Hello, organic food!

The main focus for me most Saturdays is getting to the Berkeley Farmers' Market. Since it is a block away from my gym, I try to combine the two into one trip. The Farmers' Market closes at 3, so I'm always challenged by the logistical fact that I have to work out before I go to the Market...

Today, Z walked to the market and I biked up and met him. We got a lot of stuff, including out first ears of bi-color corn of the season. Woo hoo! It feels pretty radical to be buying organic corn from the farmer who grew it-- especially considering the book that I recently read: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I highly recommend that everyone read it.

While we ate our mostly-organic tacos and organic salad this evening (unfortunately, I didn't have time to make salsa, so we used Pace salsa, and he had bought 50 tortillas a few days ago so we'd have them on hand, and they're not organic... nor are most of the oils and vinegars that dressed our salads), we watched The Future of Food (PS- I found one of those annoying corn worms in the sink after Z shucked the corn). It starts out really boring, but it gets better. The end is the best part- she shows someone spraying down a row of strawberry plants, and then cuts to a little boy eating a fresh strawberry-- and she points out that the future of food will be determined by us consumers. (I hope that this is true. The film paints a very dire picture.)

I really want to go visit my friends' farm tomorrow (it's in woodland, and some of the genetically engineered seed packets in the movie said that the seeds had been grown in Woodland! It is very close to UC Davis, which is a "mean ag" school. But do I want to spend $40 to get there and back? Can I afford to? Can I afford not to? I'd also like to go and meet a woman who might be able to utilize my part-time volunteer services on her farm.

I never blogged about the spinach/lettuce crisis, did I

I'm watching an NBC 11 story about E-coli right now. I did write a story about The Spinach Crisis, and people did another one about lettuce...It took me days to finish it, cuz I was trying to figure out what to say in this paragraph:
"It has been difficult for the FDA to discern the exact source of the E-coli. It seems to have been narrowed down to several farms in the Salinas Valley. The E-coli could have gotten into the soil or water in several ways. Cows from neighboring farms could have wandered into spinach fields and defecated. Farm laborers who do not have enough access to bathrooms could have simply defecated in spinach fields. Many organic growers import composted manure to use as fertilizer. "Processed" sewage sludge could have been used as a fertilizer for spinach farms. Many place the blame on the factory farming system. Large dairy farms can yield fecal runoff in rainy weather, and cattle that eat grain instead of pasture grasses can have more acidic stomachs and more E-coli in their manure. Supporters of organic farming methods point out that none of the E-coli cases have been attributed to organic spinach, and that a spread of disease such as this can only occur in an industrial context."

I really enjoyed getting to point out the problems (failings) of industrial agriculture.

Women in Sustainable Ag. Lecture series

Future Food Careers.
Wholesome food, vital rural economies, dynamic professions

Women practitioners of sustainable agriculture speak on their
involvement in and understanding of a regenerative movement.

Series of Talks and Conversations, Fall 2006 U.C. Berkeley
College of Environmental Design, Wurster Hall room 106 6.45pm-8.45pm

Visit www.pixiepoppins.org for details and updates

As it fell to our mothers, so it falls to us today, to perpetuate life
by changing the world. Whether glamorously or invisibly, the women you
will encounter during this series pour their life's energy into
transforming our world into a more human and hospitable place. Speakers
in our series have chosen to deploy their intelligence, their passion
and stubborn hopefulness on behalf of Sustainable Agriculture – a vital
part of our social anatomy. Whatever your chosen field, these food and
farming heroes-journalists, scientists, activists, authors, counselors,
farmers can help us plot a courageous trajectory in our own
professional lives.

September 21
Barbara Deutsch
Advocate and practitioner of Gardens for butterflies.
+ Kendra Johnson
California FarmLink,

September 28
Dee Harley
Harley Goat Farms
+ Ali and Brooke Budner (twin sisters)
OAEC, Manic Organic, Full Belly Farm, South Side Community Land Trust

October 4
Dr. Clara Nicholls
AgroEcology, Slow Food
+Raquel Moreno-Penaranda
AgroEcology vs. Biotechnology

October 5
Claire Cummings
Kellogg Institute
Columbia Foundation
Worldwatch Institute
+ Katy Mamen
Ag Innovation

October 19
Anna Lappé
Food Activist author of GRUB, and Hope’s Edge
+ Shrereen D’souza
Sustaining Ourselves Locally (SOL)

October 25
Temra Costa
CAFF, Oakland
+ Dr. Christy Getz
Cooperative Extension Specialist

October 26
Kat Harrison
Ethnobotanist
+ Laura Smailes
Clinical Herbalist

November 9
Dr. Ann Thrupp
Fetzer and Bonterra Vineyards

November 15
Heather Coburn Flores
Founder of Food not Lawns and HOPE Farm
Author of Food not Lawns
+
Nora Maccoby
Film-maker

November 30
Sibella Krauss
SAGE, AgParks on the Urban Edge
+Anya Fernald
Slow Food Presidia

December 8
Dr. Heather Willams
Food Politics in Mexico, Pomona College Student Organic Farm
+ Christine Ahn
Food Justice, Korea

Please join us for one or all or these lively sessions. Each set of
talks will be followed by a convivial reception, discussion and
opportunity for conversation between attendees.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT WWW.PIXIEPOPPINS.ORG
Series presented by the Society for Agriculture and Food Ecology (SAFE)
and Greenhorn Agrarians.

