Crops and Kraut: A Field-to-Jar Adventure
In July 2012, CUESA took a bus of adventurers on a tour to see where heirloom vegetables are grown and learn how to preserve them for later. At Heirloom Organic Gardens in Hollister, they learned how heirloom varieties enhance biodiversity and offer full flavor. Then they took a trip to Mountain Feed & Farm Supply in Ben Lomond to discover the magic of sauerkraut making with Farmhouse Culture.
Heirloom Organic Gardens consists of 235 acres, including two locations in Hollister and an additional plot in Panoche Valley. We started our farm tour at the Brians Ranch in Hollister, where farmer Grant Brians and his family live, about 100 miles from the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.
If you had to sum up Heirloom Organic Gardens in one word, it’s diversity. Grant grows about 150 crop varieties, including root vegetables, squash, potatoes, apricots, walnuts, herbs, and specialty greens (14 types of lettuce, eight types of kale, and many more). “I try to grow what I like, and I’m addicted to variety,” he says.
Grant Brians started growing vegetables on an acre of land in Los Altos when he was 10 years old. His mother, Janet, “wanted to move where the air was cleaner,” and in 1974, his family purchased the property in Hollister, which was previously used for dairy farming. When he was 14 years old, Grant convinced a commercial seed company to give him a contract to grow vegetable seeds. At one point, he was growing seed for seven companies. Eventually, he returned to his original love: growing vegetables.
When the Brians family started farming in 1974, they named their farm Brians Ranch. They started farming organically in 1975 and are the only original member of CCOF remaining. In 2006, Grant bought Heirloom Organic Gardens from an Englishman named Stuart Dixon, who made a business supplying heirloom produce to restaurants like Chez Panisse. He also helped launch the "baby vegetables" craze. With a built-in market, Grant decided to keep the name and continue growing heirloom and baby produce.
Grant showed us his artichoke patch, where he grows Imperial Star artichokes as well as purple varieties such as Violetta.
While many growers shortsightedly treat artichokes as an annual plant and mow them down once the artichokes have been picked, Grant prefers to cut irrigation back, chop off the dead growth for mulch, and let the plants start back up again naturally. The mulch prevents weeds and helps the soil retain water. He anticipates getting up to 12 years of harvest out of this patch.
The farm also grows two varieties of sweet corn, Golden Bantam and Country Gentleman, which they primarily harvest as baby corn for market. Because sweet corn has a very short freshness window, they plan to do only one harvest of mature corn this season.
This is Grant's mother, Janet, tending their frontyard garden.
Janet is a self-proclaimed “rose fanatic,” Grant says. There are 400 varieties of roses growing at Brians Ranch.
Grant offered us a delicious platter of vegetables grown at the farm, including Armenian and lemon cucumbers and baby radishes, beets, carrots, leeks, and greens. Grant says that he likes to pick certain vegetables in the immature stage because some taste better that way, and it gives people an opportunity to try flavors they might not have encountered before.
“I am an old-fashioned kind of guy in a lot of ways,” Grant says. “I have no fear of old. I just make it usable.” He buys up and repairs old farm equipment, such as the irrigation pipe shown here, which dates back as far as the 1940s. He also collects vintage Studebakers.
Our next stop was Heirloom Organic Gardens’ second Hollister location on Lover’s Lane, just a few miles away. Brians started farming the 10½-acre plot last year, after it laid fallow for 20 years and was overgrown with hemlock. It is now lush with spinach, carrots, parsnips, herbs, and other crops.
The soil here is much sandier than the silt loam at the farm’s other Hollister location. Grant added 20 tons of biodynamic compost, which he gets from a friend a couple miles away, per acre. While the sandy soil does not retain nutrients and moisture very well, it is especially good for growing root crops, which are a big part of the farm's business.
Situated in the Calaveras Fault, the two plots in Hollister offer ideal growing conditions. Water runoff from the surrounding mountains means that irrigation is not a challenge like it is at many other farms. Artesian wells, like the one pictured here, have unrestricted natural pressure and push out 10,000 gallons of water per minute. And much like the Bay Area, the weather is temperate, which means that the farm produces year round.
Purslane, a common weed, grows both wild and cultivated at Heirloom Organic Gardens. High in omega-3s, it is nutritious as well as delicious both sautéed and raw, Grant says.
Do not adjust your computer screen! The technicolor purple plant shown here, known as orach, is a rare wild spinach that originated in the Alps. It is considered a wild variety because it has a vertical growth pattern compared to most cultivated varieties, which stay close to the ground before they go to seed.
We said goodbye to Grant and made our way through the redwoods on the winding Highway 9 to Mountain Feed & Farm Supply in Ben Lomond, where we learned how to preserve the harvest. Mountain Feed & Farm Supply is a one-stop shop for homesteaders, offering gardening, cooking, preserving, and beekeeping tools, along with other sustainable living necessities.
Pictured here with Jorah Roussopoulo, owner of Mountain Feed & Farm Supply, Kathryn Lukas of Farmhouse Culture taught us how to make traditional German sauerkraut like the kind she sells at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Her kraut-making facility is located in Santa Cruz.
Farmhouse Culture makes raw sauerkraut using organic cabbage from local farms. Raw kraut is not pasteurized, so it includes beneficial probiotic bacteria, which are believed to aid digestion and have other health-promoting properties. We sampled a variety of krauts in flavors such as horseradish leek, ginger beet, smoked jalapeño, and classic caraway, along with Korean fermented vegetables known as kimchee.
Much like breadmaking and other foodcrafts, making kraut is a science as well as an art—one that can intimidate the uninitated. Many recipes say to use one head of cabbage, but as Kathryn illustrated, cabbage heads come in many sizes! Maintaining the right ratio of cabbage to salt is essential to successful kraut. Her home recipe for classic caraway sauerkraut calls for a three-pound head of cabbage, a tablespoon of salt, and a tablespoon of caraway seed.
Salt is the second key ingredient in making good kraut. Salt preserves crunch, while preventing unwanted yeast and fungi from breeding. Lactobacillus plantarum and Leuconostoc mesenteroides, the two main "good" bacteria that eat plant sugars and cause fermentation, are salt tolerant. Kathryn recommends pure, coarse sea salt that is free of minerals and metals, which can cause off-flavors.
While Kathryn generally uses a standard organic green cabbage for her commercially made krauts, she recommends experimenting at home with different varieties, such as Napa, Savoy, and red cabbage for different colors, flavors, and textures. Whatever variety you choose, the head must be chopped or shredded very finely.
Once chopped, the cabbage should be vigorously massaged to break down the cell walls, allowing it to release its own liquid. Let the cabbage sit for a few minutes to weep, creating a brine for fermentation.
Once it is ready to ferment, the kraut must be packed densely into its container. You can use special fermentation crocks or mason jars with weights to ensure the the cabbage is entirely submerged in its brine.
Once we were schooled in fermenting basics, we made our own sauerkraut!
Thanks to Barry Jan, our rockstar photo volunteer, for taking many of the photos in this slideshow. Happy fermenting!
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CUESA (Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture) is dedicated to growing thriving communities through the power and joy of local food. Learn More »