GOODNESS BY THE BASKETFULS Encouraging East County in the Direction of Wholeness and Health
	September 2005

by Kristie Knoll
Photos by Russell Byrne

Rick and I never imagined that we would become farmers and would have scoffed at anybody who would have suggested such a thing. We were both professionals: he was an aerospace-adhesives research chemist with a brand-new Ph.D. and I was a legal secretary. We were backyard gardeners and didn’t know anything about farming—we just wanted to grow more of our own food. Local farmers eyed us suspiciously and advised us that we’d never make a living farming these ten acres.

Mother Nature Teaches Us to Farm
Starting our farm without formal farming education was actually something of a plus. The modern chemical-based farm products have failed in their promise to create more profitable, healthier, and pest-resistant crops. However, since large chemical companies heavily subsidize the agriculture curricula in our nation’s colleges, the schools churn out graduates who unanimously buy into the myth that technology can create great farms through chemical-based agriculture.

Farmers who receive this mainstream education become trapped on a treadmill because they rely on “technology,” rather than on the biological processes of nature for pest control and soil restoration. In the case of pest control, farmers are caught in a cycle of diminishing returns. As insects mutate around chemicals, technology is forced to create stronger, more toxic chemicals to “control” pesticide-resistant insects—to the detriment of both environmental and human health. The grim reality is that there is more pest damage in crops now than there was in the 1940s.

The biological systems found in nature are totally interdependent and inextricably interconnected. Our attempts to bend nature to our will produce unanticipated and far-reaching repercussions which gravely impact both our local and global environment.

When we started growing our own food, we knew we wanted to grow it without chemicals of any kind. Rick has a Ph.D. in Chemistry and was well aware of the dangers of chemicals. His scientific training put him in the somewhat paradoxical position of understanding the intricacies of chemical-free soil restoration and pest control. We focused on becoming partners with nature and utilizing the common biological processes for the purpose of growing food that is as helpful to nature in the raising as it is healthy to people in the eating.

Making a Living off the Land
While we are passionate about organic farming methods and products, we are even more passionate about preserving our fertile East County farmland from the bulldozers and cement trucks of the developers. In our opinion, any farm is better than any parking lot any day of the week. Two hundred years ago we were a nation of farmers; now farmers are an endangered species. Our success in bringing our family farms back from the brink of extinction ultimately depends upon finding ways to keep farms profitable.

To that end, the Brentwood Agricultural Land Trust (BALT) and the Agricultural Enterprise Committee (AEC) have embarked upon a “local branding” program that will promote Brentwood-area products in both local and Bay Area stores, restaurants, and farmers markets. BALT, AEC, Harvest Time and the Pacific Coast Farmer’s Market Association were instrumental in the opening of Brentwood’s first-ever farmers market last year. It’s going strong again this year. You can visit it in the park next to the library from 4 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays. A Farm-to-School program is laying the groundwork for Brentwood produce in Brentwood schools. BALT has lobbied and effected a change in county zoning ordinances to accommodate wine and olive oil tasting and production. BALT is currently lobbying the county for on-farm bed and breakfasts and farm kitchens to process “value-added” products. Harvest Time continues to be a robust, stable and well-known draw for local agri-tourism.

Knoll Farms’ flavorful, organically-grown products provide us entrance into specialty-market niches that are closed to most large food producers. We moved here from Orange County where there were lots of health food stores in which we could buy good-quality, organic produce. East County in 1979 had a shocking lack of GOOD fresh produce—none of which was organic. The food we were growing overflowed our own table so we began selling the excess to V.V. (Veritable Vegetable), the oldest organic produce distributor in the US. V.V. has just recently celebrated its 31st anniversary. Good Nature Grocery in Walnut Creek moved to the cutting edge when produce manager Mark Mulcahy convinced the owner that he could make profits with a virtually 100 percent organic produce rack. This was a calculated risk, but the store blossomed, and for years after completing delivery of Knoll Farms products, I shopped there myself before heading home!

