Shownotes
I’m super excited to introduce my guest today who I think I have a lot in common with as she is also a Farmer’s wife and writer! I think we both have a passion for biographies! She’s written a book about some farms in California so I hope some listeners will learn about some farms in their own neighborhoods!
Why We Farm: Farmers’ Stories of Growing Our Food and Sustaining Their Business
Why We Farm: Farmers’ Stories of Growing Our Food and Sustaining Their Business is a book for people who want to know the whole truth about life as a modern day farmer. Each chapter features a different model of farming. Farmers share the stories behind their work and their lives on the farm; the business side of production, the personal challenges they face, and words of advice for the would-be-farmer. The book asks hard questions and gives a reverent yet realistic picture of a thriving local food system.
Elvira Di’Brigit is the farmer’s wife and cat-herder at The Gettleshtetl Gardens, where they grow organic olives, walnuts, and much more. She has been a resident of the Capay Valley for over 15 years. Becoming familiar with the valley’s landscapes and people is what inspired her to write Why We Farm.
The Farmers
- (Leapfrog Farm)
- Learn how one farmer makes a living from a one-acre crop. (Cache Creek LavenderCache Creek Lavender) (Full Belly Farm)
- Read about people who chose to start farming in their retirement. (Capay Valley Vineyards and Grumpy Goats Farm Olive Oil)
- See how livestock ranchers are adopting ecologically beneficial methods. (Skyelark Ranch, Riverdog Farm, and Pasture 42)
I’m super excited to introduce my guest today who I think I have a lot in common with as she is also a Farmer’s wife and writer! I think we both have a passion for biographies! She’s written a book about some farms in California so I hope some listeners will learn about some farms in their own neighborhoods!
Why We Farm
Why We Farm is a book for people who want to know the whole truth about life as a modern day farmer. Each chapter features a different model of farming. Farmers share the stories behind their work and their lives on the farm; the business side of production, the personal challenges they face, and words of advice for the would-be-farmer. The book asks hard questions and gives a reverent yet realistic picture of a thriving local food system.
Elvira Di’Brigit is the farmer’s wife and cat-herder at The Gettleshtetl Gardens, where they grow organic olives, walnuts, and much more. She has been a resident of the Capay Valley for over 15 years. Becoming familiar with the valley’s landscapes and people is what inspired her to write Why We Farm.
Why We Farm: Farmers’ Stories of Growing Our Food and Sustaining Their Business
Tell us a little about yourself.
I like seeing your bio on your website, my husband does a lot of the farming and I come out and help sometimes. I used to go to Montana every summer. My grandparents lived in Coures d’Alene
outside of Troy, MT
I was lucky to spend the summers there.
Spending the summers in the garden
- learning about homesteading
- animals
- big vegetable garden
more about myself
I grew up in the Bay Area in California
when I had children really started looking around for a place to live
a little healthier environment
that’s how I got into the organic
Capay Valley
good questions
a lot of people who live near by have not even heard of CApay Valley it’s a little secret
west of davis, sacramento
about an hour
California has a big central valley that takes up most of the state
from the first foothills to the west
napa valley
one more set of hills
3 children 2 are all grown out of house
a little older
yep
secrued this route to getting to the Capay Valley we found about it
knowing about Wilbur Hot springs
wilderness retreat space
10 miles north of the Capay Valley
exploring looking for land
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
no, I think it was really with my grandparents actually moved from Brooklyn NY to Idaho
drove out west with them saw them buy their place
so excited to till up the backyard
till up their garden
helping with harvesting weeding
really my f
drove from Brooklyn
they had a fascination with the west
they had driven their daughters a couple of times in the 50s and 60s and they loved it all their friends were moving to florida
my grandmother
How did you learn how to garden organically?
