Oliveto Community » Riverdog Farm

Riverdog Farm – Profile

Bob Klein — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:21:19 +0000

Established 1991

Owners

Trini Campbell and Tim Mueller

Tim and Trini started farming two acres in Rutherford, CA in 1990. Gradually, after much trial and error, the farm has evolved into a very diverse, year-round farm that relies on a combination of wholesale, retail, farmers markets, and a 1,000-member Community Supported Agriculture program. They employ 50 year-round employees.

Chef Canales says “in the last five years Riverdog has become one of our most important farms. It is hard to say what they don’t do well. While they are a larger sized farm, their produce tastes as though it has been given all the time and attention of a personal garden.”

Technology

Tractors for transplanting, weed control, and some harvesting.

Challenges

Challenges include the rising costs of fuel and other essential inputs. Consumer expectation of a low price of produce makes rising costs difficult to absorb. It is always a struggle to continue to offer increasing wages to our employees.

Principles

“Farming and access to abundant organic food feeds our souls. We face daily challenges, puzzles and struggles on the farm yet continue to be amazed by the magic of the seed transforming into the food on our tables,” says Trini. “Offering over 100 tomato varieties makes us proud! We also take pride in offering our employees health insurance.”

Practices

Implementation of an organic field and crop management program. The fertility program includes the use of compost and amendments such as ocean products.

Community Supported Agricultural Programs

Currently serving 1,000 members. They distribute to the East Bay, Sacramento/Davis, Napa County, Solano County, and Yolo County. Learn more.

Other plans

Almond butter, eggs laid by pastured hens, and pork.

Anything else you would like to tell us?

Thank you for supporting Riverdog Farm and all the families who work here.

Length of relationship with Oliveto

Over a decade

Location

Guinda, CA

Crops

Wide variety from Padrón chili peppers to Vintage Wine tomatoes to Orchid watermelon. Secondary crops: Many crops from almonds to Costada Romanesco zucchini.

Organizations/Certification

CCOF

Community Alliance of Family Farmers

Yolo County Farm Bureau

The Yolo Land Trust

Farmers’ markets

Berkeley Derby Street – Tuesday

Berkeley Shattuck Avenue – Thursday

Berkeley Downtown – Saturday

Website

http://www.riverdogfarm.com/

Press

A Farmer’s Observations: The Gift of Good Land in Spring

Tomato Season 2010 off to a slow start

Catherine Meng — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:13:15 +0000

While tomatoes seem to be very late this year and our farmers think most of their crops are three to five weeks behind, looking back on Tomato Watch 2009 gives us some perspective. We’ve got Chef Canales reporting from the Farmers’ Market on July 27, 2009 the “official” arrival of tomatoes— so perhaps we are seeing the beginning of a pattern in these later harvests over the last few years.

This year, because the rainy season went so long, we’ve pushed the dates for the 2010 Tomato Dinners [reserve] back to September 15 – 19 and are watching and waiting. Recently, we’ve seen the first few cherry tomatoes and Sun Golds, and just this week some delicious “ugly” Early Girls.

In the meantime, we had fun revisiting Tomato Watch 2009 so we collected the posts here and thought we’d share:

Tomato Watch 2009 on Dipity.

Highlights include:
Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce on Dry-Farming in post #2, and then on July 3rd with further dry-farming information. Also, Joe’s own video reports in post #5 and #10 are of special note.

Riverdog Farm explain their growing cycle and how and when tomatoes are picked in posts #18 and #20.

Brookside Farm’s Welling and Ann Tom show us lovely pictures and thoughtful reports on their season in Brendwood, culminating in the October 1st Dead Ripe video.

