Gardens FARMSTANDS Organizations Farms FOOD ARTISANS U-PICKS & CSA’S

FREE! The Eater’s Guide to Local Food SACRAMENTO V ALLEY , 1ST EDITION EL DORADO PLACER Restaurants & Grocers SACRAMENTO FARMERS MARKETS SUTTER YOLO Community YUBA Gardens FARMSTANDS Organizations Farms FOOD ARTISANS U-PICKS & CSA’S SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY COMMUNITY ALLIANCE WITH FAMILY FARMERS • WWW.CAFF.ORG A publication of CAFF with a contribution by Georgeanne Brennan | WWW.CAFF.ORG 2 Community Alliance with Family Farmers WWW.CAFF.ORG About this Guide e are so thrilled to be presenting you with the first edition of the Buy Fresh Buy Local Sacramento Valley Eater’s CONTENTS W Guide to Local Food. If there’s anything that we’ve 4 Georgeanne Brennan, Our Garden of Eden learned in our work for this guide, it is that the Sacramento Valley is hungry for local food. Fortunately, the terrific abundance of the area 5 Community Supported Agriculture is well suited to feeding this hunger. This guide is designed to be a 6 Farmers Market Locations useful tool in identifying local, fresh, and delicious foods from this 8 Seasonal Availability Chart rich agricultural region. The guide was developed by the 9 El Dorado Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) in an effort to 12 Placer help improve access to healthy food and raise awareness about the Sacramento importance of buying local. Throughout the guide, you will find 21 valuable information to help advance your commitment to eating 29 Sutter fresh, local foods, such as: 31 Yolo 36 Yuba Ω A Sacramento Valley seasonality chart highlighting the diverse fruit and vegetable crops that are produced throughout the year 38 Organizations and Institutions Ω The schedule and location information on all of the farmers markets that operate weekly or seasonally throughout the region Ω A list of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs COMMUNITY ALLIANCE Ω Editorials about the Sacramento Valley food system, the rich food culture of the region, and unique efforts that are underway to WITH FAMILY FARMERS improve access to healthy food Growing food, growing farms, growing communities Ω A list of organizations and websites within the Sacramento Valley The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) advo- region that support healthy food and a sustainable, healthy food cates for California family farmers and sustainable agriculture. system CAFF is cultivating strong partnerships between family farm- Hungry for more? All the information in this guide, and more – ers and their communities by building on shared values around including listings for other regions of California – is available food and agriculture and working together in practical, on-the- on CAFF’s website at: www.caff.org ground programs. These relationships create local economic vitality, improved human and environmental health, and long- term sustainability. This guide is a project of CAFF’s Buy Fresh Buy Local FOOD ROUTES NETWORK program, which opens new opportunities for family farmers by The California Buy Fresh Buy educating consumers and food businesses about the benefits Local program is a project of of buying locally. Other CAFF programs and projects include CAFF in collaboration with Farm to School, Biological Agriculture, and Policy. the national organization, the For more information about CAFF’s programs, Food Routes Network. For please visit www.caff.org. more information, please visit www.foodroutes.org CAFF Bay Area 2150 Allston Way, Suite 320 Berkeley, CA 94704 510 832 4625 CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS EDITOR Ariane Michas Leslie Pace, Rachel Solvason, Natalie Production of this guide was made Theys, and Hannah Erin Williams. possible by the generous support of CONTRIBUTORS Maggie Bertolani, the Columbia Foundation and the True Georgeanne Brennan, Ann M. Duncan, SPECIAL THANKS TO Paul Cultrera, North Foundation. We are additionally Rebecca Eiseman, Shawn Harrison, Dawn Dunlap, Ann M. Evans, Shawn grateful to all of the businesses that Allyse Heartwell, Maika Horjus, Colleen Harrison, Karen Killebrew, Robyn advertised in the guide. Please support Lynch, Ariane Michas, David Runsten, Krock, Jim Mills, Randii McNear and the businesses that support local food! Jennifer Sowerwine, Karyn Smith, the Davis Farmers Market, Richard Rachel Solvason. Molinar, PlacerGROWN, Libby The Buy Fresh Buy Local brand O’Sullivan, Soilborn Farms, Jennifer GRAPHIC DESIGNER Kate Murphy, and all its illustrations are property Sowerwine, Randy Stannard, Michael Sacramento News and Review. and trademarks of the Food Routes Tuohy, and all of the amazing organiza- Network and its chapter affiliate, PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE Maggie tions on page 38 for their support and CAFF. Illustrations by Design for Bertolani, Rebecca Eiseman, Maika dedicated work in the Sacramento Social Impact. Horjus, Kate Kleepsies, Colleen Lynch, Valley and beyond. WWW.CAFF.ORG Buy Fresh, Buy Local 3 he Sacramento Valley surrounds me, stretching from