Compost is life out of leftovers, and healthiness out of rot. It is as free as the rain. To compost is to watch the change from garbage to something rich, dark, earthy and healthy. You take old slimy banana peels and carrot tops and orange peels with green mold growing on them and all this junk that is kinda smelly and awful and you pile it up with a little bit of dirt and weeds and other dry materials and the whole thing cooks down, by some miraculous process, into something crumbly and dark that smells like the forest after a rain. It's so full of life you can almost visibly see it. 

The best way to start a pile is with a layer of dry stuff and weeds as a pad underneath and put all that juicy rotten kitchen waste on top of the weeds and then cover that with a sprinkling of soil to keep the flies out. Then you put another layer of garden weeds and then a layer of kitchen waste. It usually takes me 3-6 months to build up a proper pile and then you just move over and start a new one. By the time the second pile is built up, the first pile is transformed and ready to put into the garden. 

I don't turn it or get scientific about it. If you build it right in the first place, it takes care of itself. Then you can shovel it into the garden or sprinkle it on flowers or put it wherever you are starting a new bed. You can even spread it out in place, dig it into the soil and plant right there. Where you've had an old compost pile is the best place to put a new garden bed. You can start compost piles wherever it's convenient. Make it easy on yourself. 

Compost is light and changeable. It can absorb a lot of moisture like a sponge. It doesn't really dry out. There is a lot of exchange going on. It's a brew of acids, dissolved minerals and microbial life that acts together. I don't think the soil scientists understand what is going on in compost. They just know that it works. When life first started, I imagine it was a similar stew of acids and chemicals and all of a sudden it took on a spark and came alive and that is what compost is. It is the life element. 

SEEDS

SALLY BURNS, Ridgewood Ranch
Christ Church of the Golden Rule 

We grow only non-hybrid plants so we can save our own seeds and become more self-sufficient in this way. We also feel very strongly about helping to preserve the seed bank. Using our own seed also helps to acclimate the plants to our particular environment, making them more healthy and vigorous. We are growing some seed for Bountiful Gardens this year. 

BETSY BRUNEAU 
Bountiful Gardens, Willits 

The exciting thing about seeds, especially open-pollinated varieties, is the potential of saving your own seeds and developing your own varieties. If there is a particular plant that seems to do better than the others you can take seeds from that one and develop a strain that is particularly good in your soil and climate. Even here in Willits, there are certainly a lot of micro-climates. If you are on Pine Mountain, or Sherwood Road or Golden Rule, you will have different soils, get frost at different times and get different amounts of rain. 

It's very easy to save seeds and it's a lot of fun. Seeds are free. Rather than buying lots of little plants, starting from seed in a greenhouse or cold frame saves a lot of money. For low income people, which we certainly have a lot of in this county, this is a cheap way to get things. It's fun to see the whole cycle of the plant growing and producing seeds. Biennials like hollyhocks take two years and some plants cross pollinate easily so you have to think about that, but all and all, it's not hard to do. It just requires observing. I tend to personally like things that go to seed anyway. I've never been very good at pruning. I like to just let things go. Letting them go to seed kind of fits with my personality. 

I also enjoy saving seeds from wild things and from other people's plants. The Seed Saver's Exchange, which is based in Iowa, is really a neat seed bank. When you join, you get a tremendous directory of people's seeds. You can trade with people all over the country. Some are seeds that people have had in their family forever. They are all open pollinated varieties. It's also fun just to read the book. 

Heirloom varieties are older seeds that haven't been hybridized and tampered with. A lot of the ones you see in magazines were grown at colonial plantations, by pioneers or those who came later from the old country and brought neat varieties with them. Some East Coast museums are trying to replant gardens with early historical varieties like the Williamsburg Foundation . 

If you want to save your own seeds, don't start with hybrids. When you grow from seeds from a hybrid plant you won't get the same thing, and you may get something that's not very good. When a company sells hybrid seed, they have you over a barrel. You have to go back to them to get that seed again. Packets that are hybrid say F-1. This is a genetic term. With hybrids, every seed in the packet is genetically the same, so if a disease came through, it would affect all the plants in the same way. 

