Nourishing Each Other

We wanted you to meet one of our favorite farmers based in San Diego and hear about how your Farm Fresh To You deliveries are supporting small family farms. Even if you can’t make it down to San Diego for this dinner, please know that we are “cultivating” relationships like this with farmers throughout the state in order to bring you the most local, seasonal produce available. Stay tuned for more partner farm stories. - Thaddeus

I’m Mexican and in my culture, like many other cultures, you gather the people that you love the most around you, and you feed them. Our farm provides the ingredients for everyone to do just that. We call our customers our “farmily” – we love growing food that feeds them and their families. We really can’t do it without them. Without our customers, including those who get our produce in their Farm Fresh To You boxes, all we’ve got is compost. We want to cultivate relationships with our customers and nourish each other.

We will gather together to break bread for our second annual summer feast with our Farm Fresh To You circle on Saturday, July 30th, at our farm in San Diego.  Farm Fresh To You is an important partnership for us. In fact, it helps us stay in business. It gives us stability. If we know we can grow radishes and harvest them and definitely have a place to sell them, we will have seed money for the following week. Farming is a volatile business, but a dependable sales channel helps us tremendously.

At last year’s dinner, my favorite part was seeing the dinner guests reveling in the field. They got to reconnect with the land and to think about what it takes to get food on their plates. Being in the field also has a way of reinforcing your commitment to supporting a farm to our customers – I often say, “this is your farm too and because of you, we will stay in business.”

Chef Jeff Rossman of Terra American Bistro is returning for this year’s dinner. He is a chef truly dedicated to the movement of knowing your farm and where your food comes from.

For us, these dinner are about feeding the spirit and the soul. We look forward to seeing you there.
 – Lucila De Alejandro, Suzie’s Farm, San Diego

Pumpkin Time on Suzie’s Farm

From the Fields - Lucila De Alejandro
 
The implacable heat, the relentless length of day light hours, autumnal equinox and winter squash — signals my favorite seasonal change. Before owning and operating Suzie’s Farm, I always wanted to grow autumn pumpkins at home, but failed to plan correctly.

Labor Day was about the time it occurred to me to plant the prodigious varieties. I was sure they would be ready in October. I was dismayed to find that they required between 80-120 days to reach harvest. Deceived by the term “winter squash,” I endured an utter betrayal. Winter squash, I would laugh bitterly to myself, grown in the summer. Nothing seemed crueler to this amateur gardener.

I contented myself with purchasing a multitude of varieties at grocery stores, captivated by the grey knobby ones, the smooth white ones, the ridged calico ones, and the squat coral ones, clearly envisioning the day I would grow my own.

Our First “Pumpkin Palooza” was six years ago and hardly a “wild and crazy extravaganza as defined by Webster’s Dictionary. We had moved from our scant three acres on the original Suzie’s Farm property to a much larger, to us, 40-acre property on July 6, 2009. We were still growing in our awareness of how to farm. Truly, we had no idea what we were doing.

It was early October, and we had acres of beautiful pumpkins; my vision manifested — acres of pumpkins, and a tiny CSA subscription. We wrote about U-pick pumpkins in our small newsletter and on my personal Facebook page. We ran our first batch of Suzie’s Farm t-shirts to sell. I personally called friends and family and invited them to come. I offered tours of the property. I asked our Office Manager to make her legendary champurrado and hauled down to the local panaderia to extend refreshments. It was our first public event, and I was excited.

The hay bales became the first game of climbing. The girls snarled and curled around the fruit.  Wheelbarrows fascinated. My awareness was unlocked. Friends and family arrived and marveled at the size, at the scope, at the production, at the beauty.

A friend from high school arrived with a gaggle of children in tow. They exploded from the car, ready to land. Confused, they asked about the hay rides, the jumpy castle, the petting zoo. Indignant, they asked “Where will we play?!”

I surveyed the 40-acres, bound by a fence along the North and East, and trees and a berm to the South and West, stretched out my hand and replied, “Anywhere you want!” Not knowing what to do with such freedom, we started out on a tour. And this is when I knew that our farm is about so much more than the vegetables.

And, so, I heartily invite you to our 6th Annual Pumpkin Palooza, on October 17, 2015.
— Lucila De Alejandro, farmer and co-owner, Suzie’s Farm, San Diego