown us over the last few weeks. We are proud and honored to be your chosen source of produce during this time. Thank you for telling your friends and family about us, for sharing photos of your boxes, and for sharing recipes you’re enjoying with your family as you reconnect around the dinner table. We appreciate you all so much!

This yearly ritual of cleaning up and caring for the less utilitarian parts of the farm is deeply gratifying. Physically challenging, even frustrating at times, but also quite intentional and filled with love for this land that gives so much of itself to us. It’s a moment to think about responsibility and stewardship, and to reflect on the ways in which we work outside of our immediate purpose to respond to the needs of a bigger picture.

Here’s hoping this week finds you all safe and well! Wherever we might be, home or otherwise, there is always good work to be done.

So there it is, one of the most amazing things we do at Mountain Bounty - we grow incredible farmers. I’ll admit that the vegetables are pretty good too. All the food we grow, and all of the CSA boxes we pack for our members also nourish a steady succession of farmers at different stages in their lives and careers. Our country needs more young farmers to help secure our access to a thriving food system, a fact that has become clearer now than ever. We’re excited to have a part in educating this future generation, and are dedicated to giving them the tools to succeed. Thank you, as always, to all of you for supporting our efforts!

As California shelters in place, we’re all struggling to contend with the harsh realities of a flawed system. Folks are out of work, kids are home from school, many small businesses are closed indefinitely - so much is at stake for our community and country right now. In this moment, it’s more important than ever that we hold each other up, protect those who are most vulnerable, and stay buoyant in the face of adversity. We are powerful and resilient, and we’ve got this.

We are committed to our mission of serving as a reliable source of produce for our community. We plan to continue planting, tending, picking, and delivering to you, come what may.

It seems pertinent to offer an update on how things at the farm have been progressing in the midst of so much chaos. We know many folks are avoiding grocery stores and crowded spaces, and hope that a CSA box offers you some degree of respite and flexibility. We aim to be a reliable source of produce, no matter what. We will continue to plant and grow food for our community. We believe that our CSA model which connects local farmers directly with our local community is now more relevant than ever. We know that some of our drop sites may have to close and we're committed to finding temporary alternatives, so we can continue delivering your food through these uncertain times. 

It's time to renew your CSA subscription! Here is more information about our new software and changes to the renewal process.