In Our Community

For those of you new to the blog, Planting Justice is our sister organization.

• They’re a 501(c)3 non-profit benefiting local Bay area communities

• They have local, organic nursery with rare and heirloom varieties

• Programs include food justice education, holistic re-entry from prison, permaculture landscaping team, urban farms and training centers

• They provide living-wage jobs for formerly incarcerated people

They’ll have an organic plant nursery at the site, as well as a commercial kitchen that will sell jams, jellies, and other products sourced from fruit from their orchard.

Image courtesy of Planting Justice

Wrapping up 2021 and moving into 2022, they’ve got a lot going on! (All excerpts from the Planting Justice Newsletter, which you can sign up for on their site.)

---

Expanding to Sacramento

We're moving into The Old City Nursery!

The old city nursery building

Our newest project will revitalize a long-vacant City-owned property by transforming it into a nationally significant center for urban agricultural training, entrepreneurship, multi-faceted bio-diversity, youth mentorship and education.

In addition to housing a Planting Justice plant nursery that features dense and climate-resilient plants, we'll be establishing mentorship and urban agricultural programs led by community partners Three Sisters Gardens and Yisrael Family Farm at the 5-acre former City Tree Nursery in Sacramento. 

Our site plans include roughly 1.2 acres of outdoor field production, 7,000 sq ft of indoor greenhouse production, and more than ¼ acre of nursery retail. We'll be using the space to sell products produced on site as well as products made by local crafts-makers and artisans utilizing natural and nontoxic materials, such as Sacramento-made soaps, essential oils, jam, and honey.

We'll also be creating a beautiful 1-acre production farm growing nutrient dense, medicinal vegetables and herbs. Produce will be distributed not only to restaurants and CSA members paying full price, but also to low-income elders, adults, and youth for free/sliding scale.

We're super excited to see this dream project come true! Our dear Victor was instrumental in bringing PJ to Sacramento, finding the perfect site and pushing through to make it happen. We're honored to open this site in his honor and to play a hand in training a generation of Sacramento community farmers.

Image courtesy of Planting Justice

---

Under Construction: Planting Justice Aquaponics Farm
How do you grow healthy food where there is no healthy soil to plant in?

Earlier this year we closed escrow on a 3 acre piece of land in East Oakland that will help us answer that exact question. Just a few doors down from our nursery at 319 105th Avenue, once opened, the aquaponics farm will produce over 200,000 lbs of fresh, organic produce per year. All grown using aquaponics technology!

Image collage courtesy of Planting Justice

top: Gordon (l) & Jon (r) clearing away leftover materials, bottom left: Otis and Yenni working together like Jordan and Pippen, bottom right: nursery team getting it done!

We're taking the site of a historical plant nursery and turning it into a new food production site for local communities, starting in East Oakland! Our team has been hard at work for MONTHS, tearing down old structures and making way for the new! We plan to open in 2022. This will be the first site of its kind and we hope it will set the foundation for many more to come.

Community News

Want to make a positive impact this holiday season? Have you done well with investments this year? Have inherited wealth? Have a fossil fuel stock you'd love to unload in a way it will make a positive difference? Consider donating to our project to bring a pay-as-you-can community cafe + organic plant nursery to El Sobrante!

We'll have community yoga, movie nights, live music, plus great coffee, food, and a marketplace devoted to local artisans. Donate below or get in touch with us at info@the-good-table.org. All donations are tax-deductible.

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

I’m a big fan of dahlias. I’ve even gone so far as to have them tattooed on my back. They’re my favorite flower, hands down. This past year, I cultivated a dahlia garden with ~16 varietals of dahlias, but now that winter is coming, it’s time to overwinter them!

The Bay Area is in the USDA Hardiness Zone 9A & 9B, so we don’t really have to dig up the dahlias — they’ll survive in the ground with mulch on top of their soil. But I do find that by digging them up and dividing them, I get more blooms the next year.

The process is pretty simple:

1. Cut them down to the dirt, and wait 2 weeks to let the tubers harden off

2. Dig up the tubers, brush off the loose dirt, and let them dry out for 2-3 days

3. Separate them with a sharp tool, making sure you keep the eye and neck of the tuber intact

4. Label them (either as a layer or clump, or individually)

5. Store in a plastic bin with vermiculite or peat moss, in a dark place consistently around 50 degrees Fahrenheit — the coldest part of your basement, if you have one, or an uninsulated garage

If you’d like to see how to do this, here’s an informative YouTube video on how to set all this up:

Happy dahlia-ing! May your tubers be easily divided and your flowers be plentiful!