Funding for the series comes from the KNIGHT program in Science and
Environmental Journalism and the College of Natural Resources

Further support has been provided by Blue House Farm which grew the
produce served at our receptions. www.bluehousefarm.org for more
information on this young farming enterprise located in Pescadero, CA.

.All sessions recorded and archived for podcast and radio program,
please email for details.


Artwork by Rosy Keyser Winterer.

(i have not vetted this site:)
please visit this new site:
www.pixiepoppins.org
the online hub for organic entrepreneurs

City Slicker Expands into Orinda, Needs Volunteers

Hi All,
City Slicker Farms is happy to announce that we have a new farming
site--an acre of land on a south-facing slope in Orinda just off the
HWY 24 and Orinda BART station. We will be creating a vegetable
farm and fruit orchard there and plan to market all the produce
through our farm stands in West Oakland.

We will be having monthly volunteer workdays the First Sunday of
each month from 10am-2pm and welcome all volunteers for this
beginning phase of planting cover crops, creating paths, mapping out
beds and irrigation, installing fencing and planting trees (this
phase should take around 6 months).

Robin Galas is coordinating this garden, so if you have any
questions or suggestions or would like to volunteer please contact
her at robingalas@gmail.com.

Our first workday is this Sunday, March 5th from 10am-2pm (unless
it's pouring rain of course) at 69 Oak Road in Orinda (take HWY 24
or BART to Orinda exit; South on Moraga; West on Stein; North on
Oak). If you take BART you will need a bike since it's about 1 mile
down the road.

Here is a link to a map so you can get there:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?address=69%20Oak%20Rd&city=Orinda&state=CA&zipcode=94563%2d3322&country=US&title=%3cb%3e69%20Oak%20Rd%3c%2fb%3e%3cbr%20%2f%3e%20Orinda%2c%20CA%2094563%2d3322%2c%20%20US&cid=lfmaplink2&name=

Thanks!
Willow
Willow Rosenthal,
Founding Director

CITY SLICKER FARMS
Growing affordable fresh produce for West Oakland

510-763-4241
737 Henry Street
Oakland, CA 94607

LOCATIONS
Center Street Farm, The Annex Farm, West Oakland Wilds Farm, The
Secret Garden, Ralph Bunche School Nursery, Jubilee West Garden &
Mandela Farmer's Market

Seeds=one step towards sustainability

Yeah, so there's going to be a seed swap at the Ecology Center this week. There is a note on the board at our community garden about please saving seeds. I think we are the closest community garden to the ecology center- about a mile away.

Anywhoozlebees, there have been a bunch of broccoli plants that have been going to seed for months in our garden, and most of them got pulled out yesterday (why let them go for this long and then pull them out?). Several radishes that didn't get picked in December were also pulled out in the last week. Radishes are the EASIEST thing to grow in the Bay Area, besides chard and fava beans and maybe some kales and lettuces and some potatoes. You get what I mean. So why not save seeds from one or two of the radish plants? Radishes are a great thing to grow because they give near-instant gratification- 4 to 6 weeks, and they're all out of the ground or too old to eat.

Also, people at our garden tend to leave the smaller or less productive plants for seeds. That goes against Darwin and a lot of other common sense.

There are so many things at that garden that go against common sense, and whenever I try to convince people of things, for some reason I "lose" the argument.

I NEED TO FIND ANOTHER GARDEN TO WORK ON. And/or move out of the city.

Ah, a chance to learn about tree grafting

I hope I can go to this, because learning this stuff has been on my list for a while! i bet they'd get more people to come if each person got to take one tree home, but that's just the organizer in me talking.

from: "wildseed christopher" wildheartgardens at yahoo.com
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 12:00:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Fruit tree grafting workshop february 25th 10am-3pm


Come to Ploughshares Nursery on February 25th from
10am until 3pm or whenever we finish, to a fruit tree
grafting workshop with Solomon Rosenzweig. We'll
provide the scionwood and rootstock and the trees are
all for the Alameda Point Collaborative (APC) and
Ploughshares Nursery. You'll learn the basics of
grafting, get to know some great heirloom varieties
and get hands-on experience. Plus you'll be helping us
with our community orchards and nursery. We're trying
to graft 200 dwarf apple trees and possibly other
types. Bring your grafting knives! This will be
outdoors unless its raining and then we'll find an
indoor space. directions are at
www.apcollaborative.org and
www.ploughsharesnursery.com
we'll have signs up on the day to have people find us,
as it will be location depending on the weather.
Questions, please call Christopher Shein at 510-755-1102.

Permaculture show on Terra Verde

Ok, at the end of the show they said that it had been recorded in summer of 2004. That explains some of the things I'm talking about below.

I'm listening to part of today's Terra Verde show about Permaculture. There are a lot of WRONG statements in here:

-the garden "on MLK about 3 blocks north of Ashby" that the guy's student(s) helped design is no longer there

-there is not a surplus of classes and ways to learn about permaculture- if there were, they'd be cheaper and more accessible. the only ones they listed are hard to get to. They talked about the ones at Merritt College. there are also workshops and stuff at the Alameda Point Collaborative (how is one supposed to get there? is the land safe for growing food?)

they are talking about a 2-week course that info can be found out about at permaculture.com

also talking about urbanpermacultureguild.org

funny, when i look around the kpfa site for Terre Verde, I keep seeing all these different links to websites like whirledbank.org and moles.org, which is Project Underground. there was a weather service alert in the middle of the show, i wonder if that will be in the archives...?