The Blog Barn

A visit to Coleman Farms was more like an excuse to eat, get drunk, laugh, and enjoy good company. It's true. We were hardly working, and having tons of fun. It began with a mosey motorcycle drive to Carpinteria on Hwy 192, passing grand estate after grand...

Fairview Gardens, established in 1997 by Michael Ableman, is a non-profit organization located in Goleta, California. It is a twelve and a half acre farm smack-dab in the middle of suburbia, neighboring a WellsFargo Bank and Rite-Aid Pharmacy. Originally it...

Our first farm to visit, Mt. Olive, was a little different from the 'typical' American farm we were expecting. It is owned by a group of Asian families (Malaysian and Chinese) that immigrated to California ten years ago. Karen Ng, one of the...

Hollyhock Farms is a gem of a place, owned by two charming farmers, Dick and Kim Rogers. This is as mom-and-pop of an operation as it gets. These two work non-stop to provide the people in their community with fresh and tasty organic produce. Even while we...

Today has been a success! We left the house at 10am, saying good-bye to Boris (Guillermo's sweet ol' dog and my newly adopted son), and loaded down with the bare necessities needed for a 2 week motorcycle trip. It ended up being quite a lot. We nixed...

Tonight we are tying up the loose ends before we hit the road, the long black road, to Austin, Texas, the final destination of the 'bike2barn 2007' trip. Already Guillermo and I are having an adventure, namely in getting to know each other a little...

Is it just us or is 'buy local' being promoted everywhere this summer? We couldn't be more pleased. As we continue to look for new ways to support family farmers while conserving environmental resources, we are interested in stories of how the...

Summertime, and the living is easy - isn't that how it's supposed to be? Here at LocalHarvest, we've been taking advantage of the slow(er) season by brewing some chicha , a Peruvian corn-based beer, falling in love (Guillermo) and doing a little...

28 de Julio is coming up, and Mariana and I are having a Peru independence day party here here at LocalHarvest headquarters in Santa Cruz to celebrate. We'll be making anticuchos, tamales, yuquitas, and pisco sours, but the main "course" will be...

Welcome to this month's edition of the LocalHarvest newsletter, where we rant about what's wrong with American agriculture, praise what's good, and offer you recipes and information on healthy eating. This month we're featuring olive oil in our...