Marveling at what we are harvesting on the farm

There’s not many times that we stop and marvel at a tomato we are harvesting but it happens often when we are harvesting Marvel Stripe heirloom tomatoes.

The specific strain of Marvel Stripe is called Gold Medal and to us it is a very well deserved name. We get the seed from Seedsavers Exchange and it has a been a consistent producer of delicious tomatoes every year.

The ripening of the Marvel Stripe has helped brighten up the heirloom tomatoes we are harvesting with the yellow and orange to go along with the purple and dark pink we had been harvesting up to this point.

In addition to the Marvel Stripe, we are beginning to harvest our yellow tomatoes. Last year the seed packet of yellow tomatoes we got was mixed with romas so we added a second yellow variety to hopefully have enough this year.

Golden Jubilee is the variety we are starting to harvest and it has a similar size and shape to Early Girls but a different flavor and color.

Not only are we trying a few new varieties of tomatoes we are growing anew type of musk melon.

This week we have started to harvest a good amount of French charentais melons. We initially were not going to grow them but a farmer in the area that grows lots of them suggested we give them a try since they are very popular for them.

They are considered to be one of the most flavorful melons with an amazing sweetness and a fragrant aroma. The orange flesh is very similar to a cantaloupe but the rind looks very different.

Last fall we did an interview for California Bountiful, the quarterly magazine published by the California Farm Bureau, about okra and it was published just recently in the Summer edition. You can read it here, or on the Daily Democrat here.

Over the last couple of weeks we have started to harvest okra as it grows a little slower than last year due to the slightly cooler temperatures.

We also were interviewed for an article in the June edition of the Farm Bureau’s monthly magazine, Ag Alert, about there being fewer organic acres in the state even with the state pushing for more. You can read that here.

From 2020 to 2022 there were 400,000 fewer acres being farmed organically in California for many reasons although we are doing our part to increase it by signing a lease in April for 40 acres. This land was already certified organic but mostly being left fallow and the land owner wanted it to growing food for the community so he offered it to us to lease.

We are only farming a small portion of it this year but we have had to invest a decent amount in irrigation and buying a tractor and its implements for the property.