March in the garden is both maddening and full of spring’s mirth. Even with our terribly low winter precipitation thus far, the garden and countryside are moving along – unfolding in flower, fruit and seed.

We’re lucky that our relatively mild climate allows us to plant flowers, fruits and vegetables from seed almost every month of the year – but even so March may take high honors as the big seasonal Seeding – indoors and out. (more…)

In the wind and rain of the last week, I came down with quite a cold/flu and have been suffering the effects for several achey days. So it seems fortuitous and right somehow that this week’s In a North State Garden focuses on garlic - that icon of health and fortitude, that banisher of bad spirits and bad germs (to say nothing of vampires). Specifically, this week’s piece profiles Kalan and Cam Redwood of Redwood Seeds, which, among many other interesting seed crops, grow 14 different varieties of garlic locally here in the North State. ‘Grown locally’ being a fact which only strengthens the power and efficacy of any fruit, vegetable or medicinal herb’s beneficial properties, due in part to increased freshness. Photo: Allium sativum sativuum ‘Silver White’ a common, softneck variety of garlic. (more…)

Bridgette Brick-Wells, founder of the Healthy Lunch & Lifestyles Project working in Shasta, Tehama and Butte Counties; Gina Sims, Garden Coordinator at Chico Country Day Charter School and also working with the Center for Nutrition and Activity Promotion at CSU, Chico; and Debra Abbott, School Garden Educator in the Chico Unified School District as well as with the Chico Area Recreation District (CARD), all joined me for special one-hour live program on Tuesday October 19th from 10 am - 11 am. We discussed how school gardens, farm-to-school connections and healthy school lunch options are sowing the seeds for better life-long physical, cultural, environmental and economic health throughout our region. Photo: Kids in a young gardening program at Chico Christian School in Chico. (more…)

It is now officially Autumn and the length of our days diminishes a little with each circle of the planet. In the edible garden, harvesting has gone on for some time as spring crops moved over for summer crops and - lucky for us here in northern California - in many cases they have been replaced with fall crops, some of which are up and going strong, and our winter crops have gone in or are going in. Even if by “crop” I just mean a few rows of beets or carrots in the raised beds out back. Just as for the squirrels and the acorn woodpeckers, perhaps more than any other time of year, Autumn compels us to store up against the cold and the dark. It brings out our instinctive desire for some level of self-sufficiency. Photo: Cattle grazing, and honeybees working on the drive into Chaffin Family Farm - a model for the integrated family farm ideal - below Table Mountain in Oroville. (more…)

The time has come again to plant for fall and winter vegetables. I love this time of year! George Winter of Wyntour Gardens and Red Bluff Garden Center gave us this advice last year:

Planting a vegetable garden just seems to go along with spring, doesn’t it? Like an instinctive and seasonal rite of passage. But, says George Winter, owner of Wyntour Gardens in Redding and the Red Bluff Garden Center in Red Bluff, “if you want a vegetable garden, the fall and winter garden is generally easier and less maintenance than the spring and summer one. Time seems more measured in the fall garden - not so hectic,” in George’s opinion. “Temperatures will still be hot when you plant your garden planted in late August early September, but they cool off pretty quickly so you won’t be working in blazing heat; the lower temperatures also mean fewer bugs, and of course your chances of rainfall are much better. So if we have a normal fall and winter, you will be watering your fall-planted garden far less than you had to water your spring-planted one. Planning and planting a fall and winter vegetable garden is very similar to planting your spring/summer one, except the odds are stacked in your favor, so your chances of success are very good.” (more…)

Lunch began with a warm bowl of palest green cream of spring asparagus soup (created from a combination of local asparagus and Berkeley Farms cream), green onions from the garden garnished the top as well as a swirling line of red smoked paprika from Sawmill Creek Farm in Paradise. Crunchy bread from Chico’s Tin Roof Bakery was passed around for dipping, and plates of regional goat cheeses and soft butter filled out the first course. A hearty salad of tender, multi-colored spring greens from the garden was tossed in local olive oil and balsamic vinegar, accompanied by some more goat cheese served as the entrée. Homemade chocolate chip cookies (the carmel-brown, thin crisp kind, which I like) were dessert. Photo: Home grown blueberries.
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Wolfgang Rougle is a young woman with a sharp mind, an engaged spirit, a strong work ethic and a big vision. She is also the owner and market-farmer of 20 acres west of Cottonwood, named Twining Tree Farm, which she describes as: “a small farm located in the foothills of the Coast Range in the northern Sacramento Valley, at about 700 feet, in a sea of blue oak savannah.” Photo: A fleeting glimpse of Wolfgang Rougle, hard at work on her Twining Tree Farm west of Cottonwood.

