vegetables | Backyard Roots

A volunteer (left) with Jarryd Smith and Pac Rucker.

Believe it or not there are places in the Bay Area that the economy has forgot. If you head south of San Leandro to the unincorporated areas of Ashland, Cherryland, San Lorenzo and Hayward you’ll find a land of little hope. Densely populated; there are few parks, few jobs and few places places to buy healthy food. The popular hang-out spots are in front of liquor stores. The Alameda Sheriff’s Activity League was looking for a new way to prevent crime and improve the community. They already had boys and girls clubs, and programs for kids. Why not create opportunites for the people that lived there?

In 2010 Marty Neideffer, a sergeant at The Alameda Sheriff’s Office and founder of the Alameda County Deputy Sheriff’s Activity League read The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones. The book that suggested the best way to solve environmental problems and socioeconomic inequality was to create jobs in low income areas, jobs for the people who lived there that would improve the communities they lived in. The book made a lot of sense to Neideffer and he set out to establish urban agriculture as a way to do just that. He got grants, raised money and later that year they started the farm with just 1/3 of an acre. Dig Deep Farms and Produce was the result. The group employs local people to plant, harvest, pack, deliver and sell the organic produce. They now have several plots including eight acres at the newly acquired City View Farm next to the juvenile facility in the San Leandro hills. They grow greens, lettuce, onions, potatoes and more year round for their CSA “grub box” and also sell the vegetables at local produce stands. They coordinate with People’s Grocery in Oakland that helps distribute the boxes that range in price from $10-$25. If you’re an East Bay resident and you’d like to get healthy local organic food that provides jobs, sign up for the grub box here.

One of the group’s sites in Ashland.

Fresh collard greens

Hank Herrera shows the brand new City view farm plot in 2012.

Tommie Walker (yellow t shirt), volunteer Evelyn Manalang and Bo Faulkner pack the “grub box” bags.

Tommie Walker helps load the truck for delivery.

Bo Faulkner helps load the bags for delivery.

Chef/owner Christian Caiazzo at his old Pt Reyes farm.

A trip to Pt Reyes is always about landscape. The rugged wind swept fields, the farms, the ocean, it’s always the experience of the place that you remember. Osteria Stellina is about place too but the experience is more on the savory side. 80-90% of the food on the menu is grown nearby. From Bill Nimans organic, pasture-raised beef to local cheeses, oysters from Drake’s Bay, and specialty crops like broccolini from Fresh Run Farms, everything featured on the menu is local. Chef Christian Caiazzo is so serious about local he’s taken it to the next level, growing food for the restaurant at a farm nearby. He began growing produce back in 2010 just a year after he opened his restaurant and the reason he started is probably not what you’d expect. Osteria Stellina was producing a lot of vegetable scraps and there was no service to recycle the trimmings. He ended up taking it home and composting it himself. Not long afterwards he had some excellent soil amendments, and growing greens on the quarter acre behind his house near Pt Reyes seemed like the natural next step. When I visited his restaurant and farm last year for a Wall Street Journal restaurant review, I was impressed with the beautiful organic vegetables.

Since then the farm has moved to West Petaluma where the weather is better and the farm is bigger: tomatoes, peppers eggplants can grow during the summer as well as greens. During the growing season up to 35-40% of the fresh produce comes from the farm, with food delivered fresh 4 to 5 times a week. He works closely with farmer Molly Myerson and they are able to experiment. This year they had amazing luck with sunchokes; he uses them in soups, purées and roasts them. On the other hand, the 1500 strawberries they planted this year did not produce nearly the amount they hoped for. They also raise quail for eggs and meat and hope to start experimenting with shiitakes and oyster mushrooms. So next time you’re in Pt Reyes taste it, as well as see it. Support a local restaurant and farm with some seriously delicious food at Osteria Stellina.