Stone Horse couple shares love of the land

Stuart Schroeder and Denise Cadman founded their farm, Stone Horse, on the edge of the Laguna de Santa Rosa in 1998. Their 2014 season kicked off a couple of weeks ago and will continue through mid winter.

“We typically plant in June,” Schroeder said, “when the moisture in the soil is just right. Our season begins in August and because I offer carriage rides at the Gravenstein Apple Fair, we wait until it is over to join the market.”

The market is the Sebastopol Farmers Market, the only one Stone Horse attends. The farm is operated solely by Schroeder and Cadman, who also holds down a full-time job; one market a week works perfectly for them.

The farm’s current harvest includes several varieties of heirloom tomatoes and summer squash; Armenian cucumbers; lemon cucumbers; pickling cucumbers; broccoli; several types of chilies, including Padrons, anchos, jalepeños, Corno di Toro and sweet bells; several varieties of muskmelons; Crane melon; Charantais melon; Noir des Carmes melon; Tiger Stripe and Moon and Stars watermelon; German Butterball, Yukon Gold and Viking Purple potatoes; wheat berries and stone ground flour.

By mid-September, there will be cauliflower. Soon thereafter, there will be shell beans, first Borlatti, an Italian cranberry-type bean, followed by Calypso beans and, new this year, Marfax, a little brown bean popular on the East Coast. Sometime in November, there will be winter squashes and fresh gourds. Currently, the farm has aged gourds from 2012 and 2013.

The farm includes about an acre and a half of produce, along with three acres of pasture. Schroeder also tends 16 acres of hay in north Santa Rosa. In addition to managing his own crops, Schroeder mows a variety of fields throughout the county, sometimes for fire prevention, sometimes to harvest, say, a small crop of wheat grown by school kids. He helps out his neighbor, the Laguna de Santa Rosa Environmental Center, does chartered carriage rides and helps with low-impact timber harvest. Farm tours focus on education, with workshops, presentations and demonstrations. This variety of endeavors allows Schroeder to glean a living from the land.

At the heart of Schroeder’s work is not just a love of the land but also a life-long love of horses. Currently, Ike and Sparky are the plow team. Another of Schroeder’s loves is restoring antique, horse-drawn, farm equipment.

Stone Horse, founded in 1998 by Stuart Schroeder and Denise Cadman, is located in west Santa Rosa. The farm attends the Sebastopol Farmers Market from mid-August through mid-winter. For more information, visit stonehorse.biz.

Michele Anna Jordan has written 17 books to date, including “Vinaigrettes and Other Dressings.” Email Jordan at michele@saladdresser.com. You’ll find her blog, “Eat This Now,” at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com