Market Report #5: with Tim Mueller of Riverdog Farm

Catherine Meng — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:55:00 +0000

Tim Mueller took some time to talk to us on Saturday at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market about what is going on & what is going IN to the ground at Riverdog Farm. The first plantings of summer’s big ticket items including tomatoes, sweet corn, and beans will happen over the next few weeks. While crops planted last fall begin to go to seed, the end of March/beginning of April is the last slow time before the busyness of late April begins picking up speed through May, until we reach the full-blown madness of summer in June. In the meantime, Tim and Trini still have their hands full with loads of favas, asparagus, beets, and carrots, not to mention chickens and hogs.

Tim also gives us a briefing on some of the fall-out from last December’s cold snap, and explains how the effects of those frigid temperatures are still being felt.

Market Report #3: ‘Crazy’ Cabbage, Goose Eggs, Red Romaine

Catherine Meng — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:25:21 +0000

Yesterday, Bill & Paul hit the Derby Street market just in time to see all the purple asparagus vanish. No bother. There was plenty else to ogle including ‘crazy’ cabbage from Full Belly Farm and beautiful red romaine lettuce from Riverdog Farm. Also some massive goose eggs from Arthur Davis of Ludwig Avenue Farm and a few tips from Chef Canales on how to poach them.

From this point on it only gets better with berry season just around the corner and stone fruits soon after.

Autumn 2009 at Riverdog Farm

Catherine Meng — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:24:30 +0000

Tomato harvest continues, although not at the pace it was just a month ago. We’re still busy harvesting peppers, eggplants, greenbeans, black-eyed peas, and of course, winter squash. We’re also busy seeding and planting many of our winter crops: kale, broccoli, and cabbage. In a couple of the photos in which a crew member (foreground) is picking tomatoes, another one of our crew members is transplanting cabbages in an adjacent field. We cultivate with a tractor and then by hand to weed out unwanted vegetation in our beds. Our fall greens and root veggies are just a few weeks from harvest.

Turning from Tomatoes & Toward the Persimmons to Come – Autumn 2009

Catherine Meng — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:13:50 +0000

Brookside Farm Autumn 2009 Brentwood, CA

We queried our farmers last week, just before the Autumnal Equinox on September 22nd, to get one last report as tomato season comes to a close and to find out what is planned for the cooler months of fall.

Welling Tom of Brookside Farm had this to tell us:

Most of our tomatoes are finished, except for the San Marzano, which is still going strong. It turns out that most of the tomato plants which we bought from the nursery (a rather large operation which I will not name) as Early Girl were not Early Girl. We suspected something was not right when the fruits began to ripen in late June. They were much too big and squatty shaped, and the vines never grew as tall as Early Girl vines should. Early Girl fruits should be a bit pointed at the blossom end, and the “shoulders” around the calyx should not be very broad. Those girls are not supposed to look so butch!

New fruits ceased to appear after only about one month, while Early Girl should continue to produce as long as the weather remains warm and dry (through the month of October in most years). We never sold any to Oliveto, except a few green (unripe) ones for the Tomato dinners.

Many of the Brandywine plants which we bought from that same nursery turned out wrong also. They had the broad “potato” leaves, but the fruit were a bright orange-y red rather than the pinkish red of true Brandywines. They didn’t taste right, either. Still, despite these problems, our tomato harvest turned out pretty well. We will get our tomato plants from a smaller, more reliable nursery next year. Kassenhoff Growers of Oakland has been our source for specialty varieties, like the Pineapple, San Marzano, and Momotaro. We will turn to them for Early Girl and Brandywine too.

As of today, this eve before the Equinox, we have broccoli, rainbow chards, Lacinato kale, and snow peas already growing. We will try to grow more greens and beets and turnips in the next week or so, and garlic and torpedo onions too (October-November). This autumn should yield a heavy crop of Fuyu persimmons. We are looking forward to that.

We will have Comice pears available this week. Last Sunday, when I was delivering a late-summer bounty of okra, Japanese eggplants, ‘Figaro” peppers, and San Marzano tomatoes to the Oliveto kitchen, Jenny Raven asked me if we have any autumn fruits. We will have the persimmons about a month from now, but the Comice pears are already ripening.

