“Buy Local.” Why do we keep saying that? Why is it important? What does it accomplish?
How: Buy your food from the most local producers you can find. For instance my farmers’ market often features vendors as close to L.A. as Moorpark, Lompoc, and Tehachapi. Try to shop first at the most-local vendors.
Shift your consciousness to view chain stores as a “last resort,” where you fill in a few remaining ingredients that the local farmers might not have.
Environmental benefits: When you buy from local farmers you reduce your food miles -the transportation (and greenhouse gas emissions) of your food.
Your financial support helps assure that local farmers stay in business – close to the cities, where we need them as the Age of Fossil Fuels necessarily drifts into the sunset. Continue Reading
Many popular garden books promote methods such as the “Lasagna method”: You layer materials such as cardboard, black plastic, compost, mulch, etc., on top of grass and create a garden. In Southern California we must evaluate such recommendations carefully:
If the only peas you’ve ever tasted are those chalky greyish marbles from the grocery store’s freezr section, you’re really missing out!
A one-day workshop with 
note: if you missed this workshop (or if you attended and enjoyed it) we are working out the details to have Pieter teach a 3-part series in January 2017. stay tuned!
Do you want to join the efforts to conserve heirloom vegetable seeds? Do you want to create your own vegetable varieties?
We know already that it’s gonna be a long hot summer. And (despite LA Times misleading headlines) Southern California is STILL in extreme drought conditions. That means we’ve got to adapt our gardens.