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

— G.K. Chesterton

Spiritual Touchstone

I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot, about the space that gratitude and wonder take up in my life. Last year, it was pretty hard to be grateful about anything. Even now, I struggle with feeling good about Thanksgiving, given its highly problematic origins.

That said, I think gratitude as a daily practice is highly undervalued. People who practice gratitude are happier than those who do not. Gratitude does a couple of things: it helps you focus less on the bad things that are happening, and more on the good ones. With time, it also conditions you to be more sensitive to seeing and appreciating the goodness in your life.

Now I recognize that there’s privilege in that — there may not be a lot of good happening in your life right now. Maybe you feel isolated, or lonely, or sad. Maybe your financial circumstances aren’t the best right now, or familial or friend relationships are strained. But here a couple things I’m going to offer you that maybe we can all be grateful for right now, despite our individual circumstances:

1. Rain came earlier this year. The October rains ended fire season a lot earlier than in years past, and we’re all breathing demonstrably cleaner air.

2. Vaccines are slowly rolling out across the world. My kid got her first shot last week, and that felt like hope.

So even in the midst of things being tough, I’m grateful for these things. There’s so much work to do in the world, and that feels overwhelming and hard more often than it doesn’t, but I’m holding on to hope and gratitude to help me get by.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season. And if you have the funds, please consider donating to some indigenous-led organizations, like these:

Sogorea Te' Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people.

Native American Advised Endowment Fund enhances Native lifeways now and for future generations in New Mexico by promoting a spirit of sharing and supporting community initiatives. The Fund supports efforts that emphasize the commitment to Native core values: community, language, culture, and environment.

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

From the Kitchen

My partner is gluten-free and holidays have been kind of a nightmare for him in the past. Everyone kind of rolls their eyes at peoples’ food sensitivities when it gets in the way of them enjoying traditional recipes, which I understand: the need for rituals that repeat year after year is really strong! But: I want to make sure my partner enjoys the holiday without having the anxiety that something that tastes delicious will cause pain and discomfort later on. So this year, I’m extensively researching gluten-free recipes so that he can fully participate in the wonder and bounty of Thanksgiving!

Read on for a highly recommended gluten-free stuffing recipe, followed by a round up of other gluten- and dairy-free recipes to make your holiday more accessible.

This recipe is from A Spicy Perspective. They wrote some notes to get the most out of your stuffing:

Use the best Gluten-Free white bread you can find. Cut the bread into cubes and toast the cubes in the oven so they hold their shape after you add liquid.

Amp up the other ingredients. You never realize what a distinctly iconic flavor wheat has, until you stop eating it. In order to not miss the wheat in the Thanksgiving stuffing, you must add more pops of freshness than you might overwise. After all, stuffing is primarily bread, butter, and herbs, so make the butter and herbs count! Dried cranberries are another great distraction. The tangy-sweetness balances the savory flavors.

INGREDIENTS
12 cups Gluten-Free White Sandwich Bread, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (from 1 large loaf, or 2 average loaves)
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 large sweet onion, peeled and chopped
1 1/4 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
2 tablespoons fresh chopped sage
1 tablespoon fresh chopped rosemary
1 tablespoon fresh chopped thyme
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1 1/2 cup turkey stock (or chicken broth)
2 large eggs
Salt and pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Set out a 9 X 13 inch baking dish, a large rimmed baking sheet, and a large saute pan (or skillet.)

2. Cut the gluten-free bread into cubes. Spread the cubes out on the baking sheet and toast in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, chop the onion, celery, and herbs. Set the sauté pan over medium heat and add the butter. Once the butter has melted, sauté the onions and celery for 3 minutes to soften.

4. Add the fresh herbs and sauté another 1-2 minutes. Then turn off the heat.

5. Pour the dried cranberries, and turkey stock into the saute pan. Add 1 1/4 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper. Stir to combine and lower the temperature. Then stir in the eggs until well combined. (Make sure the mixture is just a little warm before adding the eggs, so they don't cook.)

6. Once the bread cubes come out of the oven, pour them in the 9 X 13 inch baking dish. Pour the broth and vegetable mixture over the cubes and toss. Gently mix until well combined. Then spread the stuffing out evenly in the pan.