If you have genetic diversity, you will have some plants that are resistant and some that aren't. The resistant varieties will survive and you could save seed from those. In general, it is better to stick with open pollinated varieties so that genetic diversity is preserved globally. It may not be quite as important in your own backyard plot, but in terms of world economics and world ecology, it is better to sustain that diversity rather than go to things that are genetically similar. Also, make sure the seeds aren't treated with chemical fungicides or herbicides. If they are, the packet has to say so. Also I'm a little wary of really cheap seeds because their germination rate may not be very good. 

THE SOIL

CAROL COX, Research Garden 
Manager Ecology Action  
Pine Mountain, Willits

Traditionally people knew how to maintain soil fertility. They knew that the soil was their only resource and that if they wore it out they had to let it rest and come back to it after it had regenerated. And all of that was a slow process and involved a lot of land. As the amount of fertile land decreased, populations increased. With the invention of chemical fertilizers, the focus has been on how to get the most plants out of a certain area. All we have to do is dump drugs into the soil to keep it producing. For a long time the people didn't realize that chemicals were in fact just depleting the soil and that sooner or later it would run out of fertility. No amount of chemicals can restore fertility. This can only be done with organic matter. 

TERESA SHOLARS, Instructor 
College of the Redwoods, Fort Bragg

In Mendocino County, the coastal ranges are sandstone. We also have serpentine and even some volcanic rock. Variability of soils comes from variability of bedrock. Climate is also very important in soil development. We have a tremendous amount of variety in our soils. Here on the coast, the young sandy soils are nearer the ocean. Pigmy soils are very difficult to work in and I actually don't like to see pigmy land converted into garden, since there is so little of it. The further away you go from the ocean, the soils are older and have more clay. Inland where the weather is hotter and there is no summer fog, there is no big vegetation, so you don't get as much organic material. Sandy and clay soils require different strategies. Because soils on the coast are generally acid due to our rainfall and vegetation, there's been a big push to add lime to our soils, but this is not appropriate county-wide. 

When we started our garden up Little Lake Road in Mendocino, it was a compacted log landing, which means heavy, compacted clay so we had to double dig that soil. But after 22 years of chicken and horse manure and compost and fish and all the things we've put into the soil, it is fantastic. I never dig my garden anymore. 

It has moles and snakes that keep it churned up. All I have to do is continually add organic material. When it's fallow I just put black plastic, wheat cloth, boards, or anything over the soil to keep the weeds out. Yesterday my son and I planted beans. Three beds of beans took 45 minutes. Fifteen years ago that would have taken us all day. In big agriculture they now recognize that there's too much tillage--too much plowing. Tillage is a good thing, up to a point. If the structure is good and there is porosity, there's no reason to dig. 

SARA MCCAMANT 
Head Gardener, Shenoa

We have very sandy soil here, so in my experience, the last thing on earth it needs is to be heavily turned. It doesn't need double digging. It needs to be mulched, not tilled. It has almost too much air and too much water drainage. What it feels like it needs is for the earthworms to do their work and to help build soil structure. I used to love to turn beds, but I try to do it less and less and use more mulching and permaculture, sheet mulching. I feel very non-dogmatic in the way I garden. I try do what works for where I'm at.

TECHNIQUE

SARA MCCAMANT, Head Gardener 
Shenoa, Philo

What we do here I describe as jungle gardening. I don't follow any one technique. I use different ones that work for me, for the soil, for the plants. I also believe that a lot of the different styles are about matching people's personalities with how they can be in the garden. Some people have a lot of energy they need to burn off so they need to double dig. Other people want to write poetry in the garden and they may be better with a more natural farming, no till method. So it's a matter of what does your soil need and what is your environment and your time and personality. I try to use a mishmash of approaches and I believe all of them have good qualities. I don't really follow any one of them. It ends up being a jungle. 

