News from the Farm

Helping a garden grow

Community plot receives donation of electric tractor worth $89,000
By Jennifer Sawhney The Press Democrat

Established on a privately owned 1-acre plot of land, the Healdsburg garden, which has been lovingly dubbed “Jardín del Pueblo” (The People’s Garden) by one of the volunteers who tends it, is a source of great community pride. Last Wednesday, an anonymous donor, aware of what it means to those who not only grow produce in the garden but benefit from its bounty, donated an electric tractor — valued at $89,000 — to help tend the various crops.

On most Saturday mornings before the sun rises, Patricio Cadena and Santiago Madrigal Rojas check the rows of chilies, tomatoes, zucchini and other produce that are growing in the garden. Madrigal Rojas, who also works as a farmworker, said that tending the garden is a way for him to return to his roots. He grew up in a farming community in Mexico and remembers spending more time in the fields than at school. “One feels comfortable here,” he said. Cadena, who also works as a farmworker, added, “Everything is fresh.” “I like the fields. I like helping people,” he said.

They are just two out of about 40 volunteers who have tended the privately owned 1-acre plot since 2022. It has since become a bustling community garden, helping to fight food insecurity and support job training, said land owner Zeke Guzman, president of Latinos Unidos del Condado de Sonoma, a Santa Rosa-based farmworker advocacy group. Most of the volunteers are local farmworkers who come on their days off, some after long nights of harvest, to tend to the garden before they take veggies home to feed their families, Guzman said. Volunteers show up every Saturday from mid-July through mid-November. Most live in apartments, so this is a way to connect them to their “own histories, their own culture, what sustains them and allows them to feel alive,” he said.

The produce is the type of food many grew up eating in Mexico, where many of the volunteers came from, which adds to the garden’s significance, he said. “They decided on the vegetables, the different type of tomato plants, … I’m letting them develop a garden as to what they eat and what gets consumed,” Guzman said. There are also hibiscus plants, at least four varieties of chilies, rows of cactus and a few types of tomatoes laid neatly on each row.

The tractor’s arrival was celebrated by about 10 supporters weeks after roughly 30 people had gathered on a drizzly Oct. 14 morning for a tractor that never arrived. A miscommunication about paperwork was blamed for the delay, Guzman said. “I'm not just going to use this tractor just for farming. I'm going to use it for workforce development,” he said. A decadeslong farmworker advocate, Guzman hopes to provide training sessions with the tractor’s manufacturer to the garden’s volunteers, such as Cadena and Madrigal Rojas, to help them in their daily work. This year’s harvest produced about 8,000 pounds of food that has been donated to members of the community, said Duskie Estes, executive director of Farm to Pantry.

Community effort

The Healdsburg-based nonprofit helps farmers glean their produce to donate to local organizations and has been integral in distributing the garden’s produce to the community, Guzman said. A network of local players helped lay the groundwork that led to the garden’s creation and, later, for the tractor’s donation. The community garden, Guzman said, was established with support from Estes at Farm to Pantry and Bruce Mentzer, co-founder of Farm to Fight Hunger.

The idea for the garden was born after Guzman paid a visit to Mentzer and his husband Anthony Solar. Their 5-acre farm donates its veggies and eggs to the community. “Part of what we do, in addition to growing the vegetables on our own farm, is we start thousands of seedlings in the winter. We donate the plants to folks like Zeke who are basically growing to give,” he said. These include thousands of starter seedlings for the rows of red and green papilla, jalapeño and serrano chilies, he said. “It’s tailored to the community that needs it and that’s what Zeke’s doing,” Mentzer said. His farm, according to Guzman, also donated a greenhouse to the garden that volunteers use to store seedlings in.

Martin Mileck, founder of Cold Creek Compost, who has collaborated with Mentzer and Estes for years, donated much of the fertilizer used in the garden. Guzman was involved with food distribution in years past and knew Estes from Farm to Pantry, which helped coordinate distribution over the last two seasons. During that period, the garden has produced 12,000 pounds of produce, Estes said.

