Planting the first seeds of 2026

To celebrate the start of a new year there is only one way we can do it and that is seeding thousands of seeds in our greenhouse.

On New Year’s Day it was drizzling when we seeded over 7,000 seeds into trays including lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, kale, chard and cauliflower.

For us it is a fitting way to start the year planting seeds that we hope grow into veggies that we will harvest and be food for our community.

Almost all of what we seeded was spring crops that will be transplanted into the field in early February. The one exception was the tomatoes which will be in the greenhouse until mid-March when they will get planted.

It is very early to be seeding tomatoes but it is possible and we have done it the past few years. They have already germinated and are on a heating mat and covered to keep more heat in.

After they grow a decent amount we will pull them out of the cell trays they are in and put them in larger ones which will allow them to grow to be a much stronger and taller plant for when we plant them in the field.

Just a reminder that we will not be at the Wednesday Davis Farmers Market today or for the next couple of months. We will be at the Saturday Davis Farmers Market every week.

It looks like we will be going into a period of sunny weather after three weeks of consistent light rain for the most part.

Since the 21st of December we have received 6.87 inches of rain with 3.37 inches coming since the start of the new year.

It has been great for there to already be 12.5 inches of rain this season on the farm infiltrating into the soil and filling up the aquifer below ground that we pull water from during the dry summer.

It will take another day or so for us to be able to get into the field to do any field work as the soil is still pretty saturated but we should have a good opportunity over the next week with the sun.

The sun will also cause the weeds to grow rapidly so we are going to have to spend a lot of time weeding to keep the veggies thriving.

Last Saturday we had the first of the Navel Oranges at the farmers market along with the Bergamot and both of them were a hit. The navels are so great to snack on while everyone is trying out different recipes with the Bergamot as it is not common to have the fresh fruit.

New this week will be Blood Oranges. They have a sweet-tart flavor and are a deep red color on the inside.

The Melogold grapefruits are at peak flavor right now with a delicate sweetness and a mellow bitterneness. They are on the larger size of a grapefruit since they are crossed with a pomelo which are always larger but can be shared between a few people.

We are getting close to the end of the Page mandarins and they have been so popular with their super sweet flavor mixed with acidity that isn’t found in other mandarins.

A fellow farmer at the market came by throughout the day to grab a few to snack on as he was loving them.

January is also the time of the year when we are doing a lot of pruning on the farm of the trees. With the field being a little muddy it is the perfect time to prune all the trees including the massive fig tree and the olives.

With them growing so tall last year we got some tools to help cut down some of the large branches that we are unable to harvest. We got a pole saw that runs off a backpack battery pack which speeds up the time to prune and is much more enjoyable than using a pole saw powered by our strength for over 500 trees.