PATTIE GARDINER 
Rivendale Farms, Potter Valley

It's very important to listen to your heart and for the garden to be a place of joy. I think in so many magazines the idea is that it has to be picture perfect and you must follow certain rules. I think for it to really be a rewarding experience, it has to be an expression of yourself and you have to listen to what's inside of you and try to do that. 

LAND STEWARDSHIP

PAM CALLAGHAN
Inspector for California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), Boonville

Mendocino County has somewhere around 100 members of CCOF. I think I'm the only inspector that lives in the county. I inspect mostly small farms and about eighty percent of these have women involved. 

The registration of an organic farm is just paperwork and money changing hands with the State of California. If a person wants to make that further statement, I'm really committed and I can prove that I'm committed, then they become a member of a certifying organization like CCOF. Most small farms in this county are with CCOF or the Biodynamic Association which has its own certification process and is much stricter. 

We look at the whole growing operation, the fields and the boundaries of the farm. Most farmers notify neighbors that they growing organically. If an organic farm is right next to a conventional farm, we require a buffer between the organic produce and the conventional land's fence line. If land has been farmed with pesticides or fertilizers in the past, the farm goes through a pending process and is inspected every year for three years. If someone buys or owns land that has been fallow or hasn't had any chemicals applied to it, they can get into a one year certification program where they are inspected twice in one year. Once certified, a farm can use the CCOF logo on their marketing materials. 

Part of the yearly inspecting process is education for the farmers. The ethics of land stewardship is an important aspect of this education and a requirement for certification. A good steward is concerned with soil preservation (not losing topsoil to wind or water erosion), doesn't poison the land in any fashion by using chemical fertilizers, and maintains biodiversity by creating buffer zones of vegetation to encourage our native species of birds, animals and plants. This makes organic farming easier. Being a good steward also includes good use of irrigation water, treating farm workers ethically, and treating animals in a humane fashion. Farms have lost their certification due to what is called "organic neglect." Doing nothing is not organic. Taking things out without putting anything back depletes the soil. Putting back means composting and growing cover crops that are tilled back into the soil. This nurtures the soil microbes.

BEYOND ORGANIC

CAROL COX, Research Garden Manager 
Ecology Action, Pine Mountain, Willits

The concepts of biointensive go back 4,000 years ago to China. They had a way of double digging, used compost and planted close together. The Greeks also did a form of biointensive as did some of the South American and Latin American cultures. Besides double digging, raised beds, and close spacing, biointensive gardening focuses on soil fertility. We raise crops that allow us to recycle nutrients. If we eat food from the garden and then use the toilet and flush all those things away, that's not a closed circle. We are trying to keep nutrients within the system. In the long run that will involve recycling human waste, but until that is legal and safe, what we are focusing on is growing compost crops. These are crops that produce carbon and that can create compost that can be put back into the soil. 

GLORIA DECATER 
Live Power Community Farm, Covelo  

We farm four acres biodynamically with draft horses in Covelo. Our farm includes raising cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, turkeys and pigs. Biodynamics, an approach to agriculture developed by Austrian Rudolf Steiner in the 1920s, includes the concept of the whole farm organism, including the animals, and the idea of having all the needs for input within this organism and generating fertility out of it. The biodynamic approach seeks to enliven the soil by adding special herbal, manure and mineral preparations to the compost, fields and plants. Biodynamics also includes planting by the moon.

FAMILY & COMMUNITY GARDENING

KATY BROWN
Home Gardener, Ukiah 

The idea that you can go out and put a seed in the ground and feed yourself never fails to blow my mind. And it is so easy and inexpensive and it creates such a connection between the planet and our bodies. 

I had my first garden when I moved here from the Bay Area at 40 years old. I told my real estate agent, "Whatever I buy, it must have room for a big garden." This is my 17th garden and I get just as excited every spring. To me, it's the main focus of my life. I wouldn't eat anything that wasn't organic. I wouldn't even consider it. Why would anybody in their right mind? So the big thing is keeping my soil healthy, making compost and eating my own vegetables. We eat out of our garden. What is there dictates the meal. I've grown everything from peanuts to yams. In the summer when all the tomatoes and cucumbers come on, that's pretty much what we live on. That's a great cleansing time. In the winter, you get into heavier food and summer is a good time to simplify the diet and cleanse. 