The Tractor’s journey

The idea to donate a tractor began with a single phone call to Sonoma Land Trust Board member Quincey Tompkins Imhoff, said Shannon Nichols, director of philanthropy. An anonymous donor wanted to offer the $89,000, all-electric Monarch MK-V tractor to Sonoma Land Trust, a nonprofit that acquires and restores land and helps connect the community to nature, Nichols said. “We felt … it really should go to a farm where a farm is operating,” she said. Tompkins Imhoff spoke to Mentzer, who spoke to Estes and they came to the conclusion that the community garden run by Guzman in Healdsburg would be the best place for the tractor, she said. “We were in touch with the family who donated it and recommended that it come here and they were very pleased to have it be serving in this way,” Nichols said at the second gathering last week to welcome the tractor’s arrival.

Plans to grow

One of the community garden’s volunteers, Norma Alvarez, attended both days to celebrate the tractor’s arrival. Though she is relatively new to working in agriculture, Alvarez said she is excited to put the tractor to use. “I want to teach myself,” she said after she saw the tractor parked next to the community garden. She splits her time volunteering between the community garden and Farm to Fight Hunger, she said. After the last vegetables are picked, the plan is to mulch the garden and plant a cover crop over the winter, Guzman said. They’ll use the tractor to “help disc and plow and get the soil ready for next year,” he added.

Looking to the future, there are also plans to expand the garden. Children who’ve joined their parents also want a stake in what’s being produced. “The children who have volunteered here, they asked me if they could have their own garden,” Guzman said, adding that they’ll likely plant strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. To the main garden, he said, volunteers will likely add banana plants. The leaves are often used as a tamale wrap in Oaxaca and Central America, unlike the corn husks used throughout most of Mexico. They will also likely add chayote and peanuts too, he said. “They’re laying out the plan. It’s their garden,” Guzman said.

Spotlight on Member/Producer: Farm to Fight Hunger

Listen to the bees shuttling back and forth between the resident hive and hear the buzz and hum of beneficial insects keeping everything in balance. Smell the fragrant hedgerows of native plants and flowers. Wave to volunteers from Farm to Pantry gleaning thousands of pounds of nutritious produce for donation. Spy the solar-powered chicken coop on the hill, and when night falls, watch the owls and bats fly from their boxes to start the hunt.

It all happens on Farm to Fight Hunger.

Bruce Mentzer and his husband Anthony Solar envisioned a farm where everything can be given away. Now in its third year, Farm to Fight Hunger, located in Healdsburg, is in full swing. Just last year they donated 10,000 pounds of healthy produce to community organizations and gave 20,000 eggs to Redwood Empire Food Bank.

It all started three years ago when the couple bought an abandoned vineyard rife with bermuda grass and transformed it into a thriving farm. Bruce says, “We bought 5 acres, tore out grapes, added compost and cover crops, corrected the Ph and calcium levels. Then we were ready to plant.” Bruce and Anthony wanted to feed the community with organic, nutritious produce grown with regenerative and sustainable farming practices.

The concept of community farming is not new to Mr. Mentzer. His grandparents were dairy and corn farmers in Pennsylvania. Additionally, his father, now age 91, ran a half-acre church garden for 25 years. “My dad worked on the farm on weeknights after work, and then drove the food to soup kitchens in Baltimore, Maryland," Bruce says proudly. After a career in advertising, Bruce’s genetics and desire to work the land came to the fore. Now he says, “I have never been so content in my life. I love to be outside...Anthony loves the chickens. It is amazing to do what we really love and be helpful at the same time.”

Anthony and Bruce have many aspirations for Farm to Fight Hunger in the coming year. They plan to expand their educational program with School Garden Network and want to host field trips for the sustainable agriculture program at Shone Farm at Santa Rosa Junior College. Anthony is working to double the number of eggs going to Redwood Empire Food Bank. For the families in need at Corazon Healdsburg, the farm will continue to grow culturally relevant foods such as poblano, Manzano, and jalapeno peppers; nopales cactus paddles; chayote squash; and herbs and medicinal plants.

Thank you, gentlemen, for the kind and benevolent work you do to fight hunger in our community. For more information, to donate or to volunteer, please visit Farm to Fight Hunger.

Farm to fight hunger steps up with suggestions and vegetable starts for planting

For new farmers Shalie and Jeremy Jonkers, creating a symbiotic community with other farmers doing the same thing has helped them do more with their bucolic flat land, rich in topsoil, at the near end of the Dry Creek Valley, on Kinley Lane. Their farm, Noble Goat Farm, came into being during the pandemic.