the eastern escarpment of the Coast Range on the w est to the foothills of T the Sierra on the east. The deep alluvial soils that bor der the Sacramento River, with its tributary rivers the Feather and the Yuba, and all their creeks, are as productive as any soil on earth. These soils Our are covered with orchards of walnuts, peaches, prunes, and almonds and row crops of tomatoes, alfalfa, wheat, corn, melons, safflower, Garden and numerous seed crops. The heavier soils, further from the rivers, instead serve them daily meals composed of have their own panoply of crops, most locally grown, seasonal foods from our own importantly rice, but extending well past that, agriculturally rich valley? of Eden and including permanent pasture for live- Say, steamed rice, with local broccoli or BY GEORGEANNE BRENNAN stock grazing. asparagus, according to the season, with Once the first strawberries, cherries and chicken or grass-fed beef, and a little sweet apricots ripen in May, our land and farmers pepper or sugar snap peas, accompanied by provide soft fruit and stone fruit until a seasonal salad bar, soup from scratch and October when the last plums are in, the nuts a locally baked whole grain roll? are gathered, and the apples, pears, pome- granates, and persimmons are harvested. Let’s have a garden in every After a quiet month or so, the mandarins will usher in the citrus harvest over the win- school, let’s have fresh, local ter, ensuring us an astonishing supply of fresh fruit almost the year around. food at every school and Every vegetable one can imagine is grown at home too, for all our in our Mediterranean climate, from artichokes and asparagus to zucchini, in an children and for ourselves. alphabetical sense, whether by family farmers or home gardeners. When I watch my grandchildren clap their Community Supported Agriculture three-year-old hands in glee and run for the boxes and produce from our valley garden when my husband tells them “the arrive not only to our doorsteps strawberries are red” I almost weep. I almost and farmers markets, but to those weep not only with joy for their enthusiasm as far away as Palo Alto, Danville, and the knowledge that they will forever and San Francisco. Winter’s broc- understand that strawberries – and food – coli, kale, bok choy and chicories come from the soil, but also for the thou- give way to spring’s artichokes, sands and thousands of our children who asparagus, favas, peas, green garlic, have yet to experience and understand this, tender lettuces, potatoes, and car- who have yet to dig potatoes, pull carrots, rots. As our hemisphere tilts toward leeks, onions, and beets, cut squash, melons, the sun and the days lengthen, we and asparagus, and pick tomatoes, peppers, have ripening tomatoes, melons, summer and all the wonderful, aromatic fruits. squash, eggplant, sweet peppers and okra. Let’s have a garden in every school, let’s Late fall finds us harvesting leeks, beets, have fresh, local food at every school and at pumpkins, winter squash, and late beans. home too, for all our children and for our- All year long we can revel in the changing selves. The Sacramento Valley is truly our seasons and the vegetables they bring us. Garden of Eden and, if there is a will, we can Our local pastures and hillsides produce make this change for our children. beef, lamb, goats, poultry, and hogs. Our dairies provide milk and cheese. Beehives dot Georgeanne Brennan is an award-winning the flowering orchards, alfalfa fields, seed author, teacher, and former seed company owner. fields and hillsides. Surely we live in the With business partner Ann M. Evans, she current- Garden of Eden. ly works as a consultant to school districts helping Why, then, are our children suffering from them to change school lunch. She lives on a small obesity? Why are many of them served farm in Winters with her husband and dog, school lunches composed of processed foods where she continues to teach and to write. with unpronounceable ingredients made www.georgeannebrennan.com thousands of miles away? Could we not 4 Community Alliance with Family Farmers WWW.CAFF.ORG COLFAX HILL FAMILY FARM RAPHAEL GARDEN Colfax (Placer) • 530-346-7684 • [email protected] Fair Oaks • 916-965-0389 Colfax Hill offers 22 week CSA memberships, with 40+ shareholders purchase annual shares in this bio- weekly pick-ups in Colfax and Chicago Park. Shares dynamic CSA and receive weekly baskets of seasonal come in personal or family size and include vegeta- garden bounty. Members work together to distribute bles, fruits, herbs, and the option of free-range eggs. the produce, and join in the fun on Garden Days. DEL RIO BOTANICAL RIVERDOG FARMS West Sacramento (Yolo) • www.delriobotanical.com Guinda (Yolo) • www.riverdogfarm.com This organic farm uses open-polllinated seeds and This CCOF-certified organic farm offers monthly specializes in unusual varieties of vegetables, greens, or quarterly CSA memberships. Boxes includ organic herbs, stone fruits, and berries.

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