SALLY BURNS
Ridgewood Ranch
Christ Church of the Golden Rule 

Everything all of us do here is in the context of our spiritual beliefs that demonstrate the wisdom of living by the Golden Rule. Our beautiful valley has waterfalls, creeks, a lake, redwood groves and white deer. I live here with my husband and son. People look after each other's kids. It's a wonderful place to raise kids because you feel so safe. We live, work and worship together with other full-time members as a part of the training for our church's ministry.

My husband and I manage the several acres of organic gardens that provide us, as well as the local food bank, with an abundance of produce. Our primary purpose is to grow food to feed the 40 to 50 people who eat together in the dining room each day. We preserve as much of our food as we can. Besides the garden produce, we also have walnuts, apples, plums, pears, blackberries, persimmons and grapes. We can, freeze and dry many nuts, vegetables and herbs. We have canning parties where people come together and preserve the food for the winter.

We feel that the garden is becoming one of the important focal points for this community. It is having a positive effect on long term health from eating the organic vegetables to the healing experience of being in the garden.

GLORIA DECATER 
Live Power Community Farm, Covelo 

In Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a community of members decide to make a year-long commitment to support a particular farm. The budget of the farm is divided among the people associated with it and as a result they receive its bounty. The idea is consumers and farmers working together to create a healthy agriculture. They share together in the risks and the joy of the farm. We have members from San Francisco, Covelo, Willits, Ukiah and Redwood Valley. We grow 90 shares of vegetables, which represents about 150 families and several communities. 

CSA started in this country about twelve years ago and now there are 500 or more farms operating this way throughout the country. We were one of the first farms in California when we started 10 years ago. The vegetables our members receive is based on the season. The goal is to provide a food supply for them and one that is extremely nutritious. Our produce is biodynamic certified. 

ALEXSONDRA BLOMBERG
Healing Arts Center, Willits 

We aren't doing this community garden the way others have. We are experimental. We won't have separate plots but everyone will share. Anyone can come by here and work to eat. We have been getting buckets of organic compost from Tsunami and plant starts from the Church of the Golden Rule. When you come here you'll find in the shed a Garden Journal. You can read it and write in it. There is a chalk board where we write down our needs for the garden. There's a time card file for keeping track of the hours you spend here working and a tasks list. The tools are in the shed. We work on the honor system. We just finished a Blessing ceremony here. We made a bed bordered by rocks in the shape of a heart. We planted chamomile to lie in and next to that we planted a Hawthorn tree for the heart. 

TEACHING & RESEARCH GARDENS

LOUISA LENZ-PORTER,
Garden Manager, Emandal,
"A Farm on a River" 
16 miles east of Willits at the foot of Mt. San Hedrin 

I do a lot of teaching here. During a 6-8 week period in the spring, we run environmental groups for schools from the Bay area. The classes of 3rd to 6th graders stay from three to four days. Our staff takes the kids hiking in the forest and along the river where they identify plants, look at bugs, catch snakes and have other hands-on experiences. The children spend time in the garden planting tomatoes, corn, beans and squash, clear the fields of rocks, build up compost piles, enhance the soil with the finished compost and add their good energy to the process. They also take care of farm animals--chickens, cows or goats, participate in kitchen jobs such as baking bread, making desserts or cheese, do recycling and fix and repair things on the farm. We all work together to have the farm operate smoothly. It's really fun and rewarding to see the smiles on the kids faces as they learn and interact in shared experiences with each other. That is the highlight of what we do here. In summer we have five weeks of camp. The campers help keep up the garden with weeding, watering and playing in the 'mud hole' near the squash and beans. In fall, students from local schools come to help with the harvest, clear the fields of dry corn stalks and withering tomato vines, add to the last compost pile before winter and sow the annual cover crop.

