High Ground Organics

One of the things I like to do over my morning coffee on rainy days is to look at the 24hr rainfall totals on the National Weather Service website. It is a listing of all of the hundreds of autom...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/stormy-weather/

We have been a CSA farm since we planted our first 3-acre plot in 1997. The support we got from our early CSA members (some of you are still with us!) helped our farm get off the ground and beat ...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/moving-on/

When we first started doing the Sunday farmer’s market in Mountain View, Jeanne was pregnant with our daughter Amelia who will be 19 in three weeks. Those two decades have passed astounding qui...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/a-farmer-at-market/

In our backyard we have a black mission fig tree which was probably an ill-advised choice this close to the coast. During most years we get a light round of beautiful, ripe primary fruit in sprin...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/ready-for-rain/

You will notice that the leaves on your Mei Quin Choi this week are flecked with small, pin-pricked holes. This is the work of the flea beetle. Rest assured that they are purely cosmetic in natur...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/uncovered/

This week we are planting out the last of our vegetable transplants and the first blocks of overwintering cover crops. We give ourselves a deadline of October 15th to get the steeper, erosive hi...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/fall-production-update-2/

One of the things that drew me into farming in the first place was the fact that I could wrap my feeble brain around the basic transactional level of it. I had no interest in having a remote and ...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/to-market-to-market/

Every three or four years we replenish the mulch beneath the plants in our blueberry patch. It’s important for several reasons. It suppresses weeds, helps retain moisture and as it breaks down...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/bring-on-the-mulch/

No matter how conscientiously you go about it, there is no getting away from the fact that farming is inherently a disruptive activity. You work hard to provide the proper conditions for your ten...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/eating-crow/

In the Ag History Museum at the County Fairgrounds here in Watsonville there is a picture of our home ranch back in its heyday as a grade-A milk dairy, probably from sometime in the 1940’s.  T...

https://www.highgroundorganics.com/the-journal/dairy-days/