A community activist for good locally grown food, and sustainable small farms, Wolfgang is also an eloquent writer and has authored a small book/manifesto entitled “Sacramento Valley Feast: How to find, harvest and cook local, wild food… All Year Long!” as well as being a regular contributor to edible Shasta Butte. (more…)

This segment of In a North State Garden was originally recorded and written in July of 2008. Now more than two years old, edible Shasta- Butte gets better and covers more territory with each issue. The most recent issue - Summer 2009 - hit stands in late June, so with the fullness of summer’s fruit and vegetable bounty upon us, it seemed timely to re-run this segment. Congratulations on two great years, edible Shasta-Butte. Many Happy Returns!

Take “real food, community and sustainability,” season it with almost pornographically voluptuous photography of local foods, pair it with refreshingly well-crafted and interesting stories about the people who grow, raise, make or sell local food, and you will have something close to an issue of edible Shasta-Butte. (http://www.edibleshastabutte.com) “A local business celebrating the abundance of local foods, season by season,” founded by husband and wife team Earl Bloor and Candace Byrne.
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David Grau is a gardener; he is also an avid supporter of sustainability, community and local food production. He has worn many hats – gardening hats and otherwise – in his life. In the late 70s and 80s, he was an organic Market Gardener selling and a co-founder of the Chico Saturday morning Farmer’s Market. His primary career for many years has been as a licensed marriage and family counselor. But he has always loved to garden and always loved the look, feel, taste and concept of locally grown food and the community that produces it. In 1990, he even produced an improved version of a popular market garden tool – the wheel hoe, which he sells through his company Valley Oak Tool in Chico. He himself has re-landscaped his urban Chico home so that its front and back yard lawns are now mulched over and edible gardening is underway in every corner: row crops of lettuces and peas run the depth of the back yard. Citrus and fruit trees are carefully enclosed in wire frames for easy covering. And all of that is greatly interesting to me as a garden lover. But, what I really want to highlight about David’s gardening life is his current project as founder/developer of/coordinator of several impressive series of organic gardening classes in Chico. Photo: David Grau in his home garden, demonstrating the ease of his wheel-hoe.

David was first inspired to develop organic gardening classes when he was living in Marin County for 18 months between 2007 and 2008. There, he attended “ a series, sort of like what I have developed here,” he says. “I really enjoyed them and thought that Chico had all the resources and the need for something similar.” So he returned to Chico and put together his first series of classes, which were held at the Chico Grange almost every Sunday from January through mid-March. A second series is beginning in April and runs through June and will also be held at the Chico Grange on Sundays.
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Even though many of us in the North State can and do work in our vegetable gardens year-round, March, April and May are such traditional vegetable seed and seedling start times that I have been focusing a lot of my energy on my raised vegetable beds these past few weeks. Finishing up the winter-grown veggies like bok choy, winter lettuce and the last of the bulbing fennel (which was delicious braised in a light chicken stock), gave me room for carrot, beets, spring lettuce, snap pea seeds as well as potatoes. I have just enough room left to put out my tomato plants and basil seeds when the night temperatures stay reliably above 50 degrees. Photo: Bulbing fennel.

Vegetable gardening, growing fruit and nut trees, berry vines, etc. - any gardening you do that results in an edible item, is often termed Edible Landscaping. I think the use of this “fancy” term was introduced in order to 1. Make it clear that you’re talking about gardening for food production, and 2. Suggest that vegetable and fruit gardening is every bit as attractive in the landscape as “ornamental” flower and tree-type gardening.
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