Yeah, I don’t think my grandparents were strictly organic limit their use of pesticides
organic wasn’t such a big thing in those years
It was really
I was always pretty health conscious as a teenager
exploring being a vegetarian
when I had my children
didn’t want anything that could be a pollutant
years to come
that journey
that I started looking around for good food
Like I said it was really hard to find back then in Berkely which is a really progressive area there might have been a few options
here when I moved
nugget market in Woodland
and asking them where is your organic produce section
it was just out of that search
where can I go that I can find good healthy food
we were looking
do we want to be dependent on a city system of water where we don’t have control
reliable source for watering the garden
we’re really lucky in the upper Capay valley to have few different sources of water
good ground water
ditch across the upper
just under 3 acres
small compared
we were lucky to buy this property before the big bubble
before the recession
fluctuating land prices…
I moved to the Capay Valley with my children looking for a healthier lifestyle
I am a teacher I was homeschooling my children because it’s a far drive to the public school
getting to know those families
kept having these questions and curiosities
The Farmers
these people are working so hard is it really worth it?
and I saw over the years, the first 10 years that I knew them, wide variety
years they were doing really well, years it was a struggle
passion for what they were doing
really important thing for other people to know
well he declined
Organic Farmer
so my husband was an organic farmer in Massachusetts for a few years out of college built up his own business there left to move to California
never been able to get that out of his system
homestead here operating that like a farm
has a full time job
mostly a homestead
12 years ago
- planted an acre of olives
- wlatnut trees planted before we got here
do sell commercially mostly to friends and family
have’t had to do big marketing
mostly just try to can and dry food
whenever someone comes to visit we make a
we’ve done a little bit of planting wheat a few rows
you can get a lot of wheat out of a few rows
the tricky part is threshing and winnowing
spoiled the first time we did it
our friend tim had borrowed or bought an auction
mini combine
used at UCDavis for expeiemitnetal growing
great clean wheat with
never came back here again
real struggles like last year
harvested let it sit outing a container
wheat
oils not gonna be any
I told a little bit about my farm
then I can
tried to get a wide diversity
business models the farmers were using
big focus of the book
techniques
farming
Annie Henner is a great woman, she has a great story.
She grew up nearby in Woodland
her parents were good friends with the farmers in this valley
spend a lot of time at her best friends house which happened to be a farm
whole time never interested in farming
hanging out drawing with her friend and just being a kid
went to school to be an artist
she is an artist
has accomplished many things with her artist
took on some jobs as a college student in gardens and farms
- loved being outside
- working with her hands
- grow this food
interactions with the people when she’s selling the food that’s what keeps her going
couple of years after college her parents moved to Capay Valley
leased some of their farmland
just her by herself
money saved up from work she had done over the summers
started out with a few crops going to farmer’s
Learn how one farmer makes a living from a one-acre crop.
Cache Creek Lavender
Charlie is the main farmer there
interesting business model
right across the street with a similar sized property
3 acres
- 1 acre in lavendar
- makes all kinds of products
- started out just selling the driver lavender
- realized how much of a demand there was for any kind of lavender
- 20 or more products
- some of that lavender he buys as essential oil
- doesn’t produce all of his own lavender
fresh, dried lavendar
- all these other products
- that he makes
- does some mail order
- primarily goes to some
- that brings up an interesting question what’s the range for local food
a lot of stores will say 100-150 miles
something for our culture
Capay Valley is about an hour to get to the Bay Bridge to go to markets in the Bay area
some farmer’s drive to the south of Bay
Palo Alto Market
definietly worth it for them economically to go to these markets
environmental questions
how
Diffeent people had different techniques and strategies
what surprised me the most when I worked on this project/book
risks of farming
inherent risks acts of god
farming will have up and down years
what surprised me
a lot of the risks are
also
fluctuating markets
new trends for what people want to eat
their need to be innovative
different strategies people used
Blue Heron Farm
walnuts as kind of back up in case Citrus had a bad year
can have frost
summer tomato and squash products
that was one of their strategies
farmers were thinking of other strategies
what we’re gonna be
new market trends
new vegetable that everyone would be real excited about