7. Cover the dish tightly with foil, and bake for 30 minutes. If you would like the top to be crispy, you can take the foil off the last 5-8 minutes. Serve warm.

---

Here are some more resources for gluten-free Thanksgiving dishes:

• This roundup from Mama Knows Gluten Free

• An Easy Guide to a Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Menu by What The Fork

• 32 Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Recipes from The Food Network

Enjoy your holiday, no matter where you fall on the gluten spectrum! I hope you find peace, comfort, and joy this holiday season.

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

Pumpkin can be divisive, especially when it comes to seasonal beverages. However, I happen to really love it, and I’m always on the hunt for a solid pumpkin bread recipe. This one from Smitten Kitchen is, hands down, the best one I’ve ever tried. It’s soft and warming, with the right balance of spices, and the cinnamon sugar crust on the top provides this crunch that’s truly divine. If you like pumpkin, you gotta try it.

Pumpkin bread, image: Kelly Knight

Pumpkin Bread
by Smitten Kitchen

INGREDIENTS
1 15-ounce can (1 3/4 cups) pumpkin puree
1/2 cup (120 ml) vegetable or another neutral cooking oil or melted butter (115 grams)
3 large eggs
1 2/3 (330 grams) cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Heaped 1/4 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
Heaped 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Two pinches of ground cloves
2 1/4 cups (295 grams) all-purpose flour

TO FINISH
1 tablespoon (12 grams) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pumpkin bread, putting on spices. Image: Kelly Knight

NOTES (from Deb of Smitten Kitchen)
This is a towering, craggy pumpkin bread with a crisp cinnamon sugar lid that is impossible not to pick off in deeply satisfying bark-like flecks. Trust me, someone in my family notnamingnames did exactly that this morning, and I almost cannot blame them.

Very key here is the size of your loaf pan because this will fill out every speck of it before it is done. Mine holds 6 liquid cups; it’s 8×4 inches on the bottom and 9×5 inches on the top. If yours is even slightly smaller or you’re nervous, go ahead and scoop out a little to make a muffin or two. You won’t regret that either. This also uses an excess of cinnamon sugar on top — it’s always too much and I cannot stop because I love the way it spills off when I slice it and then you can slide your slices through the extra. If this is going to bother you, however, go ahead and use half.

You can also make this as muffins. It should make about 18 standard ones and you can distribute the cinnamon sugar (perhaps make 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon worth) across the tops before you bake them. They should bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

I’ve also made this with mashed sweet potatoes and other squashes with success (but if it’s more wet and thus the batter ends up more loose, be caaaaareful as it could throw this towering loaf into a spilling-over situation). And I’ve done it with half whole-wheat flour.

Finally, I know someone is going to say “that’s way too much sugar!” but please keep in mind this loaf is gigantic, easily 1.5x a normal one and the sugar is scaled accordingly. You can decrease it if you wish but we have made this now several times and many people have commented about how in-check the sugar level tastes, not over the top at all.

DIRECTIONS
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 6-cup loaf pan or coat it with nonstick spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs and sugar until smooth. Sprinkle baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinanmon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves over batter and whisk until well-combined. Add flour and stir with a spoon, just until mixed. Scrape into prepared pan and smooth the top. In a small dish, or empty measuring cup, stir sugar and cinnamon together. Sprinkle over top of batter.

Bake bread for 65 to 75 minutes until a tester poked into all parts of cake (both the top and center will want to hide pockets of uncooked batter) come out batter-free, turning the cake once during the baking time for even coloring.

You can cool it in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove it, or cool it completely in there. The latter provides the advantage of letting more of the loose cinnamon sugar on top adhere before being knocked off.

Cake keeps at room temperature as long as you can hide it. I like to keep mine in the tin with a piece of foil or plastic just over the cut end and the top exposed to best keep the lid crisp as long as possible.

So good! Image: Kelly Knight

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

The disappointing dirt

Spiritual Touchstone

It’s raining! It’s so exciting! After months of it being dry, with some very light sprinkling that was a cruel tease, we actually have rain. And an “atmospheric river” on the way! As I watched the first storm roll in from my home in the hills, I cleared out the last of the dead stuff in my garden: the tangled husks of sweet pea vines, the spent amaranth, the one last cucumber on its spindly stalk.

To be honest, my garden looks kind of dreadful now. There’s a lot of just… dirt. I seem to fall in love with flowers that have a glorious dance with the sun in summer, and then fall back to nothing in the fall. Honestly, I was a little disappointed at how dang bare everything was looking.

