By Tom Osborne

Sustainable growing and eating are receiving more public attention now than ever before in my octogenarian lifetime . Books , lectures , periodical articles , blogs and more inform us about healthy foods that are locally , organically , and sustainably grown . Over the past few decades , our family ’ s meals have shifted away from red meat and most animal sources toward plant-based foods . The same is true for many of our friends .

To better understand this shift , our Laguna chapter of Citizens ’ Climate Lobby ( CCL ) recently joined with

several other nearby chapters and toured The Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano . This 28-acre organic farm affords the people of Orange County an example of the thinking and foodways that are consonant with healthy , sustainable living . On a much smaller scale but with comparable excellence , Laguna Beach ’ s quarter-acre Community Garden Park , at the south end of town , organically grows a range of vegetables .

Founded in 2008 , The Ecology Center started as a dream in the mind of founder / executive director Evan Marks . It now employs 75 workers who tend the crops , run the farm store ( that honors SNAP , or food stamps ) and school , provide ecologically themed films for the public , operate a restaurant on the property , and much more . The Center reports having between 500 and 800 volunteers . Among the most prominent supporters of the operation is Berkeley ’ s Alice Waters , the internationally known chef and restaurateur who owns her city ’ s famed French eatery , Chez Panisse . Waters inspired Michelle Obama to launch her nationwide campaign for organic school gardens .

Twenty-two CCLers in south

Orange County participated in our guided tour of The Ecology Center . Our guide , Jonathan , reminded us that we were standing on the ancestral land of the Acjachemen tribe ( called the Juaneños by the Spanish and later Euro-Americans ). They practiced organic , sustainable farming , providing a model for today ’ s Center . Jonathan noted that this property was about all that remained of agricultural Orange County . The goal of the Center was to recapture and adapt to our time that earlier way of indigenous farming . That means growing by four principles of Regenerative Organic Farming : non-pesticide cultivation , soil conservation using low or no tilling , animal welfare , and farmworker welfare , in this case , by paying a wage of $ 24 an hour .

What farming methods or systems are used at the Center ? The crops rotate on a four-year cycle to prevent soil exhaustion and maximize output . For example , space allotted to growing corn in one season of the cycle might be replanted with lettuces or tomatoes in another season . “ Chop and drop ” facilitates the rotation by leaving vegetative residues of an outgoing crop atop the soil to promote the growth of a different incoming

crop . A chicken-raising area provides natural fertilizer for the entire farm . The City of San Juan Capistrano provides the water , which the Center manages scrupulously by using drip irrigation , rainwater capture , and mulching to retain soil moisture .

The Community Garden Park in South Laguna offers on a cameo scale a highly innovative , much needed , and award-winning organic garden , founded in 2009 . Our family and dozens of others were among those starting this community garden , planned and eternally championed by Ann Christoph . This public garden has won a slew of awards for design and environmental achievement . Its lore is known in the San Francisco Bay Area , where a teacher in Albany had students read Tom and Gayle Joliet ’ s book fable , Alani and the Giant Kelp Elf , set in the garden . This green space , moreover , has its own band and holds several festivals each year while providing workshops on how to prune and otherwise care for our plantings . Visiting Tibetan Buddhist monks on several occasions have blessed this little slice of Nirvana .

Beyond growing veggies , the Community Garden Park has grown

GREEN LIGHT , PAGE 11