Grow Local
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Dig in with Master Gardeners
The UC Master Gardener Program Offers Science-Based Solutions to Your Gardening Questions A flourishing garden—whether on a large lot, small patio, or even a community garden plot—holds enduring appeal for so many of us. We dream of picking fresh plump tomatoes or clipping lettuce leaves or flowers from our neatly maintained patch out back. It’s an…
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Ripe for Change: Making Space for Food in Wine Country
There’s a new crop popping up across Sonoma County. You’ve probably seen them while driving by rolling hills or along rural roads. Emerging from soil once dominated by grapes, this new crop is sturdy, oddly rectangular, and complicates the future of local agriculture: “For Sale” signs. For half a century, ever since local wine began…
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Grow Local – Grazing for Good
PHOTOS BY PAIGE GREEN With a knife sheathed in her belt on one side and a bright orange mallet on the other, Paigelynn Trotter traverses a steep hillside with a baby strapped to her back, and a livestock guardian dog at her side. She’s studying how 140 goats just grazed down the spring forage where…
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Grow Local – Zero Foodprint Steps Up
What if part of the solution to climate change was just dining out at our favorite restaurants? Could it be that easy? It might be if the folks at Zero Foodprint have anything to do with it. Through small donations from local food systems, the Healdsburg-based Zero Foodprint (ZFP) funds grants that enable farms and…
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Grow Local – Stay Gold
One might not describe an apple as “attitudinal.” But Brooke Hazen of Gold Ridge Organic Farms does. In part, he’s referring to the flavor expression of hard-to-find apples like the Pitmaston Pineapple, Strawberry Parfait, Cinnamon Spice, and Winter Banana—all heirloom varieties which, Hazen affirms, taste like their namesakes. A “attitudinal” heirloom of note for him…
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Grow Local – The Future of Farming, Part 1
PHOTOS: PAIGE GREEN Small-scale farmers are inherently resourceful. They have to be. Often operating on a shoestring budget, they make the most of what they have: stacking functions, repurposing materials, taking a tool designed for one task and, after a bit of welding and duct tape, jury-rigging it until it can accomplish a dozen different…
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Orange You Glad It’s Fall?
Autumn in Sonoma County is positively gourd-geous, and with more pumpkin patches than you can shake a broomstick at, there are plenty of opportunities to carve out some fall family fun. From mom-and-pop u-picks to activity-packed haunts with carnival vibes, there’s something here for every-boo-dy to enjoy this season. I really love fall. Maybe it’s…