Vital Cycles Brings Permaculture Instruction to Solano County

Nov 2, 2020

By Anne Freiwald & Lydia Neilsen, Vital Cycles

Vital Cycles is Anne Freiwald and Lydia Neilsen, permaculture educators based in Santa Cruz County. They bring together extensive backgrounds in community health and permaculture education and activism, and have taught classes to our local community through Sustainable Solano.

We are thrilled to be part of the diverse offerings Sustainable Solano provides the community! We have been consistently impressed and inspired by the commitment of Sustainable Solano and the larger community to regenerative practices and community resilience. Join us this January 2021 for Sustainable Solano’s first Permaculture Design Certificate Course (PDC), which we are kicking off with four free introductory classes so you can get to know us and get a taste of what permaculture is all about. See this link for more details.

Our first offering, Permaculture 101: Patterns and Principles, focused on three of our favorite patterns: the meander, dendritic branching and the keyhole bed design. Patterns provide tools for understanding the big picture as well as design ideas to integrate. Permaculture principles represent stories and ways of understanding that offer deeper perspective on how we interpret our landscapes and make design decisions. This shift in thinking is critical to our roles as members of and tenders within the ecosystems we inhabit. Missed this one? Check it out in the video above, or here.

This Saturday, Nov. 7, from 11 am-12:30 pm we will be taking a deep exploration of Soil, Water, and Plants. As gardeners, we are working with these three all the time, but do we really understand the nature of their interactions? How can we honor and enhance their interconnections and synergy on a backyard scale? How do they regulate carbon in our atmosphere and what is their role in maintaining local and global climate? Join us for an integrated perspective and practical examples for working with soil, water and plants, so that we can all move towards dynamic stability through ecological co-creation. Register here.

Our following talks will be on the parallels between our natural and internal worlds, particularly the cycles of sleep and water, and community and the permaculture concept of guilds (plants that work together to support one another). The sleep and water talk will be Dec. 12 and the guilds and community talk on Jan. 9 (registration will open soon). We hope you’ll join us for all of these informative talks and dive deeper into the study of permaculture with the PDC this January in Benicia!

Wildfire Relief Goes to Farms to Meet Immediate Needs and Build Future Resilience

Oct 30, 2020

By Sustainable Solano

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. James Muncy, 60th Civil Engineer Squadron crew chief, puts out burning embers near a residence on Gibson Canyon Road in Vacaville, California, Aug. 20, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Nicholas Pilch)

In the weeks since the LNU Lightning Complex wildfires tore through many of Solano County’s family farms, we have been humbled by the number of you who poured in donations to help those who had lost homes, animals, farm structures and crops to the devastation.

Through the Bounty of the County: Stronger Together fundraising, special fundraising packages from local wineries and generous donations from more than 160 individual donors, Sustainable Solano has collected more than $10,000 that we now plan to distribute to help with the immediate needs of those farmers. Working closely with the Solano-based farming community, we looked at where the most need is and where we could make the most impact with your donations.

Toward that end, we identified these farms, ranches, wineries and agritourism businesses in need of support:

But those donations have inspired something more than a one-time distribution. Some of our farmers told us they wanted the donations for more immediate needs to go to those farms that needed them more, but they are examining how to rebuild and their long-term needs are great. We are pleased to say that we can offer that support as well. Alongside the Bounty of the County fundraising effort, Sustainable Solano was awarded disaster relief funding from the Solano Community Foundation that will help us look at the next stage of recovery for our Solano County farms, including those that have received your donations and others that are rebuilding for the future. We will continue to work with our local farmers to help coordinate with farms hurt by the fires for project-based funding that best addresses their mid-term needs. Find out more about how SCF supports our work here.

And beyond that stage? We want to help our local farms prepare for the future, and a big part of that is supporting resilient, regenerative ways of farming that are healthier for the planet, the farmers, and for those of us eating the food grown in this manner. Some of our local farmers use regenerative approaches in their operations, including low-till methods, building soil health without the use of artificial fertilizers and using integrated pest management as opposed to pesticides. We want to further support these efforts, so with the long-term resiliency of our farms in view, we hope to seek further funding that can help local farmers engage in recovery in a more regenerative way.

