Snowy Morning on the Farm

We woke up to a surprise this morning...

A cheery dusting of snow! This can be a major disaster for us here on the farm, but last night's storm left just enough snow to frost everything, without breaking limbs or blanketing blossoms too deeply...

We usually get a tiny bit of snow once or twice each winter here in Auburn, but the chickens seem mystified by it each time. Red studied the new strange carpet for several minutes before finally hopping out the door to investigate:

Dot was decidedly apprehensive about venturing outside, and didn't seem too keen about cold feet...

And Darla of course had to see if the snow might taste good!

Brenda, our sweetheart of a barn cat, wandered everywhere with me in search of snowy photos — she figured out quickly how to pose for the camera:

Plum blossoms and mushrooms and moss...

And then the sun came out!

Mushroom Hunt!

Spring may not "officially" arrive for another month or so, but you'd never know it here in the foothills! The days are growing longer and warmer, and the ground is carpeted with little green sprouts eagerly drinking in the sunshine. The apricot and almond trees are on the verge of bursting into bloom, and we're almost done pruning the pears and grapes — any day now their first leaves will show. Yellow mustard flowers dot the orchard; the chickens roam to and fro snacking on tender shoots and tasty grubs.

This is the best day of our lives!

The flowers and green growing things may be the most obvious signs of Spring, but look closely and there are others, stranger and more subtle...

Remember that New Year's resolution about foraging and mushroom-hunting? Well, this weekend our mushroom-loving pals Thea, Gayle and Jay came over to see just what is hiding in the woods — we found and identified quite a variety of fungi, and, yes, at least one is edible!

Awaiting identification — despite being on the kitchen counter, these are not all OK to eat.

Thea, Gayle, the field guide, and a pile of mushrooms!

Some mushrooms are unabashedly showy, like these "turkey tails" growing on a pine stump...

...while others are sneakier, like this Helvella, the Fluted Black Elfin Saddle. (Aren't those names just the best?!) At first glance from above, you might miss it entirely; it looks like a shriveled, crumpled little black thing, unremarkable and kind of icky. Get down to eye level, however, and it's quite a beauty in its own weird way:

Speaking of weird, check out these club fungi — again, you might not see them at all at a casual glance!

The find of the day — in the edible department, anyway — was this gorgeous blewit, Clitocybe nuda. I had seen these surreal, lilac-colored mushrooms growing under the oaks before, but had no idea that they are a prized edible! (Of course, that doesn't mean you should go eating wild mushrooms because they are purple; the blewit isn't the only one.)

Here's the blewit in its native habitat:

Like most all wild foods, mushrooms are seasonal; different varieties appear at different times of year, and most prefer the damp, rainy season from autumn to spring. In other words, now is the time to get outdoors, crawl around in the leaves, and appreciate these mysterious beauties! If you're interested in hunting for edible mushrooms, find someone with knowledge and experience to go with you — don't try it alone, even with a field guide in hand, as mushrooms are subtle things and their defining characteristics can be deceptive to the untrained eye. But, even if eating them gives you the willies, hunting for and identifying mushrooms can be a strangely addictive pastime. Contrary to what most of us have been taught at an early age, mushrooms are not all toxic, and they will not poison you if you pick them up (just don't go licking your fingers!) Why not try making some spore prints? Just find a mature mushroom, snip or cut off the stem, and place the cap, gills down, on a sheet of paper. Mushroom spores vary in color from pale buff to inky brown; try both white and black paper to see which one the print shows up best on. Cover the caps with a bowl or glass to prevent drafts, and leave them for several ours to overnight. The white spore print in the image below is from an Oak-Loving Collybia, Collybia dryophila, found growing — you guessed it, under an oak tree.

If you are intrigued by the thought of mushroom-hunting, here's a great introduction to how they live, what they really are, and some common species: What is this thing in my yard? Your local public library is also a great place to find mushroom field guides; the Placer County Library has quite a few, and borrowing them is a good way to find out if mushrooming is your kind of hobby, as well as finding a guide that works well for you. Mushrooms Demystified, by David Arora, is Thea's recommendation — it features dichotomous keys for identification, plenty of photographs, and very thorough (and entertaining) descriptions.