SALLY BURNS 
Ridgewood Ranch 

Here at Ridgewood Ranch, we lead a 4-H club. About fifteen kids come once a month with their parents. The kids have their own garden and learn basic skills of organic gardening. We are planting a three sisters Native American garden with mounds of corn, beans and squash. Traditionally Native Americans farmers throughout the United States have planted that combination together. They compliment each other. The corn grows up and the beans twine around the corn and then the squash trails and shades the ground. The beans feed the corn because they put nitrogen into the soil. The corn is supporting the beans and the squash shades the ground and keeps the weeds from growing. This is a traditional way of planting.

BINET PAYNE 
Laytonville Middle School 

I have been involved with gardening in an educational setting for the last 14 years and am currently working in collaboration with the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley. I see the garden as a unique opportunity for students to learn hands-on and get reconnected to earth centered values which are lacking, even in the students that I see here in rural communities. Our program serves pre-school through 8th grade and is in the beginning phase of making it available for the high school.

We do vermicomposting of food waste here on site. During our first year we composted 3600 pounds of cafeteria food waste. We've been doing this for four years. In addition to our food waste, we use the paper waste generated from our classrooms as bedding for our earthworms. My students have been helping me with data collection for a book that will hopefully be published by the fall of 1997. It will serve as a manual for other schools throughout the nation. We are considering the title, The Birth of Earth. 

CAROL COX, 
Research Garden Manager 
Ecology Action, Pine Mountain, Willits 

I manage the Research Garden for Ecology Action, a non-profit organization involved in education, research and outreach with the goal of sharing with as many people as possible Biointensive sustainable mini-farming.

We have a sister organization in Mexico called Ecopol and a Biointensive training center in Kenya called Manor House Agricultural Centre. The Common Ground Garden Supply and Educational Center in Palo Alto sells seed, gardening supplies, books, has a gardening library and sponsors classes for most of the year. The staff here teaches there at least once a quarter. It and the seed company called Bountiful Gardens in Willits are branches of Ecology Action.

Our membership is national and worldwide. We put out a quarterly newsletter with reports on the results of the research in the garden, feature articles, book reviews, a networking section, and noteworthy information.

What is exciting to me is being able to both my head and my hands in all of this. Our research has been going on for more than 25 years. The focus has always been on growing food crops for a balanced diet, and on growing income and compost crops effectively and efficiently in the smallest possible area. The research now has evolved to the point where the main focus is sustainable soil fertility. How do we give the soil what it needs to keep on producing food?

We have four garden tours in the season, give periodic three-day workshops and longer trainings for people who are involved in more extensive projects. People come from all over the country and other countries as well, places like Argentina, the Philippines, Russia, Mexico, Kenya, Haiti and Canada. We encourage people to do a fair amount of reading on the biointensive method before they come so the presentation can broaden and deepen that reading. They take their understanding back to community garden projects, school garden projects, and their own gardens. For further training, we are beginning a teacher track.

The garden has the equivalent of one hundred ten 100 square foot beds or 11,000 square feet of planted surface. The fenced area is just over one acre. It is on a hillside. Half of the beds are terraced and some of the beds are in perennials. We also grow a lot of alfalfa and comfrey for compost and flowers. Our focus is on calorie crops. It's been found that if you get enough calories you get enough protein. As our research has evolved, we teach people to garden 60% of their area in crops that produce high amounts of carbon and significant amounts of calories like grains (winter grains like wheat, barley, rye and oats and summer grains like amaranth and corn), 30% in significant calorie-producing root crops (like potatoes, beets, parsnips and rutabagas) and 10% in salad vegetables that provide vitamins and minerals. Most people who say they grow their own food, produce the summer vegetables but they don't focus on the things that really sustain them, the things that give them calories. 