A Saturday Store Full of Goodness
I felt East County needed the opportunity to eat the great food we had on our own table, so I started The Saturday Store. Every Friday I would lead our workers in cleaning the barn and washing the floor. During these activities, we’d joke that we were preparing for a big barn dance. But then we’d put up tables, spread tablecloths, and set up attractive basket displays of organic products from our own farm, V.V., Falcon Trading, and the Thanksgiving Coffee Company. People could buy a wide variety of fresh, organically grown produce, bulk dried goods, olive oils, vinegars, coffees, and more.

The Saturday Store was a homegrown effort and kind of a crazy idea. We never advertised except by word-of-mouth, but everybody liked the concept, and many people found their way to our farm store. On one hand, the Saturday Store served my selfish purposes in providing a stream of products for my own use, and on the other, I felt that I was providing a source of high-quality, organic products for East County residents.

In wintertime the barn would be freezing so while setting up the tables I would close the doors, put a practice tape into my boom box, and perform a miniature recital. I love singing, so this was fun; and it kept me warm, because singing is so physical. I’ve been trained in the classics and would be singing my heart out on something like Mozart’s “Abendempfindung” (in German, no less) and having a great time!

The Saturday Store lasted a year or so. In spite of all the good things that were coming to me, and through the store to the community, I was running myself into the ground trying to keep up with everything. The effort was not sustainable. When I closed the Saturday Store, I got a lot of requests from people begging me to put together a box for them.

Baskets of Goodness
After taking a few months off, I began selling cutesy, half-bushel baskets full of organically grown produce. I called my new venture The Basket Case, for the obvious reason and for the less-obvious reason that I was a basket case for doing it! It was kind of an off-the-wall project, but nevertheless, I was selling up to 40 containers on my big weeks. I included a short newsletter called The Basketeer. Since my “Basketeers” repeatedly failed to return their baskets, they morphed into “Boxeteers” and collected a box each Friday. Plus the boxes were stackable, easier to handle and kept the produce nicer!

Each newsletter included an original recipe. I’d look at the list of veggies for the week’s box and then create a recipe that used most, if not all, of them. I became an “expert” on one-dish cooking — mostly because my own stove was actually a two-burner hotplate. I’d concoct a soup, stew, ragout, or sauté that no one had ever seen before. I pulled the recipes out of my head by mentally observing myself putting the dish together and then writing down the process as it progressed in my mind. I’ve always been a freewheeling cook and my dinners take on a life of their own. I can never say what’s for dinner ’til it hits the table.

When Raley’s opened in Brentwood, with a big health-food department and a wonderful, organically-grown fresh produce rack, I took that as my sign that it was time to pass the baton. Basically, I told the Boxeteers:

Okay, Raley’s is open; they’re doing a great job. Let’s support them! Encourage them to expand their organic offerings. Talk to Andy Galli, the produce manager and the head of health foods. Make your needs and wishes known. Let them know we’re behind them. Their success insures our access to high-quality, fresh, organically-grown food right here in Brentwood!”

Even so, the idea of selling baskets of goodness to local people refused to die. Lon Kelsey, a Liberty High graduate, began farming a couple of parcels of land to hone his farming techniques and improve soil quality and property value for the landowners. Rick and Lon worked together to clear the ground, install irrigation systems, and plant crops. Lon began his own version of The Basket Case that he calls Eat Farm Fresh. To order, folks download a sign-up sheet from the website (www.EatFarmFresh.com), fill it out, write a check for payment, and mail it to Lon. The following Wednesday, they can pick up a box at the more convenient of the drop-off points: Comprehensive Fitness in Oakley behind the CentroMart or Caravelli’s Deli in Brentwood. Or for an extra $5, home delivery is available to Brentwood and Discovery Bay residents.

Lon is now selling 30-40 boxes every week and intends to increase his business by expanding the areas into which he delivers. He is engaged in CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) and he’s a regular at the Brentwood Farmers Market, which enables him to support himself by farming.

Our East County farms will be gone in 50 years if we fail to engage the hearts and minds of the next generation with the idea of farming as an honorable, respectable, and profitable occupation. We need to cultivate young farmers as we cultivate our crops. The next generation needs to know that they can actually make a living farming — if they approach it with determination and creativity. Or maybe even by accident. The story of Knoll Farms should be encouraging at this point. If two goof balls like Rick and me — refugees from suburban Southern California — can make a living accidentally farming 10 acres of land, it must mean that anyone can do it!