While you are out scouring the woods for fungi, keep an eye out for poison oak — it's sneaky this time of year, without its telltale "leaves of three," but the bare stems can also release their nasty oils if disturbed. And if you do get hungry, there's plenty of miner's lettuce at this time of year to snack on! It's much easier to identify than mushrooms; most children around here learn when they are quite small to recognize its tasty parasol-like leaves. The plants are also a good indicator for the kind of moist, loamy soils mushrooms love. Here's a particularly verdant patch growing along with another wild edible, chickweed:

Happy hunting!

Rare Fruits, New Trees and Heirloom Seeds

We're just back from the California Rare Fruit Growers' annual scion exchange in Sacramento, which is The Place To Be if you're a tree collector! Members bring and give away cuttings from their unusual fruit trees, which can then be grafted onto an existing tree or rooted in soil, depending on the variety. The cuttings are labeled with the variety, and the names are often wonderfully evocative: Blue Celeste, Col de Dame Noir, and Igo figs; Diamond Muscat grape, Shangri-la mulberry, Rossenkya persimmon, Parfianka pomegranate... not to mention the hundreds of varieties of apples, peaches, plums and cherries. It's a great way to preserve rare and heirloom varieties, and to add some character to your orchard!

Apricot, Fig, and Plum cuttings

If you missed the exchange but would like to start some new trees of your own, not to worry — now is the time of year to start thinking about propagation. It's quite easy to root cuttings such as grape and fig, and local nurseries and garden clubs often hold grafting classes in the winter and spring. For information and instructions on rooting cuttings, check out our blog post from last year right here.

In other news, we're hard at work — despite the mud — adding new Bartlett pear trees to our 90-plus-year-old orchard! With a bit of luck, these little guys will provide pears for the next 90...

Digging the planting holes took some heavy equipment:

And now, in the Discoveries department: On a recent trip to Bodega Bay, we passed through Petaluma, and happened upon a striking old bank building with the words "Heirloom Seeds" painted on the windows. Curious, we stopped to investigate — and found ourselves in the fantastic Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Bank:

I could have spent all day in this place! Hundreds, probably thousands, of heirloom seed varieties, housed in the gorgeous historic Sonoma County National Bank building, arrayed on shelves tailor-made for browsing. The company, family-run by Jere and Emilee Gettle, is based in Missouri and recently opened its first outpost — the Seed Bank — in Petaluma. Their catalogue is a delight, brimming with information and lovely photographs that will make you long for Spring. And, of course, the seeds themselves: giant "Yellow Monster" peppers, gooseberry gourds, a veritable rainbow of winter squash, antique sweet peas, Flamingo Pink Swiss chard, Japanese morning glories, Speckled Trout lettuce... you get the idea! Their catalogue is free, and available here. And, if you happen to be anywhere near Petaluma, the seed bank is definitely worth a trip!

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds can be found on the Web right here: rareseeds.com

Happy New Year!

As the new year begins, we'd like to thank to all our friends and customers for making 2009 such a memorable year, full of good food and company at the farmer's markets, on the farm, and beyond. Here's to 2010 — may it bring health, happiness, and good things to all!

A few of our goals for the new year...

1. Organic certification! We've been transitional organic for the last three years — growing organically, but "unofficially" so, which means we can't legally call ourselves "organic." Go figure... so, this year it's time to get busy with the paperwork!

2. Even more local food! (We hope this one is on your list, too.) The Auburn Old Town Farmer's Market runs year round, so there are no excuses... you can find fruits and vegetables, yes, but also bread, eggs, meat, and even fish as well! Our chickens are just starting to lay again — a backyard flock is a great way to have fresh and local eggs, by the way — so we have the eggs covered, but local meats are at the top of my shopping list this year. We love the local lamb from Dan Macon's Flying Mule Farm, and the beef and pork from Bob Sorensen at Coffee Pot Ranch. The Longhorn Meat Co. in Auburn is a great source for grass-fed meats.

