Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION DEPARTMENT
Occidental Arts & Ecology Center
September 2008  ~  Reconnecting with the Plant World: Organic Gardening, Food, and Health
The second of a two-part course which was an exploration of the relationship between the health of the soil, the plants that nourish us, the food we eat, and the vitality they offer to each of us, our families, the Tribe, and the Earth.

PRESENTERS:

Doug Gosling:
Doug Gosling is a Sowing Circle Community member and the Garden Manager at OAEC — a position he has held at this site for over 23 years. Doug has a special interest in seed saving and the preservation of biodiversity, edible landscaping, and cooking from the garden. He is also a garden photographer with work published in Harrowsmith, National Gardening and National Geographic. In addition to co-teaching OAEC’s Permaculture Design Intensives and School Garden training courses, Doug manages the Mother Garden Biodiversity Program, OAEC’s seed collection, and the garden project at Food for Thought, the Sonoma County AIDS Food Bank. In his other life, Doug is an African music fanatic and hosts a monthly African music show on KRCB, Sonoma County's public radio station.

Michelle Vesser:
Michelle Vesser has returned to work in OAEC’s Mother Garden where she started gardening in 1986. As Assistant Gardener and Production Manager she concentrates on increasing the amount of vibrant produce available to the Center’s renowned kitchen. . Michelle managed a Community Support Agriculture project for 8 seasons, in the Sierra foothills. Over the years, she has been dedicated to passing on the knowledge of hand-tilled agriculture through extension and apprenticeship in the U.S., Philippines, Nepal, and Mexico. Her other passions are working with herbs, exploring food as medicine, and practicing Tai Chi. She has recently incorporated these skills in a variety of OAEC workshops.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

September 5th:
  • Participants shared personal stories with regards to gardening and food.
  • Site Orientation
  • Garden Tour: site history; Organic and Bio-intensive overview.
  • Soil: From the woods into the garden.
  • Clearing Beds
  • Composting: Building piles and other composting options.
  • Slide show: Weston Price, An exploration of traditional diets.
Price travelled the world over in order to study isolated human groups, including sequestered villages in Switzerland, Gaelic communities in the Outer Hebrides, Eskimos and Indians of North America, Melanesian and Polynesian South Sea Islanders, African tribes, Australian Aborigines, New Zealand Maori and the Indians of South America. Wherever he went, Dr. Price found that beautiful straight teeth, freedom from decay, stalwart bodies, resistance to disease and fine characters were typical of primitives on their traditional diets, rich in essential food factors.

When Dr. Price analyzed the foods used by isolated primitive peoples he found that they provided at least four times the calcium and other minerals, and at least TEN times the fat-soluble vitamins from animal foods such as butter, fish eggs, shellfish and organ meats.

The importance of good nutrition for mothers during pregnancy has long been recognized, but Dr. Price's investigation showed that primitives understood and practiced preconception nutritional programs for both parents. Many tribes required a period of premarital nutrition, and children were spaced to permit the mother to maintain her full health and strength, thus assuring subsequent offspring of physical excellence. Special foods were often given to pregnant and lactating women, as well as to the maturing boys and girls in preparation for future parenthood. Dr. Price found these foods to be very rich in fat soluble vitamins A and D nutrients found only in animal fats.

These primitives with their fine bodies, homogeneous reproduction, emotional stability and freedom from degenerative ills stand forth in sharp contrast to those subsisting on the impoverished foods of civilization-sugar, white flour, pasteurized milk and convenience foods filled with extenders and additives.

September 6th:
  • Harvest
  • Carpool to Lorelle Ross's residence for creation of a garden at her property.
  • Tools: Overview; Strengthen your body while gardening.
  • Create a Garden: Direct sowing; Transplanting; Watering.
  • Sheet Mulching
  • Traditional Foods and Values: With Kathleen Smith
  • Deeper look into tribe health: with Lily Mazzarella
  • Sowing seeds for your health and the tribe.

September 7th:
  • Starting the garden in the nursery
  • Seeds and Seed Saving
  • Herbal Allies: Self-heal, California Poppy, Garden Mallow.
  • Closing Circle: Evaluations


Book List:
Gardening
How to Grow More Vegetables - John Jeavons
Golden Gate Gardening - Pam Pierce
Secrets of the Soil - Peter Tompkins and Christoper Bird
Seed to Seed - Suzanne Ashwoth
From the Good Earth - Michael Ableman
Wees of the West - Whitson, Burrill
The New Organic Gardener - Eliot Coleman
Step by Step Organic Vegetable Gardening - Shepherd Ogden
Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening - J.I. Rodale
Let it Rot! The Home Gardener's Guide to Composting - Stu Campbell
Common Sense Pest Control - William & Helga Olikowski, Sheila Daar

Food
Nourishing Traditions Cookbook - Sally Fallon
Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet - Elaine Gottschall
The Body Ecology Diet: Recovering Your Health & Rebuilding Your Immunity -
Donna Gates
Whole Foods Companion - Dianne Onstad

Herbs
Family Herbal - Rosemary Gladstar
Healing with the Herbs of Life - Lesley Tierra L.Ac
Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West - Michael Moore
Green Pharmacy: The History and Evolution of Western Herbal Medicine - Barbara Griggs

Weston Price
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration - Weston A. Price, D.D.S.
Traditional Foods are our Best Medicine - Dr. Ronald F. Schmid
From the Soil to the Stomach - Penny Kelly N.D.
Full Moon Feast - Food and the Hunger for Connection - Jessica Prentice

Weston A. Price Foundation - www.westonaprice.org
The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation - www.ppnf.org

Native Foods and Harvesting
Tending the Wild - M. Kat Anderson
Earth Medicine Earth Food - Michael A. Weiner
The History and Folklore of North American Wildflowers - Timothy Coffey
Walking Where We Lived - Gaylen D. Lee
Related Materials:

The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields (Paperback)
by John Jeavons (Author),
Carol Cox (Author)
Presents the basic principles of bio-intensive gardening in concise, easy-to-understand terms accessible even to a gardening beginner. By implementing bio-intensive techniques and working in harmony with natural garden cycles, gardeners will soon produce yields up to four times greater than those obtainable with conventional methods, in a fraction of the growing space.
How to Grow More Vegetables
And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine
7th Edition
by John Jeavons

A classic in the field of sustainable gardening, HOW TO GROW MORE VEGETABLES shows how to produce a beautiful organic garden with minimal watering and care, whether it's just a few tomatoes in a tiny backyard or enough food to feed a family of four on less than half an acre. Updated with the latest biointensive tips and techniques, this is an essential reference for gardeners of all skill levels seeking to grow some or all of their own food.
Books available in the FIGR Tribal Library or the FIGR Environmental Protection Department.
Anne Swoveland and Danny Parker opening day.OAEC GardenBeautiful flowers in the gardenDoug Gosling showing paritcipants around the OAEC grounds.Devin Chatoian
Kashia Pomo - Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria - Southern Pomo
Native Plant Uses
by Eric Wilder
Presents a key to common plants of coastal California which have been an important part of Pomo and Coast Miwok Indian life. Plants detailed here were used for either food, tea or medicines and other daily Indian purposes