By building community, person-to-person and organization-to-organization, their nine-acre parcel is a dream in the making.

Four of those acres are invested into farmland. Part of the orchard of original pomegranate trees are still standing and the budding farmers harvested two tons of ruby red pomegranates for Farm to Pantry last season from 400 trees. In addition, they planted specifically to offer produce to the organization.

They continue to plant and harvest for Farm to Pantry, and to grow their farm. The couple has two children, Hadley, 4, and Hollyn, 10 months. They also have a farm dog, Wyatt. Plus four hens named Ruth and Violet, after Jeremy's’ grandmothers, and Pearl and Wanda, after Shalie's grandmothers. They will be adopting small goats, to be named after their grandfathers, as soon as their goat enclosure is finished.

Jeremy is a busy man and he doesn’t sit still much. He answers a question, then he’s off pulling weeds and gathering them for the hens. As he tosses the grasses in the hen run, the four chickens run out to feast, excited to have more fresh food.

‘It feels like coming home’

Both of the Jonkers grew up in agricultural communities, in small towns in Kansas and Ohio where soybeans and corn were aplenty. They came to Healdsburg to stay in May 2020… read the full article by clicking here.

Healdsburg couple donates eggs, produce from farm to Sonoma County nonprofits

Farming is an encore career for Bruce Mentzer and Anthony Solar. Taking it up at an unlikely time of life - both are in their 50s - they find the sweaty work of growing food pure pleasure, particularly when done without profit.

They planted their Farm to Fight Hunger, 5 acres tucked off an unmarked driveway just south of Healdsburg, solely to pump out produce and fresh eggs for people in need.

Last year, their first full year of production, they donated two tons of eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and other just-picked edibles to local food banks, senior housing residents, the Boys & Girls Clubs and other nonprofits that feed people.

In a county full of bounty, an estimated 22% of the population struggles to get enough to eat. That includes 18,500 children. Mentzer and Solar are trying to make at least a small dent in that deficit … read more

Civil Eats TV: Duskie Estes Is Gleaning with Meaning

Thank you Civil Eats for filming the gleaners at Farm to Fight Hunger

“It’s pretty incredible what the power of many small acts can do,” says Duskie Estes, the executive director of Farm to Pantry, a nonprofit organization that focuses on gleaning community gardens and farms to feed the growing number of food insecure people in Northern California’s Sonoma County.

On a recent fall morning, she and a half-dozen volunteers were out early gathering the last zucchini, tomatoes, and eggplant on Farm to Fight Hunger, a six-acre property owned by Bruce Mentzer in Healdsburg, California.

In a region where other crops are often replaced by wine grapes, Mentzer made the rare choice to pull up a vineyard to create the nonprofit farm. All of the produce grown here goes to food pantries and other community organizations serving people in need.

This year, Mentzer grew five tons of produce—the equivalent of 40,000 servings of vegetables—and donated more than 10,000 eggs. Much of that was donated to Farm to Pantry.

Farm to Fight Hunger is just one of the several hundred properties Estes and Farm to Pantry visited this year to collect surplus. Along the way, she’s creating community partnerships and long-term networks to ensure that more food ends up on tables than in landfills… read the full article by clicking here.

North Bay Spirit Award winner gleans food for residents, organizations in need

Congratulation to Melita and all the gleaners that harvest the Farm to Fight Hunger Produce. Thank you Comcast for using our Farm as the backdrop for much of the video.

Virtually everyone associated with Healdsburg’s Farm to Pantry nonprofit knows its origin story well.
It goes like this: Long ago during the Great Recession, Healdsburg newcomer Melita Love was in Big John’s market, toting out her groceries, when she spotted a collection bin for the local food pantry. What a good idea, she thought, getting people to donate something from their cart before they left the store. But she also was dismayed by the disparity between the barrel filled with processed food and the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables in her own bag. In a region renowned for its bounty and consciousness about healthy food, it seemed to Love terribly wrong that the groceries she took for granted were beyond the reach of so many in her community… read the full article by clicking here

Slow Food Sonoma County North is helping bring back the Bodega Red potato from the brink of extinction