Do you wish to continue to support these efforts? You can still donate directly to help with fire relief or the next stage of recovery and rebuilding. To do so, either send a check to Sustainable Solano, P.O. Box 1215, Benicia CA 94510, or donate through our PayPal link. To make sure your donation goes to wildfire relief for farms, please note that the donation is for “Fire Relief.” You can also continue to purchase fire relief fundraiser packages from participating wineries that have extended their offers to continue to raise funds.

We look forward to sharing with you how our Solano County farmers are recovering and rebuilding – and how they are moving to more regenerative approaches through your generous support.

Solano Community Foundation Funding Supports Sustainable Solano & Local Food

Oct 29, 2020

By Sustainable Solano

As a nonprofit organization, Sustainable Solano continuously seeks funding from various grants and other sources that can support the work we do. But there is something that deepens our connection to the local community when funding comes from a local source.

We are grateful to the Solano Community Foundation and its donors for their ongoing support of our work, including two recent funding awards that will help us continue our work supporting our local food system and access to healthy food within our communities.

The SCF has provided a $25,000 grant that Sustainable Solano will use to support our Solano Gardens program. Solano Gardens establishes and revitalizes edible gardens in communities that have limited access to healthy, fresh produce. Using permaculture principles that support healthy soil, rainwater capture and water conservation, these gardens provide a source of fresh produce, a hub for information about sustainable urban agriculture and a place to build relationships. To date, Solano Gardens has established nine gardens at schools, places of worship and multi-unit housing, such as an apartment complex and a veterans home. These gardens were funded by Solano County as part of the Solano Community Health Improvement Plan. With further funding in question, we are so grateful that SCF stepped in at this crucial time so we can continue to create new gardens around the county in communities that need them and offer ongoing support to existing gardens and the community champions who make those gardens vibrant and sustainable. Know of a site that could benefit from this program? Fill out our Sustainable Landscaping Interest Form to let us know about it!

Of course, food security does not only come from growing our own food. The pandemic’s effects on the industrial agriculture system showed us the flaws and where supply chains broke down. That is another reason it is so important to support our local farmers through buying directly from them or from retailers and restaurants who source from local farms. This is a big part of our local food system work, but the wildfires that tore through western Solano County raised a new, more immediate concern for our Solano farmers who had already been adjusting to the pandemic.

We started raising funds through Bounty of the County: Stronger Together to help the farms hurt by the wildfires, and now SCF has stepped forward to offer $25,000 in disaster relief funding that can advance those efforts. While the Bounty of the County fire relief funds will go to farmers for immediate needs, we will use the funds from SCF to help farmers in the second stage of recovery based on what we are hearing from the farmers themselves that they most need to rebuild. You can learn more in our blog on how we plan to support wildfire relief and future resilience for our local farmers.

In this time of giving thanks during a year with so many challenges and uncertainties, we are truly thankful for the partner we have in the Solano Community Foundation and the support it provides to Sustainable Solano and the residents of Solano County through its mission of private giving for public good.

Thank You to SCWA for Supporting Solano’s Sustainable Landscapes & Communities

Oct 28, 2020

By Nicole Newell, Sustainable Landscaping Program Manager

Volunteers install a demonstration food forest in Vacaville through the Solano Sustainable Backyards program

Water, air, healthy food, the desire for connection with each other and our ecosystem — we all need these basics to survive and thrive. The Solano Sustainable Backyards program educates the community on the benefits of living in harmony with our ecosystem and the importance of building healthy soil, growing food, trees and providing habitat while using our precious resources efficiently. It is with deep gratitude as manager of this program that I write this blog. This work has given me a meaningful way to serve a community that I have grown to love.

Since 2016 we have received funding from the Solano County Water Agency (SCWA) to install demonstration food forest gardens throughout the county through the Solano Sustainable Backyards Program.  These gardens are all designed around saving water but they are so much more. All of the sites started as either a lawn or a barren space and through community education events were transformed into food forest gardens.

Community members and volunteers joined us on Oct. 17-18 to install a demonstration food forest in Vacaville called Blooming Beneficial Biome. This was the first in-person installation since the pandemic began, and we were grateful for everyone who turned out to create this vibrant ecosystem. People are initially drawn to garden installations to learn how to transform their landscapes. While digging swales, moving mulch and planting, many meaningful conversations take place and the day ends with new friendships.

