A New Team Member

Village Farm Team,

We’re pleased to introduce our newest Farm Educator, Josh Rosas! Josh comes to us from Sunset Farm, our sister farm nestled in the Jordan Ranch community. He was farming in the Richmond area for almost two years before making his way to Sunset Farm. His experience farming in this area means that he is well acquainted with our soils and climate. Josh loves to focus his efforts on vegetable varieties that will not only grow well in our climate but will have optimal flavor. Though it’s hard to narrow it down, his favorite vegetables to grow are carrots and radicchio.

We’ve got two new vegetables coming into season this week: long beans and eggplant. Long beans grow relatively fast so even though we just started seeing the first flowers a couple of weeks ago, we’re already making a sizable harvest. Long beans can be prepared just as you would green beans, simply cut them into your preferred size. As for our eggplant, we’re on track to be able to make the first small harvest this week. We should be able to harvest the slender, dark purple Orient Express in addition to a beautiful, white-skinned variety. Each of these varieties are pictured below.

Our summer heat can often limit the variety of crops that can be successfully grown during this season so we’re always up for trying something new. We transplanted some sesame plants last week along with our summer greens to see how they fare during the summer growing season. Sesame is cultivated for its edible seeds which grow in green pods on the sesame plant (see photo below). Historically sesame has been referred to as a “survivor crop” as it often grows in drought and high-heat conditions that are inhospitable to most other crops. We’re excited to see how it performs in our climate!