Chumash Foundation Grant To Growing Solutions Helps Keep Vital Traditions Alive

The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians Foundation recently donated funds to Growing Solutions earmarked to help preserve bio and cultural diversity. The Chumash are renowned for their fine hand-woven basketry made from California coastal grasses such as skunkbush (Rhus trilobata) and basket rush (Juncus textilis).  They produced a wide variety of baskets, jugs, and platters that were vital to everyday village life for collecting and storing food as well as ceremonial purposes. Some baskets were so tightly woven they were used to hold water and even cook food. Modern-day traditional basket making is being furthered among the Chumash youth through ongoing classes and mentoring. However, finding suitable pollution-free plant grasses becomes an increasing challenge as urbanization and wetland destruction reduce available collection sites. Growing Solutions specializes in growing several wetland species suitable for traditional basketry and proposes increasing and enhancing public collection sites for ongoing sustainable harvest. With this funding Growing Solutions will grow and plant basket grasses with help from tribal volunteers. A special thank you to the Foundation for helping us make this happen!

Abbondanza! Pizza-Oven Building Workshop Stokes Student's Hunger for Hand's-On Learning

In early February students from SBCC Landscape Construction class learned the art of making the fire that warms twice by building a fully functioning pizza oven in the span of one day. The workshop, hosted by Growing Solutions staff and taught by Orella Ranch’s Guner Tautrim, used readily available materials and cob construction techniques to construct a simple, versatile and much appreciated warm spot in the staff outdoor cooking area. And done within the span of an afternoon…literally only five hours from first dig to digging in for dinner, the first fire being used to cure the bricks and bake a custom feta-veggie (freshly harvested from the garden) pizza at the same time. Of course, the key to good pizza and good pizza-oven building is ample planning and preparation. In this case, GS co-founder Karen Flagg spent nearly a semester constructing a custom hand-coiled chimney at SBCC's Center For Lifelong Learning ceramics' department (needing special approval from the kiln chief to fire such a large piece). Gunar, who runs Seaborn Designs, is an expert in cob construction and has built several pizza ovens in the past. For information on future oven-building workshops contact Peter at peter@growingsolutions.org.