These food forest gardens serve as a community space where people gather to share personal stories while participating in the creation of a garden. These gardens use water efficiently to create an ecosystem that provides habitat and food and a sacred place to take solace from a chaotic world.

SCWA produced two promotional videos that highlight our collaborative partnership that spreads the message of saving water while creating ecosystem and community.

The food forest keepers are the residents that care for these gardens. You can often find them attending our educational workshops, passing on excess food within their communities and sharing their wisdom and experience. Each keeper has unique strengths and abilities to serve the community, as evidenced by the work they do. Heather established Food is Free Solano and provides excess produce to food stand sites throughout the county; Stacy is always inviting us into his food forest to teach people about his yard transformation, including in this year’s virtual garden tour; Carla recently hosted an outdoor film screening of Kiss the Ground in her yard. Many times when I visit a garden I am given some precious gift of food. Melissa gave me a bottle of strawberry rose jam; Nam, a jar of lemon preserves. This is a community of people that truly care for one another and pass on their excess.

Sustainable Solano started as Benicia Community Gardens, growing into backyard food forests in Benicia. Based on the success of Benicia Sustainable Backyards, SCWA provided the funds for our organization to serve all of Solano County’s communities in exponential ways. This has led to many other programs that continue to provide resources for Solano County while creating meaningful relationships.

The Solano Sustainable Backyards program started as individual private sites within the community, but is expanding to grow the Resilient Neighborhood concept. Resilient Neighborhoods highlight ecological features while building community connection to make a neighborhood better equipped to face the ongoing challenges of our time. We continue to listen to the community to see what resources they need to transform their landscapes and then we look for ways to support. This fall we are planning our first demonstration food forest installation taught in Spanish! We also are looking at future opportunities to transform larger public land that would serve as sites for education about healthy ecosystems.

May our partnership with the Solano County Water Agency and the communities we serve continue to have a positive ripple effect in our world. Thank you SCWA!

Calabaza en Tacha (Candied Pumpkin)

Oct 13, 2020

Photo: Unsplash

Chef Lisa Núñez-Hancock

Calabaza en Tacha es uno de los postres tradicionales en la celebración del Día de Los Muertos. Cada región en Mexíco tiene su propia manera de hacerlo. Esta receta es el estilo más clásico con piloncillo y canela. Para reducir el azúcar sustituir algo del piloncillo con dátiles.

Ingredientes:

1 calabaza variedad “sugar pumpkin” calabaza azúcar
1 peqeño cono de piloncillo (100 gramos o 3 ounces)
4 dátiles (sin semillas y cortado en pedazos)
1/4 taza almendras (cortada en rabanadas y tostadas)
3 palitos de canela
1 naranja cortado en rodajas
4 tazas de agua
1 taza de crema dulce

Nota: En lugar de piloncillo puede usar miel de abeja, miel de agave, jarabe de maple y también reducir el dulce a su gusto y por su salud.

Instrucciones
Corte la calabaza en secciones de 2 pulgadas. Para otro uso, guarde las semillas y séquelas para hacer pepitas. Quité las venas de la calabaza.

Ponga cuarto tazas de agua a calentar a fuego a medioalto hasta que comience a hervir. Añadir la canela, los pedazos de dátiles y el cono de piloncillo hasta que empezarán a disolverse, revuelva de vez en cuando.

Coloque algunas piezas de calabaza con el lado de la piel hacia abajo y luego el resto de la calabaza con la piel hacia arriba.

Baje el fuego, cubra la olla. Cocine a fuego lento por 20 minutos. Cuando la calabaza está cocida, pero todavía firme, retírala de la olla y transfiérala a un plato grande.

Vuelva a hervir el jarabe, bajando el fuego a medioalto. Mantenga en el fuego y sigue revolviendo de vez en cuando hasta que se espese. Regrese los pedazos de la calabaza a la olla.

Sirva pedazos de calabaza en cada plato con rodajas de naranja, y un pedazo de palito de canela encima de la calabaza. Rocía el jarabe reducido encima y sirvira con crema dulce y las almendras tostadas.

Disfrute!

Para imprimir una copia descargar aquí

Learn how to make this recipe by watching the cooking class below