Farm Class: Fairview Gardens

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Rob and I started our "Walk with the Farmer and the Cook" class last week.  For six weeks we get to walk through local farms with, what's turning out to be very enthusiastic farmers, learning about their seasonal crops, preferred ways of farming, harvesting, and how to put some of this healthy, whole food yumminess into a recipe - that's the added bonus of touring with our very own knowledgeable chef and nutritionist  - Yay!

What a find!  All of this offered through our local Community College.  I love Continuing Ed classes.

Week one: Fairview Gardens

This will be the most local tour as it's practically in the city.  Urban Farming, if you will.  Kind of odd to see housing developments all around this quaint farm established back in 1895. It is considered to be the oldest organic farm in California.  Our tour guides were fantastic: Mark Tollefson and his adorable and boldly-barefoot 3-year-old son who told us, "if you put butter on corn, it is really sweet."  Smart kid.  Mark emphasized sustainable practices and the importance of being a strong presence in the community through education and accessibility.  Anyone can take a self-guided tour of the farm and I hope to drop in on a class here in the future.  I believe Composting 101 is coming up.  I learned that this garden's piles of compost can reach 140 degrees in the center.  Basically, no ugly germs could survive this inferno and practically everything goes in.  As intriguing as the compost talk was, my favorite part of the tour happened to be the goats.  Mark promises goat cheese in the near future.  YUM! 
Our next trip is out to Ojai where we'll get to stay for dinner!  Blog sure to follow.