CSA concludes a successful season

Farmer Nina and her crew have much to be proud of as another CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) season comes to a close. For 22 weeks, customers who subscribed to our CSA have supported our farm by purchasing a share in our season. Fifty-two customers have received a weekly bag of produce, along with a fresh flower bouquet, since last May.

Twice weekly, Nina and her crew of trainees and volunteers make a floral bouquet and harvest and pack a fresh bag of seasonal produce to deliver to a central location where our customers pick up their shares. We strive to harvest our produce at peak ripeness when flavors are at their best. Our motto is: “No Pity Produce!” If our farm is to be successful, we must retain our customers because they enjoy eating our delicious produce in season.

As our flower selection turns to a fall palette with tall stalks of crimson and golden amaranth, we are reminded of our gratitude for our customers’ support. We could not do it without our dedicated supporters.

Wishing you a happy fall, and please check back with us in early spring when we will again open sign-ups for CSA.

Intuitive Surgical employee volunteer days

In July, an employee team from Intuitive Surgical, a Sunnyvale based company advancing minimally invasive surgical care, got out of the office for a few hours and into our soil for a farm work experience. Seeing Common Roots Farm for the first time, crew members had a brief tour and then rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Summer is a great time to reapply mulch to perennial crops and trees. The team from Intuitive readily got busy mulching our fruit trees and then composting several hundred-foot-long beds where Farmer Nina planned succession planting of our cut flowers for bouquets. Mulch helps soil retain valuable moisture, controls weeds and slowly releases nutrients into the soil.

In September, Common Roots welcomed even more employees from Intuitive for work day #2! It was great to have a crew to help with several tasks, including clearing our squash block after a recent harvest. This great team swiftly pulled up plants in preparation for a winter cover crop!

Corporate volunteers coming to the farm and being part of our mission is so important to us. We value the opportunity to share our vision with our wider community. We also know nearly everyone is touched by disability in one way or another during their lifetime. These work days directly impact the farm-based opportunities we can offer people living with disabilities here in our community.

Thank you to all the Intuitive Surgical employees who came out to help! We are glad to partner with you in sustainable agriculture and in realizing our mission and vision while offering what we hope is a fun and meaningful outing for your employees.

Students broaden their skills at the farm

Some of you might remember a previous newsletter article where we featured Juan, a post-secondary student who took care of getting braille signage up on our tool wall last spring. We were so glad to welcome Juan back this semester for another post-secondary experience here at the farm.

He and five fellow students from the Pajaro Valley School District asked to come twice weekly to work and learn at Common Roots. We are thrilled to see them each week. Their interests vary from cooking to birding, and they are enthusiastic learners as they become familiar with our farm’s crop production, the surrounding riparian habitat, and our animals.

As they were walking our sheep to pasture one recent morning, photographer Shmuel Thaler captured this photo, which he then published in our local newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

We will share more about these students and their farm experiences as the school year unfolds. They are a central part of our mission here at the farm, where adults with disabilities can learn and grow in a natural setting while getting a chance to develop new skills.

We are privileged to welcome these young people and their teachers and support staff to our farm each week.