All the news that's fit to eat
Powered by Horse By Heidi Lewis New Family Farm of Sebastopol, California, was one of six farms awarded grants in April 2013 from The FruitGuys Community Fund, a fiscally sponsored project of Community Initiatives. An outgrowth of the company’s Farm Steward Program, the Community Fund gives resources to small farms for sustainable agriculture projects that [...]
By Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm, courtesy of Capay Valley Farm Shop When I first heard the term “food safety” I knew that even the term itself was a problem, representing an approach to our food that calls lettuce bathed in chlorine “safe” and lettuce with a speck of dirt on it “contaminated.” Now, a few years [...]
Why Farmers Need to Be Activists By Tanya Tolchin Courtesy of Food Politic, Journal of Food News and Culture Many small family farms switch into gear in late winter and early spring to get the farm season on track. On our farm we are busy ordering seeds, building new hoop houses, fixing fences, tuning up [...]
Farming with Heart By Heidi Lewis The main ingredient in good vegetables, says farmer Jim Durst, is soil: “Feed the soil, and the soil will feed the plants.” Jim and his wife, Deborah, have been farming their land at the mouth of the Capay Valley in Yolo County, CA, since the 1980s. Jim caught on [...]
By Rawley Johnson of Full Belly Farm, courtesy of Capay Valley Farm Shop October is my favorite month on the farm because of its in-betweenness. The weather is not so extremely hot anymore but not so extremely cold yet either. The first rains freshen and green up the parched dry ground, but spares us the [...]
“Organic” Label May Not Tell the Whole Story By Mary Risley, reprinted with permission from Tante Marie’s Cooking School Aren’t you getting tired of all the talk about organics? Recently, the media was full of news about a report by Stanford University analyzing 237 studies that said there were not necessarily any more nutrients in [...]
Small Farms Left Out of Farm Bill By Charlene Oldham When the first “farm bill” was created in the late 1930s to help family farms, horses and hand plows were as common on farms as Model As and mechanized tractors. Today the $300 billion farm bill up for revision in Congress is a complex web [...]
By Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm, courtesy of Capay Valley Farm Shop Years ago, when I was studying at the University of California, I noticed that there was research being done on “organic” agriculture with results that proved it to be not viable. Upon closer examination it turned out that the researchers had compared [...]
Timeline of our favorite berry By Heidi Lewis Today’s strawberry, Fragaria ananassa, with its large, practically perfect berries is the culmination of selective breeding going back centuries to when strawberries were tiny, rare, and found only at the peak of summer. Strawberries are mentioned in works by Virgil and Ovid, yet they made no appearance [...]
By Jeff Main of Good Humus Produce, courtesy of Capay Valley Farm Shop Sometimes an unborn child’s heart will try to beat on its own while still in the womb, and the result is read on monitors as an unpredictable, fluctuating heartbeat. As spring tries to start and winter tries to hold her grip, the result is similar. Rain [...]
Winter Farm Conferences By Heidi Lewis The Monterey Peninsula is one of the most beautiful spots in the world, but it wasn’t just the sparkly ocean breeze dancing through the pines that brought a near sell-out crowd to this year’s Eco Farm Conference held February 1-4. It was the exchange of important ideas and sharing [...]
Karen Morss Traded Silicon and Lemons By Heidi Lewis Karen Morss is called the Lemon Lady. She started her suburban Emerald Hills, CA (San Mateo County), organic citrus farm, Lemon Ladies Orchard, in 2004. She has done her part breaking glass ceilings in boardrooms and the wild blue yonder with careers as a software entrepreneur [...]
By Jeff Main of Good Humus Produce, courtesy of Capay Valley Farm Shop It seems like a long time since I’ve had a chance to touch bases with all of you, as a matter of fact, it has been a long time. So much has changed on the farm and so much has stayed the [...]
Sweet Little Farm Grows it All By Pia Hinckle Coco Ranch in Davis, California is a labor of love for the House Family. Jennifer and Greg House met at the University of California Davis where they were both studying agriculture. Their certified organic farm grows apples, cherries, apricots, peaches, and other delights such as flowers [...]
By Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm, courtesy of Capay Valley Farm Shop Despite heavy rain, a surprisingly large group of people turned out for the Full Belly Open Farm Day. While we couldn’t sample the strawberries as in years past, we were able to walk around and enjoy the muddy farm. Several families showed [...]
By Heidi Lewis Broccoli Shortcake. Mmmm, can you picture it? Golden cake, florets of green broccoli, and a cloud of sweet whipped cream… What? Doesn’t sound appealing? Do you prefer Strawberry Shortcake? But broccoli is what’s going to save strawberries from fungicides and other creepy chemicals. Organic farming practices produce luscious, great tasting berries—without the [...]
By Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm With a little warm weather, the fields are drying out and plants have all started growing remarkably suddenly as if a switch just turned over to ‘ON’. Now they’re in a race to catch up with the spring. In one week we saw more growth in the asparagus [...]
By Heidi Lewis Recently we asked avocado farmer Noel Stehly of Stehly Farms Organics in Valley Center, CA: Q: If an avocado were an animal, what would it be? A: It would be a jaguar because it is sleek and beautiful. That’s quite fitting for an avocado, as it is an ancient fruit of the [...]
Introducing Preservation Harvest – produce that makes a difference. Buying plums can help save a farm and make healthier land. Learn more at www.preservationharvest.com. West Coast customers, get a box of 25 refreshing Black Amber Plums from our crop farmed in Exeter, California. They have a smooth, crème colored inner flesh and tart purple skin. Put [...]
Ed Magee spends his days thinking about sunlight. When he isn’t working on his 38-acre orchard of white peaches and nectarines in Vernalis, California, he’s in a lab studying the energy of electrons. This scientist-farmer’s day job aids NASA researchers in determining the elemental mix of stars. Ed is a scientist through and through and he takes a very [...]
Alex Godbe started The Hungry Owl Project in 2002 to raise awareness of the danger that rodent poison poses to owls. Alex had been an intern for Wildcare, a Bay Area wildlife rehabilitation and education center, and was struck by the number of sick raptors and other hunting birds that ended up in the facility [...]
By Bridget Meigs Owls can play a crucial role in rodent control on organic farms. Instead of traps or poison, owls are natural predators that can help control populations of rodents like meadow voles that can girdle and kill the fruit trees. Many owl species reside in forested habitat, but the North American Barn Owl [...]
Auntie Amerika pushes up the sleeves of her purple patchwork dashiki and stirs a large pot on the stove, her granny glasses steaming up as she leans over to catch a whiff. She deftly grabs an unlabeled jar of spice from her collection and sprinkles some into the veggie stew. The kitchen is warm and [...]
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