Organic Gardening Info from Peaceful Valley

Wendy Wagner is using local, organic produce for everything from cooking classes to catering. It’s great to see someone bring farm-fresh produce to the table!

IN THE KITCHEN will be hosting an afternoon of cooking and sharing food on Saturday, January 24th to celebrate the GRAND OPENING!

From 3-6 pm the kitchen will be open for tours, munching and mingling. Come and check out the beautiful new space that has been lovingly renovated from a residential bungalow to a commercial kitchen and event space!

A menu of hearty seasonal fare will be cooked and served throughout the afternoon. Come by to have fun and get acquainted with what In The Kitchen has to offer.

Read more on Wendy’s Blog: Local Food Tastes Better! 

Freshman Farmer is off and running. Over at the site I’ve put up the inaugural episodes in our video cast of Andrew Meyers’ progress in starting a fresh new CSA.

Andrew is a 23 year old farmer who Peaceful Valley is sponsoring in his first year of farming. We hope that by sharing his story, it will inspire and encourage a new generation of farmers to jump in and make a difference.

Click here to watch the videos and to read Andrew’s journal entries!

On Tuesday I got the opportunity to go up to Andrew Meyer’s farm, Wild Grace Organics. Andrew is the very first participant in Peaceful Valley’s “Freshman Farmer” program.

Andrew Meyers at Wild Grace Farm

Freshman Farmer is an initiative that Peaceful Valley took based on our understanding that farmers not only aren’t getting any younger, but younger people aren’t looking to farming as a valid career move either. So we’re “sponsoring” Andrew’s farm this year, giving him the equivalent of an employee discount on supplies that he needs to get started, and to grow a CSA for the season.

I’m making short videos to go along with his website, which is freshmanfarmer.groworganic.com. (as of this moment, March 13, there is not yet content, but keep on the lookout, an intro video is coming real soon!)

We will be checking in with him throughout the season to see how things are coming along, and what challenges and successes he is facing.

He will also be keeping a blog, regularly letting everyone know what is happening up at Wild Grace.

It’s such a cool program, one I’m really proud to be a part of. Each year we will be giving a young farmer a boost and interacting in a very positive and long term way, not just with the organic community, but with the community as a whole.

Other great things are coming out of this too, some I can’t talk about yet as they are not written in stone, but some, such as our retail store’s cooler being a drop off point for his boxes of veggies, that could really assist in making local food available and affordable for this community. Perhaps we will learn enough to be able to pass lessons we learn along to others.

Let us know what you think, if you’ve heard of anything similar regarding CSA’s, and if you have any questions!

We’re really excited about a big project we have coming up. We’re calling it ‘Freshman Farmers’, and what we’re doing is sponsoring a young farmer and supporting them in their journey to becoming a part of the organic farming community.
There is a troubling lack of young people interested in starting farms in California. We are hoping that by giving our first year farmer Andrew Meyers a helping hand by providing special prices so that he will be able to inspire a few others of his generation.

Andrew is farming some land in Nevada County in an organic way. He is ready to go for it after contributing a couple of years to other local farms and this year he will be launching a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).
A CSA allows for direct interaction between the consumer of organic food and the producer. In this way a local economic and cultural exchange is encouraged.
We are proud to be a part of Andrew’s start, and will keep you posted on our site devoted to his triumphs and tribulations.