Come and get your fresh fava beans

$1/pound for u-pick Fresh

Fava bean humus
A lot of humus recipes start with canned garbanzos. This one made from scratch has a fresh bright green color and flavor. Start with 3 to 4 pounds of beans in the pod. Shell them, boil in salted water for 20 minutes, drain and mash them. (This recipes eliminates the skin slipping portion of gourmet fava bean preparation by running them through a strainer after boiling.) 

• 1 cup bean puree 
• 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice 
• 4 tbsp olive oil 
• 3 tbsp tahini 
• 1 1/2 tbsp crushed garlic 

Combine all ingredients. Salt to taste and blend if you like. Garnish with finely chopped garlic chives

Sauted fresh fava with garlic

This is a super simple side dish featuring the fresh flavor of straight from the farm favas and although it takes some time to slip the skins it is worth the trouble.  Start with 1 pound of beans in the pod. 

• Shell the beans
• Par-boil in rolling salted water for 1 minute
• Drain and run cold water over them to make them easy to handle
• Slip the skins (pop the inner bean out by pressing between two fingers sometimes it may be necessary to slit one end of the skin with a fingernail or a knife.)
• One or two cloves of minced garlic

Heat  garlic in olive oil. Add the beans and saute for several minutes until tender

Fig garden

Oasis is located on the the North west side of Petaluma where the soil is sandy and thick. Well into July most years sub surface water funnels into a basin in the center of the property on its way down hill to Petaluma River. We catch 2 or 3 gallons a minute and divert it through our terraced Fig garden. Several of the lawn like terraces have been planted to yarrow which produce lush, feathery foliage, protect soil, preserve moisture, and produce clippings for compost tea -- Sent from Fast notepad

Harvest has started

Big deal yesterday!  We got the stainless steel two-compartment commercial sink hooked to the back of the house that makes doing buckets a breeze and it's great for cleaning all manner of things. This is where we are going to clean and prep vegetables for the CSA. None too soon for we officially soft launch in 2 weeks. Today's offering is small but sweet -- Sent from Fast notepad

Wanna Kick Start a Farm?

Help us start a CSA at Oasis Community Farm

• Join now and save 15% -- $856/year (42 large 9-item boxes), $575/year (42 small 6-item boxes), $144- $216 seasonal deal (10 boxes) or as you go for $16-$25/box
• Boxes will include a mixture of baby greens and lettuce, Swiss chard, kale, head cabbage, broccoli, bunching onions, carrot, beet or other root vegetable.  An up-to-date list of crops can be seen on our blog.  Squash, tomato, peppers and melon will be included in season and fruit and berries are available for u-pick.
• Picnic and family u-pick visits to the farm are welcome. Call us.  In addition, u-build'em pizza parties, campfire sing-a-longs under the stars and in the future workshops such as canning and freezing, sauerkraut, kombucha tea and cob construction  are planned -- Stay tuned
• We begin very soon with a soft rollout  on Saturday May 31st.  The farm will produce over 12 tons of vegetable in our first year, not large but no small undertaking for our small farm. Our farm stand is being built now -- Patience please.

Bring your own bag pick up point is on the farm every Saturday between 8-11am and 4-6pm

282 Skillman Ln  Petaluma  707 789-9294  wmorgenthaler@gmail.com   Get Map

View Larger Map

Yum ripe strawberries

Strawberries are planted in the yarrow which is doing a good job of suppressing weeds and they are ripening fast.  They are available for u-pick next weekend -- Sent from Fast notepad

Direct seed carrots

Planted 33 feet of carrots with inter-planted cilantro. this should come up real thick and be harvested out by the time the carrots need more room. I used 2 1/2 inch plastic strips staked down on top of carrots instead of boards, the old modified yard stick tricks which should suppress weeds and keep the carrots warm and moist for their 14-day germination  -- Sent from Fast notepad

20 rows

I prepared 3 more permanent beds today and then planted more kale with inter-planted lettuce, carrot, cilantro, swiss chard & golden beets. This brings us to 20 vegetable beds in production in anticipation of launching the CSA in a couple weeks.  The list currently is broccoli leaks cilantro onion red onion garlic Swiss chard beets spicy salad greens lettuce mix cabbage fennel fava romaine lettuce and green onion.   Summer crops such as tomato pepper squash pumpkin melon cucumber and so forth will be the focus of the upper rows that haven't been built yet but will be completed in the next two weeks -- Sent from Fast notepad

All in a days work

Strawberries in the foreground and beyond about 8,000 square feet for new raised beds. The work done with a Kubota tractor with a rototiller this time but we don't expect to use rototillers in the future as these beds will be permanent.  The space between the rows of trees in the orchard was also tilled and will next be planted in a permanent pasture rich in clover. We will harvest the clover 3 times a year for compost and feed and then irrigated so that it renews and grows again with the expectation that it should last about 3 years before needing to be reseeded.

This will be a fight with the weeds

This will be a fight with the weeds until we get the deep mulch cover established. Any row such as this built on soil that was growing grass will probably have to be weeded 5 or 6 times this season before the mulch can hold the weeds back. Cabbage and kale and this crop broccoli have to be protected from Birds when they're young as they can eat half a row in a single afternoon -- Sent from Fast notepad

An idea taken from singing frog farm

Will have to take another look at this in 20 days as it is our intent for the vegetation to cover the soil 100 percent keeping the dirt and the mulch in shade -- Sent from Fast notepad

Before

After 20 days