First Steps in Local Food

I'd like to start eating more local and organic food. I'm not ready to go 100% local since I don't know where to find everything I would need (especially grains). Also, if you need to know where all of your food comes from, it's very hard to eat out except at a few places. With my busy life, I eat at the cafeteria in our "office park" quite a lot and who knows where that food comes from. I don't know that I have time to buy and prepare all of my food. Still, a few steps in that direction would be a good idea.

Yesterday, we went to the Heart of the City farmer's market. Its located in the UN plaza in San Francisco, right across from City Hall. From what I'd read about it the prices are great but there isn't much organic food. Both of these proved to be true. The oddest thing about the market was that almost none of the farmers had signs to indicate the name of their farm or where they are located.

I found one certified organic farm. It was only from the organic certification attached to the stand that I learned that the farm was Ortiz Brothers and that they were from Santa Rosa (about 55 miles from the market). I happily bought some broccoli, bok choy and cilantro from the Ortiz farm for $5. He was friendly as well and didn't mind when I used a little beginner Spanish.

I bought a red cabbage from a stand not labeled organic since I love red cabbage and it was the only stand that had any of it. It was only $1. I asked the woman where the farm was. She got irritated, and said "everybody" asks that and that she considers anything within 250 miles local. She mentioned San Juan Bautista. When I got home I discovered that this is ~92 miles from the market near Hollister, so it was probably fairly local.

We also got red potatoes, garlic, onion and chile peppers from the largest stand in the market, closest to City Hall. Again no mention of organic or where the farm is. They were very busy so I didn't ask. When we got home we had a nice, home-cooked, fairly local meal.

In general, I was fairly disappointed with the market given the small amount of organic food and the difficulty in figuring out where it's from. I probably won't go out of my way to there; but if I'm walking by the Civic Center on a Sunday or Wednesday, I'll be looking for the Ortiz Brothers.

Weeding and wildflowers

Today was a Saturday and an absolutely beautiful, warm, sunny day. I spent as much of it as possible in my front garden, pulling weeds. For the past few years, I've been gradually pulling out the grass in front of our house and replacing it with native plants (both shrubs and wildflowers). The wonderful thing is that once a species get established, the plants grow and spread on their own. The perennial shrubs grow each year and the annuals multiply and spread. Since the plants are adapted to this climate they don't need to be watered, except for the first year if you plant in the dry season. Finding the plants is more effort than for your standard garden center plants; but once they are going, they aren't much work at all. They do benefit from weeding out the remaining lawn grass as well as removing the other weeds. This fits in well with my busy schedule because I can put in some hours of weeding when I have time; but if I go a few weeks without working in the garden, they do just fine.

The ones that have spread the most are California poppies and beach strawberry. California poppies are the state flower and in my garden they grow large and re-seed prolifically. Every time I'm weeding I find a few small poppy plants that I hadn't seen before and I clear the grass from around them. In a few months the flowers should be stunning. Beach strawberry spreads by runners and it likes my garden. It's very effective at replacing the grass. So far no strawberries to eat, but it makes a attractive, low-maintenance ground cover that stays green and doesn't need to be watered.

The first few flowers are appearing in the garden. The first flower heads are appearing on my two Ceanothus (wild lilac) plants. The red maids (Calandrinia ciliata) are also just starting. I have many of the these rapidly-spreading annuals. In a few weeks, it will look really nice. Perhaps, I post some pictures. That will be a good incentive to clear out the weeds around these plants so that they take better pictures.

It was a wonderful day, and it was sad when I had to come inside to do some work.

Introduction

Here's some things you should know about me if you are reading my blog.

I'm a thirty-something married woman living the San Francisco Bay Area. I work an intense Silicon Valley job that keeps me very busy. I'm also trying to live a "green" life that minimizes my contribution to global warming, destruction of ecosystems and so on.

This blog describes my efforts to do both and still get enough sleep.