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Sustainable raised-bed gardening at Alameda Point
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Saboor Safari. Photo by Courtenay Morgan Redis.
No doubt you're already familiar with Alameda's Rosenblum's Cellars, now owned by the food and drinks giant Diageo Beverages. And you've likely heard of Rock Wall Winery, the Rosenblum family's latest winemaking adventure less than a mile away at Alameda Point. And you may have heard of the cross-investment between Rock Wall Winery investors and Angela's Bistro, at the corner of Oak and Central Avenue in Alameda. But you may not know that diners at the bistro enjoy fresh herbs and vegetables grown at Rock Wall by sustainable, environmentally friendly gardening practices.
Shauna Rosenblum, the daughter of Kent Rosenblum, who founded Alameda's Rosenblum Cellars, is the winemaker at Rock Wall. She has a Masters of Fine Arts degree (2008) in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an undergraduate degree in fine arts (Ceramics, 2006) from the California College of the Arts. But Shauna, now in her mid-twenties, grew up around winemaking, stepping on her first grapes at the age of six, and learned the art of winemaking from her father. (Alameda parents and young adults dismayed by the decline in state funding for California postsecondary schools should take note - apprenticeship opportunities abound at Alameda Point, from winemaking to distilled spirts production to shipbuilding to blacksmithing.) Rock Wall's first Alameda Point vintage was declared in 2007, although the grapes were crushed off-site. Their 2008 vintage, to be released this September at an open house event, was the first to be both crushed and vinted at Alameda Point. Buying grapes through multi-year contracts from growers around California, Rock Wall now produces fourteen wines, including two sparkling wines, in a tremendous converted aircraft hangar. 2009 represents another first for Rock Wall, whose investors, who are also invested in Angela's Bistro, use space at the winery to plant a sustainable-practice, environmentally-friendly herb and vegetable garden, with the harvest served in the bistro's dining room. I recently sat down with Saboor Safari, the Chef and owner of Angela's Bistro, and Roy Creekmore, a local chef, food writer and Rock Wall investor, to talk about it.
Safari and lettuce bins. Photo by Courtenay Morgan Redis.
Creekmore and Safari told me that the garden was the brainchild of Kent Rosenblum, fellow-investor Bill Williford and Saboor himself. Rock Wall has plenty of vacant, flat, former-airport tarmac around the hangar they lease at Alameda Point and it seemed like a good use of the space. Other fellow Angela's investors volunteer their time, and spare parts (see below) to maintain the garden.
The contaminants in the ground from decades of Navy use, and the acres of concrete apron preclude them from directly planting a garden in the ground, so they are re-using "macrobins" - containers used to hold the grapes after harvest - for raised-bed gardening. They acquire older fiberglass and wooden bins from growers and wine-makers that would otherwise be thrown out, and for nine months of the year, Rock Wall's own "good" bins are idle, waiting for harvest season, so those bins are put to work in the garden too.
Any bins that leak are double-tiered and lined with wheat cloth so that water is collected on a leak-proof bottom bin and re-cycled to the top, where the plants are. (In winemaking, macrobins are sometimes used in the maceration process for red wine, so if they leak, they aren't of any use to a typical winery.) They are using about thirty bins now, and have room for probably a couple hundred more. Fresh water used to soak and seal new wooden wine barrels and which might be discarded at other wineries is collected and used for the garden. They practice rainwater harvesting by collecting run-off from the roof of the hangar, and they've just installed a drip-irrigation system, re-cycling old valves and parts that they had in their garages.
If they can figure out how to do it in a raised-bed, they want to start composting winemaking offal such as discarded skins, seeds and stems, and the un-usable part of the plants they grow such as the stalks from fava bean plants. Creekmore explained: "Ultimately, you become a soil person. You start off thinking about the harvest, what you want out of gardening. Then, you start focusing on the plants - good plants make a good harvest. Ultimately, you figure out it's about the soil. If the soil is healthy, the first two will follow."
As best they can, they avoid using pesticides, opting instead for ladybugs, beneficial nematodes and manual pest removal. And ants. The pesky, pervasive Argentine ant that loves to invade California homes when the temperature soars? "Ten times more beneficial for gardening than earthworms," asserts Creekmore. "Ants are very healthy for the soil. They create air pockets in the soil, which is good, and they contribute organic matter to the soil as well." I pressed the point of of their motivations for setting up the garden. Are they trying to be some sort of Bay-area beacon of sustainable gardening? Are they enviro-gardening activists? Not at all. Safari told me "I just want the freshest herbs and vegetables for my restaurant. Normally I shop at five different farmers markets for my produce." The day I met with them at Angela's, Safari had just returned from Alameda Point with fresh tomatoes, onions and herbs.
Creekmore told me that they started planting in late winter of this year, buying their plants from Iris Watson of Alameda's Thomsen's Garden Center. Northern California's mild weather allows year-round planting, but "we're trying to find our way" with regards to Alameda Point's microclimate, which, at the western tip of Alameda, gets a lot of wind off the bay. Herbs like rosemary, mint, thyme and basil, and vegetables like tomatoes do well at Alameda Point, he told me, and they've been able to produce some peppers. On a tour of the garden, I saw some good-sized pumpkins as well. Watson had them plant legumes first, which they didn't harvest but instead mowed into the soil for the nitrogen content. From mid-August through October, they will be planting winter crops such as beets, chard, kale and other root vegetables. Watson is coaching them on companion planting (some plants get along swimmingly in the garden, drawing beneficial insects) and crop rotation (don't plant tomatoes in the same soil year after year.) About the only downside is that they can't grow figs, citrus or other fruiting trees due to fish and wildlife restrictions at Alameda Point against trees of height.
Urban gardening at Alameda Point. Photo by Courtenay Morgan Redis.
All tours of the Rock Wall winery get a tour of the garden as well, and, looking forward into the fall and winter, Creekmore said that he'd like to start doing tours with the local schools for the 2009-2010 school season. Safari told me that he's not aggressively promoting the use of local home-grown produce in his restaurant, but his servers will mention it to customers and he still buys produce from other sources. It may take a couple of seasons to figure out what crops can consistently be produced at Alameda Point for the restaurant.
According to Creekmore, they're looking into how they might barter wine for consultation services to help maintain and expand the garden. They should have plenty of it - Rock Wall is on track this year to produce around 5,000 cases of wine and they are considering a national distribution deal to extend their sales reach beyond the San Francisco Bay area. And they're in the process of passing a winemaking tradition from one generation to the next.
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