Join us today, Saturday February 25th, at the Ojai Valley Seed Swap in the Chaparral Auditorium – 414 East Ojai Avenue, Ojai, California: 1 pm.

·      We have opened the All Good Things Organic Seeds web site at www.agtoseeds.com. If you want to make an order just email us and we’ll bring it to the CSA table all packaged up for you.

·      Check out our resident bread baker Ben DiGregorio’s holiday and bread specials. We’ve got pumpkins coming for you, and he’s going to be making pies from some of them for the holiday season. For anyone who’s interested, there’s an information sheet on the table, and you can also email Ben at twoswords@aol.com.

We were running out of bed space for autumn planting, so I made a call and pulled the two remaining tomato beds. They were ripening sporadically; not frequently enough to give to everyone. Me and Julia (who’s WWOOFing – that stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms – with us until the middle of October) picked everything we could off the vines, resulting in the small share of ripe tomatoes and the big crate of green ones that grace today’s CSA table I think many of the greens would ripen up if given enough time, so take home a good share of them. However, don’t forget to consider the classic fried green tomatoes, which I had not tried prior to tonight. My Mom was visiting the farm and saw some of the green ones on the counter, and googled up the first recipe she found (enclosed in this newsletter on the table, or access it at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/best-fried-green-tomatoes/detail.aspx). Right as Julia and I were coming in from picking my Mom had prepared this delectable recipe. They were so good I didn’t even grab my own dinner plate; just picked them up and ate them, listening to the sound of the crickets (which to me, is the sound of the earth breathing) as I chewed. For a moment there I felt like I was in the South. All that was missing were the collard greens.

This week we have some of our new romaine lettuce for ya’ll, along with another micro-green stirfry mix of baby swiss chard and rutabaga greens. I noticed that the last time we had both lettuce and microgreens on the table some folks only took one bag, and we were left with a lot of lettuces. We’ve been trying to differentiate between the two mixes by keeping the piles of bags in separate places, but please make sure to check.

This may very well be the last week of onions as well. It’s been an incredible run — I’d have to check to be sure, think we’ve put onions on the table every week since early March. We’re planted some purple onions that will start to be ready by the early spring.

Also, you may be wondering what to do with all those spicy peppers. The cayennes and aji amarillos can be dried pretty easily by making ristras from them. Check out this guide at http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_circulars/circ533.html

One good use for the jalapeños is Jalapeño Jelly, the end product of which can be preserved using canning techniques. One promising recipe is here: http://www.texashomesteader.com/2009/06/11/blue-ribbon-jalapeno-jelly/. I have yet to follow it, but I plan to get to work on some of my own this coming week.

-Quin@ManoFarm

Hey everyone. We are offering a farm tour this coming Saturday, August 20th, from 5:30-6pm. The farm’s address is 999 Fairview Road. The tour will basically be a walkabout on the field, with a little bit of background about the farm’s history, and it offers chance to see what we’re growing for our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares. If you have any specific questions at the time we’re happy to answer them. We’ve been doing these tours on the third Saturday of every month, so if you can’t make this one. Also, if anyone is interested in joining our CSA, we have space available. Please contact us at manofarmers@gmail.com or 541.543.5382 if you have any questions!

Hope to see you there!

-Quin

Mano Farm is a 1.3-acre plot of land operated by Justin Huhn and Quin Shakra in the Meiners Oaks neighborhood of Ojai, California. We grow annual vegetables, seed crops, and both medicinal and culinary herbs and sell them through our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, where individuals and families commit to supporting the farm on a seasonal basis in exchange fora weekly share of whatever the farm is growing.

We’re presently seeking an intern/apprentice to join us on the farm for stays of four to six weeks. The ideal candidate will have a serious interest in learning to practice small-scale, ecological farming. Prior experience is not required, but a passion for learning is essential. Our farming methodology emphasizes human labor and hand tools as primary energy inputs. The broad-fork/U-bar, wheel hoe, stirrup hoe/hula hoe, cobra head/hook weeder and Earthway direct seeder are critical tools that we use to cultivate a series of permanent beds that comprise the bulk of our farmland. We also have a 40-tree edible food forest, with many of the trees in their first year of growth. We aim to improve the overall health and fertility of the farm’s soil through the additions of compost, cover cropping, crop rotations, and amendments of our custom organic fertilizer blend.

Apprentices who stay with us will be involved in learning both the generalities and idiosyncrasies of bed cultivation and planting, harvesting (we pick vegetables for our CSA every Sunday, and for local restaurants and grocery stores sporadically throughout the week), weeding, irrigation setup and maintenance, trapping (we have persistent gopher and ground squirrel predation on our crops), and last but not least, seed saving. This summer (2011) we have made the first gestures toward beginning a seed business — All Good Things Organic Seeds — that will sell the farm’s open-pollinated seed crops. We’ve also been doing a lot of food preservation (canning, lacto-fermentation, et al.) with the surplus food that comes from our fields, so there is the potential to learn about that as well. This autumn (2011) we will be preparing about a third of our field to plant allium crops — garlic, onions, and leeks.

We have the greatest need for an apprentice for the month of October, although are also accepting applications for late August and September. For living accommodations we can offer a tent/tent space (the weather will still be quite nice during this period of time), access to our communal yurt, bathroom / shower, and outdoor kitchen. For food, we offer daily meals composed of bulk organic grains, legumes, oils, and the farm’s fresh vegetables (whatever is in season or storage!). We largely eat a vegetarian/vegan diet, but this choice is not ideologically driven. For instance, we eat chicken that comes a small-scale chicken operation on the front of our land and have diary to bolster our nutrition.

Only one of us has a truck, but there are bikes around, and most of Ojai (including a local grocery store and café) is accessible via bicycle.

A willingness to integrate into our work rhythms and the exigencies of farm life are absolutely essential for participation on the land. Other skills that are crucially important for having a healthy and successful experience here are: 1) focus 2) self-motivation, 3) the willingness to take initiative to take on new tasks, 4) the ability to work both independently and in groups, and lastly, 5) a willingness to be flexible. Our farming doesn’t operate on a set amount of “work hours”; it is woven intimately into how we live our lives and determined by the environment around us (day length, temperature, etc.). We need folks who are readily able to adapt to these fluctuations and plug into new projects as necessary.

With that said, we are not martinets and are well aware of the physically and sometimes emotionally draining aspects of what we’re doing. We strongly value leisure time as wellas personal solitude and showing care for others. We understand these to be vitally integral to our farming practice. We each take days off every week, and strongly believe in supporting the personal health and well being of each other. Cooking is an important facet of this. We share a lot of meals together, and regularly express awe at the flavors and nutrition that exists in our lives.

If you are interested in joining us, please email manofarmers@gmail.com and offer a brief statement of interest (this can also include biographical information), along with a list of any unique skills and specific desires you have for your time on our farm.

Thanks so much for your interest!

-Quin and Justin