We love our honey bees. You can find some of their raw, unprocessed honey in the hut most seasons. This is a really healthy frame of bees we opened up to check for honey in spring of 2014. This is a healthy frame of bees.

Blueberries are native to North America and you can find them across the "fruited" plains of the U.S. In fact, the first pilgrims learned from the North American natives how to dry the Blueberries and save them for winter, so native Americans had the first processed super food on the continent. Some varieties of blueberries are also native to South America, and the ripening seasons between the two continents is different, hence you see different varieties available at different times of the year.

Residential farming and gardening services are taking hold in some American cities, furthering the homegrown food craze and helping people save money in the process. Assessing "a small but ripe niche market" According to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, Minneapolis residents are increasingly interested in the idea of growing their own food because they "want to eat locally and organically, and they could save money in the long term." 

The newest way to achieve such lofty ecological goals is to hire a personal farmer, a professional who builds a garden of healthy fruits and vegetables, and returns weekly to tend to it. In the Twin Cities, "at least two new residential farming services were launched" in the past few months. Catherine Turner, a lawyer, hired a personal farmer. "This garden has been planned and engineered for greatest yield," she told the Star Tribune.

Great question! The concept of organic has drawn a lot of positive attention to how we grow and raise food, and the impact of agriculture on our environment. 

Organic Agriculture was originally conceived from a desire to improve soil quality and the environment, and from a rejection of the use of synthetic chemicals and fertilizers in farming. Organic agriculture is a subset of sustainable agriculture. 

Sustainable Agriculture is based on the principle that we provide quality food in the present without compromising the ability of the land to provide quality food in the future. Natural sustainable farms, including organic farms, use ecosystem-friendly sustainable farming practices, natural fertilizers and soil amendments in environmentally healthy quantities.

From a purely legal perspective, organic is certified by a government regulatory body and natural is not. Organic food fans want their food to be completely free of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and preservatives.  Natural food folk believe that synthesizing a food item results in loss of nutrients and other healthy properties, so they want natural foods.  

The United States Department of Agricultureis the domestic certifying body for organic food. The Organic Food Products Act defines the rules and parameters for food items that are produced, manufactured and handled organically.

Here are the practical differences:

"El Niño weather event is biggest since 1997, may trigger soaking winter storms..." is the actual headline in the Mercury News.  As any California farmer would say, this is wonderful news. Yet in spite of all our advanced algorithms, satellites and data, the meteorologists are still offering only educated guesses, not facts. Talk to our sagacious senior farmers, though, and you will be told that if the rain doesn't come this year, it will come next year, or the year after. The fact is, California is a generally arid region of extreme weather, and we have lived through droughts before. Now is the time farmers prepare for rain and conserving the water that does come.