( If you are reading this anywhere but my blog, you can find the original post here. )

The road to Shambani Organics is as beautiful a northern California road as I have driven. You come across the rock strewn valley floor grassland at the foot of the Mt. Lassen wilderness area. After a twisting rise into the foothills, two enormous old gnarled black walnut trees mark the entrance to the farm. Two Queensland Heelers wag all around. The wooden house sets into the land as it slopes away toward natural woodland and a year-round creek. A view from the top of the farm looks out over a small orchard, the two white greenhouses and a field garden that is green with spring crops, over the tops of oaks and the valley floor to mountains spreading across the horizon.

Shambani Organics (http://www.shambaniorganics.com) is a small, family-owned and operated business growing organic vegetable and herb starts on this 3.5 acre farm in the foothills between Manton and Shingletown. Laurie and Wayne Kessler began the business in 2006. The Kesslers were Peace Corps Volunteers in Eritrea in the 1960s, they purchased their Shingletown farm in the late 1970s. Wayne was a portrait photographer for many years, but in the mid-1990s the Kesslers returned to Eritrea where they worked and lived for seven years.

“When we returned home to California in 2002, people thought we were retired,” Laurie told me laughing, “and we told them, ‘no we’re unemployed.’” This most recent re-entry into American life gave them pause. Not quite ready to retire, and wanting to do work that was both rewarding and in line with their own hopes of self-sufficiency, they found themselves asking: What do we want to do now? They researched several possibilities, including a community access kitchen. Wayne had always been a gardener, and as the very layout of their farm suggests, they already tended quite a lot of fruits and vegetables themselves. Then they met John and Colene Trinterud of Peaceful Glen Organics in Mendocino County’s Round Valley. Laurie and Wayne helped the Trinteruds in their nursery greenhouse in early 2005 and they immediately thought: “This would be nice work. We should do this.” The Kesslers continue their friendship and mentoring relationship with the Trinteruds.

Now in their third growing season, Shambani Organics has two cheerful gleaming white greenhouses, a large shade structure house for hardening seedlings off and for cold-hardy and summer starts. Their son Colin worked with them for much of 2007 and 2008. They have earned CCOF organic certification (http://www.ccof.org). The Kesslers grow dozens of varieties of spring, summer, fall and winter vegetable and herb starts from organic and open-pollinated seeds that they research and purchase from a variety of seed companies.

The Kesslers showed me around their farm one early spring day this year. We talked over a delicious lunch of homegrown and made pesto on pasta followed by tahini-based Halvah made by Colin, and some of the last cold storage apples, which were still sweet and firm. The creek sang, still fat with recent rains.

“The goal of Shambani Organics is to be a viable business that works with our own personal goals of sustainability as well as promoting home-gardening for others,” Colin told me. “Selling high quality herb and vegetable starts helps other people get started in home-gardening, it helps people who are already have vegetable gardens to increase the diversity in their garden and to extend their growing season,” he pointed out, emphasizing year-round gardening.

“One of the important aspects of home vegetable herb and fruit growing is that it allows us – all of us - to control our own food supply,” Wayne added. “Which is a big step toward independence.” Wayne’s advice for getting started on home vegetable growing includes: “Choose a few varieties that you really like – perhaps choosing things that are easy to preserve in some way: drying, canning, or freezing. And don’t start too big – you could even start in containers on your deck. HIs point being to start simple and once you’ve got the hang of it, then expand.” Wayne is the quintessential garden mentor – his voice is melodious and soft, his face is kind and his words never seem to lecture, rather they are encouraging and nurturing. “A green thumb is nothing more than dirty fingernails,” he says wryly and in a way that would give hope to even the most hesitant of beginning gardeners.

Wayne teaches vegetable gardening workshops at nurseries and at special events such as spring and fall workshops sponsored by People of Progress. All three Kesslers point out in one way or another that it might be counter-intuitive from a business stand-point to teach other people to do what they are doing – but something tells me it will only work in their favor in the long run: not diminishing the number of their customers, but rather providing them with more sophisticated, informed, confident and happy customers.

One of the first things the Kesslers asked me during my day visiting them was “Have you read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemna?” – “Yes.” – “What about Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle?” they pressed further. “Yes.” (Fabulous books both, if you have not yet read them.) If you have read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, you will remember that Pollan cites Claude Levi-Strauss’ statement that food should be “not only good to eat, but also good to think,” and you will know what I mean when I say that Shambani Organics is both good to eat and good to think. Raising awareness and encouraging themselves and others to be pro-actively and cooperatively involved in their own world and choices – is at the very strong and healthy, lovely and delicious root of this vegetable and herb seedling business. Shambani, by the way, is the Swahili word meaning In the Garden – and if Wayne and Laurie are successful, that’s just where you and I will be – year-round.

Shambani Organics starts its season the first week of January, sowing seeds in the greenhouse for perennial herbs and all the early greens such as lettuces, chard and kale; varieties of peas; onion and garlic starts; and brassicas, including broccoli, cauliflower, brussell sprouts, cabbages. These are sold in the very early spring and are available in September and October for fall and winter gardening. For later spring and summer gardens they grow many tomato varieties including red, yellow and purple, cherry-tomatoes and many heirlooms; peppers, eggplant, squash, cucumbers, melons, beans, corn, okra, and herbs including basil, oregano, French tarragon, bulbing fennel, and dill. Besides the starts they grow regularly, the Kesslers are happy to take custom orders. They are also available for consultations to design and get your garden started or to improve an existing garden’s efficiency and productivity.

Shambani Organics seedlings available for The Northstate Fall and Winter Vegetable garden include: Lettuces, especially Romaine which is happy even with some frost; other greens, including chards, spinach, kale and collards; cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, onions and garlic. For the root vegetables such as carrots, beets, turnips and rutabagas, the Kesslers recommend direct planting seeds into your garden sometime in the first few weeks of September.

“One of the nice things about the winter garden, is that you don’t have to fertilize much if at all,” says Wayne. “The winter crops are not big feeders and can in fact be harmed by too much nitrogen. And the best winter crops, like chard, taste best after we begin to get frost. The frost brings out the sweetness in them.” Laurie goes on to say that “although your hands can get cold brushing the snow off the crops in winter, the produce still tastes great!” They both stress how easy it is to continue growing vegetables and herbs throughout the Northstate for most of the winter. “Really all you have to do to get your soil ready is mix in some more compost, plant your seeds and seedlings and you’re off.”

Shambani Organics seedlings can be found at the Chico Farmers Market in the very early spring, the Saturday Redding Farmers Market in September and October and at area nurseries including Wyntour Gardens and Creekside Gardens in Redding, Upcountry Gardens in Shingletown, and at Happy Valley Nursery. You can also contact the Kesslers directly at: 530-474-1646 or read more about them at http://www.shambaniorganics.com.

The Kesslers’ recommended books for vegetable gardening in the Northstate include: Steve Solomon’s Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades and Brenda Little’s The Practical Organic Gardener.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.