The Almanac
First Annual Board Retreat!
We chose our board of directors for their experience in leadership, management, business start-ups, fundraising, accounting, nonprofits, advocacy and community organizing, and for their creativity, compassion, intelligence and integrity. Each director has a deep...
Thank You For Planting The Seed With Us!
Last Thursday marked our first event where we got to formally introduce Terra Cultura to the world. We had a ton of help in making the evening a success. Thanks to the outpouring of community support, we exceeded our fundraising goal! So thank you for being a part of...
Interview with Brittany De Nigris, Artist
Brittany De Nigris is an artist who explores various materials to construct poetic anatomies that often reside outside of language. Since she has a lot to say about the artist's connection to time, place and materials, we thought our readers with backgrounds in art or...
Interview with Leora Barish, Heroic Food
Heroic Food is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to prepare and train military veterans for careers in sustainable farming, agricultural trades, and food entrepreneurship in a veteran-supportive environment. Terra Cultura interviewed Heroic Food Founder and...
On The Edge
Near the suburbs where I grew up, 30 miles north of the Mexican border, there is a narrow 7-mile strip of nature preserve called Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve. A creek runs through a shady valley, and on the canyon ridges centuries-old oaks bump up against 30-year...
Interview With Jordan and Mariah Brownwood, Nopalito Farm
Mariah and Jordan Brownwood of Nopalito Farm are some of our favorite local farmers. With help from family members, they run an 8-acre organic hops farm and orchard in Valley Center. San Diego is known for its beer culture, and the Brownwoods make their contribution through their speciality fresh hops and gourmet burger stand. Nopalito also plays host to events and weddings. We chatted with Jordan about some of the joys and challenges of running a hops farm.
Interview with Artist Lilah Friedland, Founder of Wandwood Stream Artist Retreat
Lilah Friedland is a multi-disciplinary artist who is building the Wandwood Stream artists retreat space in Gallatin, New York. Her creative career spans helping to start Scope art fair and playing in the band Brute Force, to working in such mediums as performance,...
You’re Invited!
We’re especially excited to announce (and you’re the very first ones to hear it) that the entertainment at this event will include The Gold Souls, all the way from Sacramento in all their bluesy glory, as well as a very special San Diego musician, Erin Bower and friends. Koi Zen Cellars will be pouring the wine and it’s sure to be a very good time. Check back soon for announcements on more special guests and local sponsors. We’re looking forward to building our community and building support around Terra Cultura’s mission. We hope you can come!
Interview with John and Courtney Fiske of San Diego Farm Animal Rescue
John and Courtney Fiske are celebrating an anniversary next month. May marks a full year since they opened San Diego Farm Animal Rescue, in Escondido, California. Among their cherimoya trees, Courtney and John provide safe haven for elderly, abandoned and otherwise displaced horses, pigs, chickens and the like, from ranches and homes who simply can no longer care for them. We caught up with our friends to chat about how they got into animal care-taking, what they’ve learned over the last year, and what’s on the horizon for San Diego Farm Animal Rescue.
Interview with David Plescia, Green Valley Community Farm
David Plescia and his partner Kayta Brady are no strangers to the land. After meeting as apprentices in Williamstown, MA at Caretaker Farm in 2012 (one of the oldest active CSAs in the United States), they’ve since set their sights on California. In 2013, they relocated to Sebastapol, CA, and in 2016, they began a new endeavor working with partners at Green Valley Farm and Mill, to open Green Valley Community Farm, a small organic fruit and vegetable farm nestled alongside Green Valley Creek in Sebastopol, California. David was kind enough to sit down to answer a few questions for us about getting into farming, and about startup farm life.
A Quiet Moment
Whether you're emerging from a cold winter, or a much-needed rainy season like us here in California, may we be the first to welcome you out of quasi-hibernation. Many a great novel, album and painting has come from artists being driven indoors by cold and snow. And...
Agonizing Affections
For my first Terra Cultura blog entry, I wanted to share some new and very personal work with you. I chose these photographs because I think they resonate with our ethos, which is a turn back to the real: real food, real people, real talk about survival. We are facing a crisis in our everyday lives, and it is both a crisis of means and a crisis of feeling.
The Hunt For Land And Many More Exciting Things
Happy Spring! The sugar snap peas in our garden are blossoming and the cilantro needs daily haircuts to keep it from going to seed (anybody need some cilantro?!). We hope you’ve been enjoying The Almanac so far. We figured it was time for a little Terra Cultura update!
Interview with Jessica Perez, Blue Bus Adventure
Jessica Perez and her partner Nick Cahill are doing something that not too many people are courageous enough to endeavor: They are packing up their lives, downsizing to the bare essentials, and hitting the road in a 1988 Thomas School Bus, which they've painstakingly...
Interview with Jennifer Frost
I had the pleasure of meeting Jennifer Frost while attending the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in January of 2016. She was one of the featured artists for the festival, and I was drawn to her creative re-use of discarded materials. I was excited to hear from her shortly after we launched the Terra Cultura website, and realized the ethos of her work aligned perfectly with Terra Cultura’s. A few days ago we got to sit down and chat about art, agriculture, and the ways we interact with our culture and environments.
Art Farm Nebraska
Before Terra Cultura had a name, we referred to it simply as the art farm. We suspected other Art Farms existed and wanted to reach out to them as potential collaborators. A google search for the term yielded the well-established Art Farm Nebraska that has offered artist and writer residencies since 1991. The more I delved into Art Farm Nebraska’s multi-tiered website, the more it became clear that I would have to visit and learn its ways. As an aspiring fiction writer with an arts background, as well as a new farmer, it seemed to be a good fit. So I applied and was really excited to be accepted for a month long writing residency. It is appropriate that this is our Valentine’s Day post–Art Farm Nebraska warrants a love letter.
Terra Cultura Goes to EcoFarm 2017
We had dreamed of attending the annual EcoFarm conference in Pacific Grove, CA for years. We’d see banners advertising for it on our road trips up and down Interstate 5, and we’d hear gushings about how amazing it was from our friends and colleagues lucky enough to attend. Until this year though, our attendance was all but impossible; between our scattered geography, our full-time jobs, and our lack of funds, we just weren’t able to make it work. Fortunately, things are very different this year.
Welcome to The Almanac! or Terra Cultura: An Introduction…
If you’re interested in exploring the intersection of agriculture, art and community, with an eye for environmental stewardship and economic feasibility, then you’ve come to the right place.
As you may know, The Almanac is the weblog of Terra Cultura. Terra Cultura is in the process of becoming a farm and education and community center in the central coast region of California, with facilities for events, artist residencies, and guests. We will share what we figure out throughout the process so that our successes can be replicated and our failures avoided. Along with updates on Terra Cultura, you can expect exciting posts on stuff like…