Red Barn Store at Oak Hill Farm

After touring Oak Hill Farm, I shopped at the Red Barn Store. What a treat to step into the cool store after being in the midday sun, and to be met with the intense fragrance of real produce. And how satisfying to see the produce I’d seen in the fields now washed up and presented on the shelves like pieces of art, and ready to be taken home to create flavorful and nutritious meals. Herbs, berries, watermelon, peppers, chard, eggplant, carrots, flowers and bouquets, squash, cucumbers, to name a few, beckoned from the shelves.

Eggplant	Apples
Peppers	Berries

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The Red Barn Store was handling a continual stream of customers. I did my part to contribute. Some of my purchases included a beautiful sunflower bouquet, an assortment of heirloom tomatoes, a bunch of aromatic basil, olive oil (grown and pressed by Lucero Olive Oil with the Oak Hill Farm label), intensely fragrant apples for pie or apple sauce, and fingerling potatoes that look like ginger root and have a wonderful earthy smell. I would have purchased more, but there are only two of us at home now that our son is back to college.

Now I’m ready to make the kitchen smell good with all these fresh, beautiful ingredients, and the lettuce, peas, parsley, and tomatoes from my own little raised bed. Bon appétit!

The Harvest

“Harvest” might be a little grandiose for our tiny 8 feet by 4 feet raised bed, but we are enjoying a continual trickle of peas, lettuce, radishes, and, soon, cherry tomatoes. I’m not sure if the pole beans will ever materialize – lots of vines and blossoms, but no sign of an actual bean. We typically get our heat in September and October, here in the San Francisco Bay Area, so there may still be hope. One carrot is left to harvest; the others were eaten by garden pests as sprouts.

Peas and blossoms	Pole bean blossoms, but no beans
Ruby and emerald lettuce	Cherry tomatoes

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We’ve had a number of garden pests in the form of marauding deer who love tomato blossoms, and skunks who love lettuce (or slug salads). I try to live harmoniously with these woodland creatures, and count on a certain amount of pilfering; but I may rethink this pacifist philosophy next year, and cloak the garden bed in deer netting!

Raised bed vegetable garden after three months

I’m grateful that our family’s survival does not depend on this little garden plot, because we would surely starve. Still, it is a pleasure to plan, plant, and tend a vegetable garden, and very satisfying to eat the produce.

Adventures in Lettuce

This year I’m having great results with a butterhead lettuce—Ruby & Emerald Duet—from Renee’s Garden (http://www.reneesgarden.com/seeds/packpg/veg/lettuce-rubyemerald.htm). I’m not sure if success is due to the seeds, the late rains we’ve enjoyed in the San Francisco Bay Area this year, or the perfect combination of cool days peppered with three-day “hot spells.” As the name suggests, the seed packet includes seeds for both red and green lettuces.

Butterhead lettuce (Lactuca sativa) after outer leaves are harvested

Harvested leaves, washed and ready to eat

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I’m already harvesting from the largest head of lettuce, which is container grown. To harvest, I carefully cut the outer leaves I need for my salad, leaving the inner core. Within several days, more leaves have grown! This is much different than the commercial method, which is to harvest the whole head. I’m looking forward to finding out how long a single head of lettuce can produce.

Transplanted lettuce sprouts in the raised bed

Transplanted lettuce sprouts in contaners

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I transplanted quite a few lettuce sprouts to containers following instructions on the packet (three heads in an eight-inch pot, or five inches apart). I also transplanted sprouts in the raised bed – interspersing them among the tomato plants. This follows the permaculture model, where you plant in laysers instead of rows. If all goes well, we should have salad for ourselves, and friends, for several months to come!