My partner reminded me this week that everything has a fallow season, and something about that stuck with me this week. Fallow is soil that is “plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production.” (Oxford Languages)

Leaving soil fallow allows it to rest, to regenerate, to restore fertility. My garden, after a long summer and drought, just needs some time off. And it’s in my best interest to give it that.

To be honest, I really love fall and winter because of their focus on gathering and rest. We can’t be producing all the time, it’s true, even though capitalism would like us to. Just like the soil, we all need time to rest, to nestle in, and just be for awhile. This should come as no surprise to anyone really, because it’s kind of a seasonal thing, but how easily I forget. I read things like this very blog post every year, and think to myself, “Yes! This will be the year I cut back! I will spend the winter actually wintering, rather than running around, doing a million things.” But I usually don’t keep that promise.

And more dirt, with some bedraggled irises

This year, I am really going to try. I’m going to let my garden remind me that I need time and space to replenish me too. It’s certainly a privilege to be able to take some space, and if you can’t, I’m sorry. We need to work towards more sustainable systems so that everyone can stop hustling when they need to. To the extent that it’s available, I wish you peace and rest whenever you find yourself in a fallow season.

May we all have peace.
May we all have rest.
May we all have ease.

From the Kitchen

When the weather starts to chill, I reach for my slow cooker. Something about the fragrance of food cooking all day just feels like comfort to me.

I decided to research some new slow cooker recipes, and came across this one from Food52. The author’s notes state, “When it comes to methods of cooking this type of tough, thick-skinned produce, a slow-cooker may not be your first thought; in fact, the machine is an ingenious way to cook a whole squash. Plus, it’s almost entirely hands-off. Pop any big, round winter squash (kuri, kabocha, acorn, etc.) into the slow cooker and hit start. Meanwhile, the rest of the dish—components of which can be prepared in advance—is quite simple. Boil grains, toast nuts, whisk together dressing. Say hello to your new favorite cold-weather side dish.”

How great is that! Easy, healthy, and wholesome. If you don’t like, or can’t find spelt, farro is a good substitution here.

Photo by Julia Gartland. Prop Stylist: Brooke Deonarine. Food Stylist: Kate Buckens.

Slow-Cooker Whole Squash with Spelt & Feta
Recipe by Food52

INGREDIENTS
3 to 4 pounds red kuri, kabocha, or acorn squash (about 1 to 2 squash)
5 tablespoons olive oil, divided
Kosher salt
1/2 cup hazelnuts or pecans
3/4 cup spelt
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 teaspoons white miso
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup mixed tender herbs like parsley, cilantro, dill, and chives, chopped, divided
3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled or cut into planks
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper or 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Give the squash a good scrub to get rid of any debris stuck to the skin.

1. Place the squash in your slow cooker (you may need to cut off the stem or turn the squash on its side to fit) and cook on high for 3 to 4 hours or on low for 5 to 6 hours, or until a cake tester or paring knife stuck into the squash slides in easily. Remove squash to a cutting board.

2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325°F. Toss nuts with 1 tablespoon olive oil and a big pinch of salt on a sheet pan and toast until deeply golden, tossing occasionally, until golden and toasty-smelling, 8 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a plate to cool. When cool, use a small bowl to gently crush the nuts.

3. Bring a medium saucepan of well-salted water to a boil over medium high heat. Rinse spelt and boil until al dente, 20 to 50 minutes depending on the type of grain you purchased. Most packages will include directions for how to simmer grains to absorb a specific amount of water; cooking grains like pasta ensures they’ll have a bit of bite to them instead of turning out mushy. There’s no specific science to this, simply test a grain every 10 minutes after they cook for 20. Like dry beans, each variety and brand of grain will cook for a different length of time. Drain grains well and set aside.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk together apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, and miso, then slowly stream in 1/4 cup olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour off 2 tablespoons of dressing into a small bowl and set aside. Mix spelt into dressing, then stir in the chopped herbs and half the nuts. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed. Set aside.

5. Cut squash into 4 or 6 wedges (carefully if it’s still hot to the touch) and remove pulp and seeds if desired. Transfer to a serving platter and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle remaining dressing over the squash, then spoon dressed grains over. Top with remaining nuts, feta, and pepper flakes if using.
   