3. Bake bread more often. Nothing beats the satisfaction of making your own bread, and it makes the whole house smell so good! Not to mention that it ties in nicely with the whole "eat local" thing. On the to-do list: search out local flour; experiment with different kinds of breadmaking, including sourdough and traditional Greek prozymi

(natural leaven); and try out the suspiciously easy methods in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. Five minutes? Really? Yes, please!

In other words, more meals like this... déjeuner sur l'herbe, Sfakia, Crete, spring 2009

4. More preserving projects! I'll be scouring the Farmer's Market this week for cabbages to make sauerkraut, and I'm daydreaming of homemade prosciutto, pickled green beans, blackberry jam, and feta (no, I don't mean all on the same plate!) The process of transforming one food into another is addictively satisfying, and simple foods, like olives and cheese, make so much more sense when you make them yourself. It's hard to explain — but try it and you'll know exactly what I mean.

5. Learn more about weeds. What they tell about the soil, where they came from, and, of course, what they can be used for — speaking of which...

6. More foraging! Wild greens, yes, of course — look for a blog post about horta coming soon — but mushrooms, too. The woods around here are positively carpeted with fungi at this time of year, and we're making plans with some mycologically-minded friends to track down the edible ones soon! Just remember, when collecting any kind of wild comestibles: Be certain you can properly identify the plants or mushrooms you are looking for; know if there are any look-alikes that may be less wholesome; and, if you're going by guidebooks in your search, have at least two of them so you can cross-check the descriptions, especially of you are unfamiliar with your quarry.

7. Year-round gardening! This year we're doing more winter gardening — kale, chard, lettuces, garlic, onions, radishes, carrots, and so on. We also planted butternut, acorn, and hubbard squash this summer, all of which are excellent keepers and have been gracing the dinner table regularly lately... such a treat to have homegrown food in the winter months!

. . . . .

And what better way to start of the new year than with a breakfast of fresh-baked soda bread, homemade plum jam, and a grapefruit from a friend's tree. Cheers!

Winter Wonder: Why We Love Loquats!

Meet one of the coolest trees around... the lovely loquat, Eriobotrya japonica, a true Tree for All Seasons! What makes it so special? Well, for starters, it blooms right now. The dark of winter — December, January — when few, if any, plants are in flower. But the Loquat ignores all Common Sense ...

... and bursts out in full bloom, much to the delight of the honeybees! (If you look closely at the photo above, you can see a bee carrying her pollen stash on her legs.)

One thing a photo can't capture is the fragrance... heady, sweet but never cloying, a trace of vanilla... it's unlike anything else, and I look forward to it all year. It has a marvelous way of drifting, traveling with the breeze and drawing you — and the bees — straight to the source!

The small, cream-coloured flowers aren't overly showy, but the trees themselves have a lush, almost tropical beauty: foot-long, vividly green leaves, shiny on the tops and fuzzy underneath. As a tot, I would make loquat "shoes" every summer by tying the biggest leaves I could find to the soles of my feet with strips of grass. Come to think of it, when the weather warms up I just might make another pair; one can never be too old for Loquat Shoes!

And, of course, there's the fruit — golden orange, sweet-tart, and filled with five or six giant, mahogany-brown seeds. Really, they contain far more seed than fruit, but we did make a tasty loquat marmalade one year...

... and the seeds themselves are worth saving, as they are easy to sprout if you'd like a loquat tree of your own! Just dry them for a week or so, then plant at a depth of about 1/2 inch in gallon pots, and keep moist but well-drained until they sprout. We usually have a few extras growing to give to beekeeper friends:

For such a showy tree, loquats are really quite well-behaved — no invasive roots or shoots, little raking or pruning required, tolerant of cold and heat, drought and frost. And, for the little care they do ask for, you'll be rewarded all year long with luxuriant shade, tasty fruit and that splendid winter perfume! What more could you ask for than a loquat tree in your yard?

P.S. If you'd like some seeds to grow your own tree, just drop us a note! — bhranch @ gmail . com