Mountain Bounty Farm News 

Dear Farm Friends,

The winter fields are a mosaic of bits of leftover fall vegetable crops, and lush green cover crop. Cover crop is a farm jargon word, but so very important to our overall farming methods and philosophy that I thought I’d give it a little ‘splaining.

Cover crops are crops that we grow for the soil, to leave in the fields. They serve multiple purposes, and like most things, we likely do not yet understand their full impact. We plant them to literally cover the soil with their foliage, and hold it with their roots, to protect the soil from erosion by strong winter rains and wind.

Our current winter cover crops are a mix of oats (that’s the main thing you see when you look at the fields, the green grass looking stuff), vetch, peas, and phacelia. Vetch and peas are legumes and thus can take Nitrogen from the air and “fix” it into a plant available form in their roots. This Nitrogen, along with adding compost and some other organic soil amendments, will be part of our fertility program for the year. Phacelia attracts beneficial insects, provides nectar for bees, and it’s just a very cool and beautiful plant. Its flower stalks form incredible spiral fractal-like shapes.  

The cover crops were seeded in the fall, as soon as each vegetable crop was finished, and have been growing very slowly all winter. Our best cover crops were planted in late September, and they are about 16” tall this week. Their growth will soon accelerate with the longer days of early spring.

By March or April when they are mowed down and tilled into the soil, the cover crops will be perhaps as tall as 5’ or more, with an equivalent amount of root mass underground. This carbon rich organic matter is a key element of soil health, and the foundation for our approach to farming.

Our attitude towards soil management is simple: we endeavor to give more than we take. We know that we can only barely begin to understand the vast complexity of what it means to care for the land and grow excellent crops. So, we are careful, and try to leave things better than we find them. Not easy, and not cheap, and maybe not a bad way to approach many other things in life as well.

-John

Farm Box Contents

(Contents are subject to change depending on harvest and weather conditions at Mountain Bounty and our Partner Farms.)

Please check the delivery list at your CSA site and sign your name indicating you have picked up your shares. We deliver exactly what is on the delivery list.

Vegetable Share CSA

(Provided by Mountain Bounty Farm and Partner Organic Farms)

Small Box (Feeds 1-2 people)

• Green Curly Kale (Riverdog Farm)
• Carrots (Mountain Bounty Farm)
• Cilantro (Coke Farm)
• Red King Daikon Radish (Riverdog Farm)
• Pea Shoots (Natural Trading Company)
• Broccoli (Coke Farm)

Fruit Share CSA

(Provided by Frog Hollow Farm)

New Fruit Share Boxes are here!

We have been working with Frog Hollow to reduce our Fruit Share packaging as well as to help our drivers out with return transport, and the new boxes are here this week!

Please be sure to break them down flat for return, similar to the Vegetable Share Boxes. Thanks!

Box contents:

• Tarocco Blood Oranges (Frog Hollow Farm)
• Clementines (Frog Hollow Farm)
• Fukushu Kumquats (Frog Hollow Farm) *Note: You can eat the whole fruit, peel included!
• Minneola Tangelos (Buck Brand Citrus)
• Sundowner Apples (Cuyama Orchards)
• Ruby Red Grapefruit (B&J Ranch)

Orange Creamsicle Smoothies (Click here) are full of protein and so yummy (plus kids love them)!

Try it out with your fresh tangelos and clementines this week!

Mushroom Share CSA

(Provided by Grass Valley Mushrooms)

The Mushroom Share is now year-round!

Signups are limited, so grab a spot today for delivery next week!

The WNC Mushroom Share is offered as a Weekly or Bi-weekly CSA Subscription.

This week your mushroom shares will be a Black Pearl Oyster Mushrooms. These mushrooms are a hybrid of a King Trumpet and a Pearl Oyster mushroom. Enjoy!

Recipes (including a "use it up" section for last week's leftovers), storage tips and inspiration:

• Charring your Daikon Radishes gives this soup a caramelized flavor, while prepping the radish to cook down into something like a potato. This Charred Daikon Radish Soup (Click here) is your answer to the question "What do I do with my daikon?!"

• Winter carrots are so sweet and these Honey Garlic Butter Roasted Carrots (Click here) highlight their special seasonal flavor!

• Curly Kale Chips (Click here) are a crunchy treat to make with a (sometimes...) not so popular vegetable! Try them out and see how fast they fly off the plate.

• Roasted Savoy Cabbage (Click here) is a new way to use your cabbage that is hearty and salty, crunchy and nutty, and sure to be a hit!

• Pea Shoots are a common ingredient in Chinese cuisine and are often eaten Stir Fried (Click here) with soy sauce, garlic and peanut oil. It is also common to eat them raw in salads, spring rolls and as a garnish to bring in a green, refreshing element to a dish.

"USE IT UP" WEEKLY RECIPE!

This Vegan Tumeric Chickpea Stew with Butternut Squash and Bok Choi (Click here) is a creative and warming way to utilize leftover butternut squash and bok choi from last week.

You can easily substitute kale for the bok choi, and top with a fresh mixture of this week's pea shoots and cilantro.

info@mountainbountyfarm.com

Mailing Address:

14579 Blind Shady Road, Nevada City, CA 95959

Phone:(530)292-3776