Welling

Many of the farms we source from have gatherings at this time of year to celebrate the harvest. Full Belly Farm’s Annual Hoes Down Festival happens this weekend, October 3rd, and is always a good time with live music, tons of activities, and lots of excellent food.

On Sunday, October 18th, Riverdog Farm will host a Pumpkin Patch Party with hayrides, pumpkin picking, and a meal served under the walnut trees. They will post more details about this event on their website in the next few weeks.

Brookside Farm held its annual Corn Harvest party September 13th. Here are some photographs from the afternoon:

More photographs of the event were taken by Eisaku Tokuyama, a friend of the Toms, and can viewed here.

Tomato Watch Week 20 – Shippers, Breakers, Pickers, Packers

Catherine Meng — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:47:17 +0000

Riverdog Farm's pasture-raised hens grub up some heirlooms

We’ve been tomato watching now for five months and finally, tomato season is here! Dry-farmed Early Girls are tasting excellent right now, and the heirlooms have just reached their height, giving the kitchen ample time to work with them before Tomato Dinners begin on August 26th. It has been a great year for tomatoes weather-wise and also timing-wise; many farmers took the risk of planting early and the risk paid off.

Another part of the equation is knowing when to pick tomatoes and who to pick them for. Back in April, Tim Mueller of Riverdog Farm in Yolo County took the time to explain to us the stages of a ripening tomato. He differentiates between what is ripe enough to ship and sit, what is perfectly ripe, or “dead ripe” that it heads to the Farmers’ Market (or Oliveto) that day, and what is so ripe it’s only fit for a hog or a hen.

Film edited by Dallas Mark

Tomato Watch Week 18 (Part 2): In which we also consider the eggplant

Catherine Meng — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:17:41 +0000

Chef Paul Canales hit up the Derby Street Farmers’ Market yesterday with daughter Eva in tow. The duo got a look at some of the recently available tomatoes at Riverdog Farm, Catalan Farms, Lucero Organic Farm, and Full Belly Farm. Tomato season should hit its peak in the next few weeks, giving the chefs time to evaluate what’s up to snuff for this year’s tomato dinners.

In the meantime, the current showstopper is eggplant. Chef Canales shows us the three varieties he’s particularly fond of and explains how he likes to use them. Eggplant will be on the Oliveto menu in a variety of dishes over the next few days including:

Conchiglie with Rosa Bianca egglpant and pancetta

Stuffed chard and fried ricotta polpettini with wood-oven-roasted eggplant purée

Tomato Watch Week 18 – Riverdog Farm

Catherine Meng — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:27:52 +0000

Cherry tomatoes and Sun Golds are tasting delicious right now, but we’re still waiting on Early Girls, San Marzanos, Red Zebras, Pineapples, and the rest of the larger varieties to hit their peak flavor. If everything goes according to plan, that should happen some time over the next three to four weeks just in time for our annual Tomato dinners.

We visited with Trini Campbell and Tim Mueller of Riverdog Farm back in April, soon after their tomato plants went in the ground. Tim tells us what the next few months will require to insure healthy, flavorful tomatoes by August: lots of attention, diligence, and a variety of essential oils that help to combat against an even wider variety of pests.

Edited by Dallas Mark

Canales & Fujimoto Walk The Market

Catherine Meng — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:32:44 +0000

Yesterday’s solstice officially marked the beginning of summer, but already the markets are bursting with incredible produce. New things keep showing up every week; out of this world strawberries, followed by cherries and the rest of the stone fruits, summer squashes, pole beans, and right around the corner the first of the figs.

Last Tuesday, Chef Paul Canales and Bill Fujimoto met up at the Derby Street Farmers’ Market in Berkeley to get a taste of what’s great right now, and also to show us what to look for as the summer progresses.

video shot and edited by Ben Schwartz