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

In the Garden

In Northern California, we don’t really have super defined seasons. We have basically:
Rain if we’re lucky
Rain and fog
More fog, and hopefully some rain
A couple nice weeks in April
Fog
A couple nice weeks in June
Festive Fourth of July Fog (fireworks look like balls of colored light)
Armpit August
Fire Season
More Fire Season
Really tired of Fire Season
It rains again, finally, and it’s Christmas

I’m not complaining. I really love the fog and our funky little micro-climates. But I do miss the more defined seasons in the east, where a lived for a bit.

Here are some recommendations from Fine Gardening on what we can be doing to prepare the garden going into fall and winter, from Fionuala Campion, the owner and manager of Cottage Gardens of Petaluma in Petaluma, California:

• Divide and transplant perennials. With milder temperatures minimizing transplant shock and ensuring a quicker recovery, it’s the ideal time to divide overgrown spring- and summer-blooming perennials. Prune back by half to reduce moisture loss through transpiration and carefully dig around the plant, leaving as large a root ball as possible. Gently lift the clump and check for obvious separation points, dividing it into several smaller ones. Discard older, weaker, or unhealthy parts of the plant, and replant the newly divided plants directly into the garden (or pots if you plan on sharing). Of course, you’ll have prepared the area beforehand by amending with organic compost and adding a handful of organic high-phosphorous fertilizer to help your new plants quickly become established. Water thoroughly and directly after planting.

• Add winter and spring interest now. Continue to source and plant spring-blooming bulbs and fall- and winter-blooming annuals to brighten up your borders and containers all winter long.

• Plant cool-season crops. Many vegetable crops thrive in cooler temperatures and some–like the brassicas–increase in sweetness when touched by frost. To get them off to an excellent start, plant transplants of your favorite broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, and kohlrabi varieties. They’ll be ready for the dinner plate by February. Transplants of leafy greens are even quicker to mature. You’ll start harvesting Swiss chard, spinach, mustards, and kales by December. Continue direct seeding peas, parsnips, turnips, carrots, radishes and beets. For more veggies to grow now and growing tips, read on here.

• Make sure to tidy up for winter. October means it’s time to reduce potential overwintering hiding places for slugs, snails, and insects by picking up overturned pots, dropped branches, and other garden debris in the ornamental and veggie garden. Continue to rake fallen leaves and pull weeds and spent annuals and vegetable plants. Add them all to the compost pile or your green waste bin if you suspect disease issues. Dig in rich, organic compost to any empty ornamental or edible garden beds.

Image Courtesy Fionuala Campion

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

Image Credit: Jason Hickey

Spiritual Touchstone

As the drought in the west continues, it’s hard not to feel a lot like the land: dry, cracked, discouraged.  The wildfires make it all worse: less trees, less shade, less ground cover.  It’s all just feeling very parched out there, and internally too, as the pandemic goes on and on.

After the call went out to conserve water, I started researching dry farming as a way to understand how to keep my garden going and what I might need to do to strengthen it against more frequent droughts.

Dry farming is “a low-input, place-based approach to producing crops within the constraints of your climate. As we define it, a dry-farmed crop is irrigated once or not at all.”

Basically, you let the rain do the work, and don’t water through the rest of the season.  How do you do that?  “Dry farmers try to select a site with deep soil and good water-holding characteristics and then utilize a suite of practices to conserve soil moisture for crop growth. Some of the practices that support dry farming include: early soil prep and planting; selecting drought tolerant, resistant or early-maturing cultivars; lower planting density; cultivation or surface protection to prevent crusting and cracking of soil surface; diligent weed control; and improving soil health and water-holding capacity with practices such as cover cropping, rotation, and minimizing soil disturbance.”

This week, I yanked out the last of my tomato and cucumber plants that were pretty much done, and soon will be planting my cover crops for the vegetable beds.  As I wrestled with the overgrown tomato vines, I was thinking about how we can sow our own resilience to better make it through the lean times.

“Just like dry farmers put in a lot of work so their crops can survive the dry, hot season, we can prepare our minds, hearts, and souls to get through our difficult seasons as well. ”

We can yank out the weeds: the old stories, the not-great habits, and the old coping mechanisms that no longer serve us.  We can sow cover crops that help us retain moisture in the fertile soil of our hearts: creativity, meditation, friendships, community, and service to causes we care about.  We can cultivate the garden of ourselves to be tolerant, resilient, and able to not only survive, but thrive in this season of our lives.

And if we can’t do that, we can ask for help.  What needs pruning or weeding in your life?  Where do you need help cultivating?  What are you going to sow this week?