Spring is very nearly officially here in the North State. It is a time of year when our mild climate and amazing soils result in the entire region fairly busting at the seams with new growth and renewed life. Gardeners, farmers, ranchers and market growers are all up to their elbows in this life: seeds, seedlings, transplants, blooms, pollinators, eggs, chicks, calving and lambing, and so on. In the vegetable garden and farmers markets the end of the cold hardy winter crops are slowly yielding to the tender spring offerings of asparagus, peas and spring greens. As growers - and as EATERS - we live in a mighty fertile foodshed. Many of us chose to live here because of this abundance, and many individuals and organizations work hard to help maintain, support and even grow this very foodshed. The Buy Fresh Buy Local - North Valley, an outreach of the Northern California Regional Land Trust (NCRLT), is one such program. Photo: The Buy Fresh Buy Local bumpersticker which has ornamented the bookshelves above my desk since summer 2010, when I participated in a Slow Food Shasta Cascade event in Red Bluff. Lower: A pipevine swallowtail butterfly sips nectar from a blooming ‘Santa Rosa’ plum in early spring. (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…)

Beans and peas have a rich and storied history in fact and myth. Also known as legumes, beans of all kinds are members of what is currently known as the Fabaceae or Leguminosae plant family. With species native to almost every continent, beans also constitute the third largest group of flowering plants on the planet, and one of the oldest forms of cultivated food. Beans and peas have shapely often scented flowers, grow happily in cool or hot weather, fix nitrogen in the soil to aid the growth of other plants, and are renowned for their health benefits in the form of high quality plant-based protein, fiber, anti-oxidants and phytochemicals that fare thought to fight cancer and lower the risk of heart and colon cancers. In the garden, beans and peas are some of the earliest crops each spring…..and some of the last each fall. Photo: Dry beans maturing in the field. (more…)

Photo: Old olive trees in a North State home garden.

Olives - to see growing, to eat the fruit and to savor the flavorful and aromatic oil - are among life’s treats in Northern California. County Fairs are also among life’s treats in Northern California and we are deep into both olive harvesting and county fair season. By way of celebrating our region’s agricultural wealth and heritage, Slow Food Shasta Cascade is co-hosting a Tehama County - Tehama Trail Marketplace at the Tehama District Fair in Red Bluff September 23 - 26th, 2010. The marketplace will include lots of olive tastings - from fruit to oils - which are distinct to our region. Many other agricultural vendors will be there to visit and visit with as well. (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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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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Since 1917 a plant nursery has lived on the site where Native Grounds Nursery & Garden Center in Mount Shasta City now thrives. For 91 years people of the Northstate have journeyed to this same pine-tree-sheltered spot on Mount Shasta Boulevard as you enter the small mountain town of Mount Shasta City to buy their plants, their soil, their seeds. Dating back to the original nursery, a hefty, gnarled old Wisteria vine winds its way through one of the tall pines and blooms its heart out every spring. “People stop and ask us what that purple flowering pine is,” say Native Grounds Nursery owners Lori Oliver and Terez Maniatis. A little stone house, once home to the original nursery’s founding family, sits just to the left of the Wisteria festooned pine stand and at the heart of the bustling Native Grounds site. The site is actually home to three businesses owned and run by Oliver and Maniatis: the year-round Mt. Shasta Florist, as well as the Native Grounds Nursery Garden Center and Native Grounds landscaping.

Oliver and Maniatis began their business life in the gardening world in 1993 with a small landscape design and build company also called Native Grounds. When the old Mt. Shasta Nursery & Florist came up for sale in the late 90s, the women jumped at the chance. “It has always been a dream of ours to own a nursery,” Terez told me. “We wanted to be able to grow a lot of our own plants to our own high, organic and sustainable standards - to be able to provide our clients with a wider selection of interesting plants - to model and keep educating our clients and customers about the benefits of organic and sustainable gardening products and practices. To be even more involved in the gardening cycle.”

The modeling of more sustainable practices started right when Oliver and Maniatis took over the nursery in 2000. They had to safely dispose of “truckloads” of older, toxic chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. At the same time, they brought a full-line of organic soil supplements and plant foods into the garden center. They moved their design/build and maintenance landscaping business onto the nursery grounds and renamed the nursery Native Grounds. While they also own and run the florist business on the same piece of property, they left its name as the Mt. Shasta Florist. Mt. Shasta Florist, which now carries many organic or sustainably grown cut flowers, and Native Grounds Landscaping remain open year-round, while Native Grounds Nursery & Garden Center closes from the end of October to the first of April.

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