Hi guys,
If you’ve been getting our boxes for awhile now I’ll bet you’ve become aware of how much we like John Given’s lettuces, his carrots, his leafy greens, his tomatoes, and everything else he grows during the seasons. If John is growing it, we want it, and there’s a good reason behind it. John has been farming in Goleta since 1979 and has been doing it with an integrity that is hard to come by in this day and age. He is religious about compost and creating strong, healthy soils on his farms and his produce shows it.  He grows the best tasting food anywhere.  

This week we went to track him down, and ended up spending the morning with him preparing his homestead farm that was burnt down by the Holiday fire for the rains.  John was out seeding the burnt hillsides around his farm in rye to hold them together for the winter. We spent a few hours working together making sure that there was seed on all of the areas that needed it. It struck me that this is what makes John so cool. He is aware of the natural world around him, and is aware of his role in it. He knows that his hillside will suffer this winter if he doesn’t give it a helping hand. If he doesn’t seed it at the right time and give it a good grass cover, the soil will run down hill and be lost forever.  So he was out there with his seeder giving it a good shot.

It’s funny how important these acts are in farming and how important the timing of these things are.  If he were to seed too early, the birds would eat everything and nothing would come up.  So he was out on his hillside right as the second light rain of the season was coming through. On a day when the soil was already moist, and on a day where the birds would be hunkered down already. And this is what makes John Givens such a good farmer. He understands timing and he does the right thing at the right time and he does it season after season.

-Jason