JEANNE KENNEDY, Westwind Farms, 
155 acres 5 miles out Low Gap Road from Ukiah 

Our family run business markets mostly lettuce, sugar peas and carrots. We grow our food in nine 100 foot terraces on a SW facing hillside. These terraces are about 3 feet wide, eighteen inches high and 100 feet long. We start our plants in a little cold frame and have dug a hole for a future earth greenhouse that will be built totally from recycled materials. We used to remodel commercial hotels and we have a lot of windows that we are going to use in the greenhouse.

All our fence posts were taken from an old Redwood tree that someone had cut here in the 1920s. After we hauled out the tree, we used an Alaskan chain saw, maul, and ax to make the posts and a gas powered post hole auger for the holes. We put the posts in by hand. I totally participated in all of this including building our house. 

The farmer's market is a great way to supplement our income. We go down in the evening and pick the vegetables. This is a labor of love. My husband is the compost maker and planter and my 9 year old son and I harvest and sell. I direct the kid's farmer's market in Ukiah. It takes place during the end of June, July and August. They have developed their own clientele. It's very good for them and they give the best prices. They set up under the tree in front of the Mendocino County Library in Ukiah. 

I also make garden banners which are three dimensional fabric banners that are kind of like wind socks without tails. They keep birds away, are nice to look at and move in the wind. My banner business is run off the solar energy in our solar electric house. 

Since we are also the distributor, we call ourselves a truck farm. We provide fresh, local, just picked, organic leafy greens. Sometimes we do sweet peas as well. We moved to Elk from Willits three years ago January. We started out small and funky. We grew our first crop on a slope, which didn't really work with our cultivation equipment. And it was the coldest summer! I remember being out on July 4th in woolens and still being cold. The winds that year were ferocious. 

Lettuce is tricky. It has a shallow root system and doesn't like too much wind or sun. We use an agricultural fabric (called "Remay") as pest control and it also keeps the wind off. We are on fifty acres of land. We work twenty acres but since we rotate crops, we actually farm between seven and twelve acres. We grow organic cover crops, legumes and grasses. 

>Our growing season is ten months. By July, we have planted for fall, and by August, for the winter. The cycles keep us hopping. We harvest two days a week. We harvest mainly leafy greens and spinach--very perishable stuff. Our market is local and our edge is freshness. 

JUDY BEAR & SHARON SUMMERS
Four Thumbs Perennials,
managers of The Farmers Market, Mendocino 

SHARON: The guiding spirit of the market is the people. They're great to be around three times a week, from the old-timers to the new comers. When we started we were working with a group of strangers, but it didn't stay that way for long. It feels like family six months out of the year. 

I've come full circle with farming since I was born on the family farm in Nebraska. We left when I was seven and although I've always had gardens, I've also always moved about every year so I didn't get to enjoy the full cycle of the gardens. Now that I'm taking my stand at the Farmer's Market, I've been planted here for five years now.

JUDY: To market successfully, the plants have to be blooming. People just can't imagine what they will look like otherwise. Most vendors sell either vegetables, flowers or perennials. We grow and sell all three. It's a push to load and unload everything but we like it. We're moving toward culinary and healing herbs. My dad was a doctor and I've always been interested in natural healing.

My first gardening experience was when my grandfather grew a magical garden behind the house when I was a child. Later I recall my mother growing a flower that doesn't grow in Texas--Flax. She told me all about it--the seed, the way it grows, how to water it. I've been interested in gardening ever since I can remember. Farmer's Market combines this and my other love, street selling. Maybe it's the gypsy in me. 

SALLY SCHMITT & KAREN BATES
The Apple Farm, Philo 

We have 30 acres, 18 acres of organic apples and pears and a space for our vegetable and flower gardens. Our family has had several commercial kitchens and restaurants over the years. We started out in the Napa Valley. We had a restaurant there called Chutney Kitchen and then one in an old stone building in Yountville called the French Laundry. For the past three years we have had a kitchen in Philo. In addition to processing jams, jellies and chutneys, we produce apple cider, apple balsamic vinegar, cider syrup, and dried fruit. Our apples are available from August to November. 

