Cob and Ako’s family joined me for an ultra classic Lassen trip last weekend. Cob made 4 incredible thin crust pizzas right on the campfire grill. He picked up the dough from a pizza joint in Portland, and then used fresh veggies and cod roe as toppings.

Cobb slicing a tomato for the pizza. The trick is to flip the dough once before adding cheese and toppings. It’s also important to have a very hot bed of coals.

A cluster of Big Beef tomatoes. I grew this plant from seed in the Pillow Road greenhouse.

The first tomato is ripe at zazu!

Will Jenkel from Lampson Tractor delivered a 5 shank ripper today and demonstrated how to use it. A ripper is designed to aerate land before discing, tilling or spading. I’m looking into buying a spader which is a tractor mounted implement that emulates the technique of double digging.

Ryan Kunde has been giving me advice on how to go about farming the Pillow Road property. From soil testing resources to tilling techniques, Ryan, having grown up in the Kunde vineyards, has a tremendous wealth of knowledge.

Will Jenkel operating the ripper, with Julian Sanchez and Ryan Kunde, and the goat "Chuggy" looking on.

Ian removing an acacia tree that was blocking the view of the farm stand from Guerneville Rd at zazu. Acacia's are just like weeds in the way they spread, and many people are terribly allergic to their pollen.

Ian Erickson has rejoined the MML team! After spending a year planting trees in the East Bay as part of an Americore project, Ian is back in town for the summer. He is interning at the Sonoma County Water Agency for 30hrs a week and then he’ll work with MML on Mondays and Saturdays. Ian is an experienced tree pruner, an extremely hard worker, and a good friend. He also has experience making biodiesel, which I hope to run my tractor on at some point. In addition to doing gardening, Ian will be helping to manage the farm stand which opens on July 4rth. See the Twitter link on the right for ongoing updates.

We finally realized that the easiest way to behead a chicken is to use an upside down traffic cone. We had previously used other methods which proved awkward and messy. I had a job in Sea Ranch so I sent my sister Sarah to process 6 cornish cross chickens with Dale.

Sarah and Casey serve themselves some brunch. Tara prepared this beautiful meal.

On June 9th my sister Sarah and I hosted a Farmer’s Brunch at Zazu. Asparagus Tarts, Black Pig Bacon, and berries from the garden were among the offerings. The brunch began introductions and networking, and then Mark Felton (Felton Acres) and Sarah Silva (Silva Star Farms) gave presentations. Next we discussed the possibility of creating a certification program for local food. Following the organic certification model, a third party auditor would audit restaurants and retail outlets and certify them as serving a certain percentage of local food (such as 30%).

Borage is a beautiful and vigorous plant. It also has a variety of culinary and medicinal uses. The edible flowers are a charming blue, and they are often used to decorate desserts. The leaves are also edible, with a cucumber-like flavor. Bees love borage, especially the native bumble bee.

I love borage but beware, it is know for its explosive growth. When a borage plants starts getting out of hand, I usually yank it out. It is inevitably replaced quickly by a self-seedling. If you are a tidy gardener, you probably shouldn’t plant borage.

Borage growing with sunflowers at Zazu.

Will Jenkel explaining to Julian how to remove the loader.

Will Jenkel from Lampson Tractor came out to Rancho Pillow today for a tractor orientation. The new MML Kubota is a 50 horsepower ag/utility tractor. This powerful machine will be used to prepare land for farming as well as for landscaping applications such as digging, mowing, and road grading. Tractors are inherently unstable and it is imperative that operators understand the risks and how to minimize them. Will Jenkel told us many cautionary tales and gave us a thorough safety orientation. Luckily Julian, who will be the main operator, has been driving tractors for much of his life.

Julian driving the new Kubota.

tomatoes in the greenhouse at rancho pillow

Summer has not officially started, and yet the first tomatoes have already started to form, and the squash plants are exploding. The little heat wave we had last weekend really gave young veggies a jumpstart.

snow peas at rancho pillow. This afternoon I picked a couple of pounds of these for zazu.

Snow peas have been especially prolific this year, at zazu and at rancho pillow. However, I should have planted more shelling peas.