DANA WILLIAMS, Head Gardener 
Big River Nursery 
Stanford Inn by the Sea 

We have a market garden and sell to some Mendocino restaurants. When we grow a head of lettuce, we cut the whole head and take it to them. Permaculture is sustainable agriculture. You don't take the whole plant but take the outer leaves and keep the plant going. We are moving in that direction since we are opening our own restaurant. We'll be using more perennial and medicinal herbs. The owner, Jeff Stanford, is a very devoted vegetarian. We are trying more and more not to take the life of something if we don't have to, even if it is a lettuce plant. 

The garden here began as a marketing tool to promote the Fetzer wines as a food or to be served with food. The Fetzers produced recipes to use with the vegetables and wines they grew and produced. When the garden first began, the vineyards were farmed conventionally with chemicals. After seeing the organic garden grow so beautifully, a gradual change took place in the vineyard. Now all the land is farmed organically. 

Brown Forman, who bought Fetzer four years ago, decided to direct the facility towards the consumer rather than the trade. A year ago they reduced the size of the garden and culinary staff. Since I have worked here for many years I had a good knowledge of the mechanics of running the garden and how much care vegetables and ornamentals need. I had to look at how I could make the whole garden more efficient with a reduced staff. A lot of the beds that were planted in annual flowers are now perennial herbs. We are doing successive plantings of full size lettuces rather than a multitude of plantings of baby lettuce. Winter squash and pumpkins are planted in spring and harvested in late fall with no work in between. Gourds and melons are also not too labor intensive. Hot chilis are beautiful and ornamental as well as edible and you don't have to pick them. We have a minimum of tomatoes, bell peppers and eggplants. 

What I like about the garden is what it does for people. I felt driven to make it work, both for the people who come here and for the three workers who were left. Technically the garden's purpose is to promote the organic brand of Fetzer wine, Bonterra, and to talk about flavor. The tour hosts and wine makers come out and taste different herbs with different wines. They talk about the complementary flavors of herbs, fruits and wines. This brings about a discussion of how alive our food is and how organic agriculture works. 

I see the real purpose of the garden as a place that makes people feel wonderful. They are impressed that Fetzer sponsors and supports it. A few days ago a very conservatively dressed woman said, "I just wanted to tell you that coming to your garden is as good as going to church." I thought that was a significant statement. A month before that, a woman from England said, "I just wanted to tell you the incredible feeling of peace I have here." I said, "The gardens of England are some of the finest in the world." She said, "I know, but this place gives me a feeling that I have never gotten over there." These kind of statements and the obvious day to day enjoyment, entertainment and happiness I see and hear people express as they walk through the garden makes it all worth it for me. The garden gives people a lasting impression of their visit to the tasting facility. There are lots of wineries, but there are very few large beautiful gardens like this that people get to interact with on so many levels. 

Primary and middle schools come out here, high schools, college classes, master gardener groups and garden clubs from all over, horticulturists and sustainable agriculture people. We also have conferences here. The vegetables are being used by the Deli at the tasting room, by employees, in cooking for the harvest crew and Plowshares gets some also. We also donate flowers, seeds, plants and vegetables to community projects and local schools.

 

SALLY SCHMITT & KAREN BATES 
The Apple Farm, Philo 

We do cooking classes on the weekends. They start on Friday night and go till Sunday. We do some single day classes during the week also. These classes are informal demonstrations, but on weekends people help. The menu reflects the season and what is ripe from the garden. 

CREATURES AROUND THE GARDEN

PATTIE GARDINER
Rivendale Farms, Potter Valley

It's so rewarding to be in a garden that is full of life other than just the plants. The attitude used to be use "Round-Up" and kill everything that doesn't belong here. It's very rewarding to see creatures in the garden. They are part of the natural balance that we are a part of. I try to appreciate everything that is there. 

Here are a few tips. We are losing a lot of the honey bee population to mites. Research at Ohio State University found that by putting out a mix of two parts of Crisco and one part of sugar, the bees will wallow in it. This prevents the mites from spreading through the colony. I went out and bought a can of Crisco. I plan on putting it out there this year and I hope they will make use of it. 

Ground Squirrels help bring up nutrients which is good for natural insect control and for a lot of flowers that the butterflies and the bees and other insects depend on. Sometimes one particular species of bee will rely on one species of flower for its survival and if that flower isn't there in the spring, that's the end of the bee forever. So I like the idea of leaving the wild flowers alone and even trying to help and encourage them. If you have a lot of birds you're not going to have a lot of trouble with pests. So, bird houses are great for pest control. 

Share with the animals--all of them. I put out inverted clay dishes for the frogs from the soil and provide a place for the burrowing owl. The burrowing owl lives in the ground and it doesn't dig its own hole. It has to use holes made by some other animal. A lot of people hate ground squirrels and I know a lot of people shoot them. They do damage to some extent in the garden, but I just think that's part of the cost of doing business so to speak. I'm happy to have them there. And the rattlesnakes are part of the whole picture. They help to keep the ground squirrels in check. 

Don't mow every last square inch of lawn in your yard. Leave room for the natives,and toads to use as shelter. Of course they eat the insects too, so you want to provide habitats for them. Brush piles are nice too. Don't clean up your yard so perfectly that there's no little pile of brush because obviously a lot of animals need that for shelter. 

LIESHA BOEK 
Viticultural Project Coordinator 
Kohn Properties, Hopland  

We are trying to re-introduce wildlife to help us farm. We put out nest boxes to bring birds back into our vineyards and put up perches for the hawks who control rodents and rabbits. We like to see mountain lion tracks in our vineyards because we know mountain lions help control the deer population. We have educated the workers not to kill all snakes because they control rodents. 

We have a habitat break in one of our vineyards in Ukiah. This is a long strip or corridor of fruit trees, herbs and flowering plants. It adds diversity to the vineyard and is an insectary for beneficial bugs. Some people from the University are studying it. It's doing very well and we will probably end up doing this in other vineyards in the future. It can be used as an educational tool for other growers. 

COMMUNION IN THE GARDEN

KATY BROWN
Home gardener, Ukiah

I've had a sensitive version of ESP all of my life which confused me. When I started gardening it literally grounded me to have my hands in the dirt. It centered me and naturally I was happier. 

I have had experiences many times of being inside doing some chore and I will drop everything and walk out immediately to one specific plant. It could be hidden somewhere among others or off some a distance away and I will go directly there to water it. I'll find that one of the sprinkler emitters is not working and he'll be sitting there needing water. It has happened so many times. I have this silent communication with the plants. I do that with my house plants inside also. It's like they call to me and I can hear their little voices. 

I've always been a perfectionist and you can't really be a perfectionist in the garden. I'm not the boss. Mother nature is the boss. You learn to accept things. Some things will do well here and some things don't. You may plant things one place and they will re-seed themselves somewhere else. Nature will do it her way and be better. Through that experience I came to understand a higher power. This is definitely all fact. I have thought about it for years. Gardening helped me in my spiritual and every other kind of growth and in communing with nature. The experience and feeling has grown every year. Of course, I really should live in a tree. The longer I live, I realize how close I have gotten to nature. 

SARA MCCAMANT 
Head Gardener, Shenoa, Philo 

Moving here and getting more into gardening, getting the ground underneath my fingernails, my sense of the earth has become a lot stronger. I think that one of the more important things to do when you go to do a garden is to be very humble. Not that you lower yourself but that you become one with what you're working with. You don't walk in thinking that you know everything or that you're in charge and in control. Gardening is a humbling experience and if you don't humble yourself, the garden will do it for you. 

Pretty much whatever we wanted or needed with regard to the garden has come to us. The garden seems to take care of itself and always teaches manifestation--you can create what you need. I grew up with kind of a scarcity mentality thinking there's not enough to go around, but the garden has taught me over and over that there is a huge abundance.