This isn’t going to be our usual farm and garden post. I just feel like writing about where I live today.
I live in Vallejo. Generally everyone calls it V-town. It’s a city of about 120,000, which is about midsize for the San Francisco Bay Area. It has a beautiful downtown area with stately Victorians lining the streets.
Every Saturday morning we journey to downtown for the year round farmers’ market and for my stepson’s Jujitsu class. It’s becoming a tradition that I truly enjoy. We are getting to know the farmers and we have our favorite stands to buy at. There’s the “Apple Guy.” He’s not certified organic, but we love the apples. There’s the “Mushroom Guy” who is organic and who we buy a good portion of our veggies from. BTW, those are how we refer to them, not their farm names. There’s Lujan farms where we get a lot of our non-apple fruit. There’s a new organic farm there that we are starting to buy from more since they carry a lot of produce that the other organic farm doesn’t carry. Unfortunately there are only two certified organic farms at our farmers’ market. We are completely lacking in a food culture here which is dominated by chain restaurants and grocery stores, so this farmers’ market is a breath of fresh air.
Living in Vallejo definitely has it’s challenges. The City is bankrupt. The City Council is corrupt and the unions own this town. It’s a constant war between the City Council and the public service unions. The unions won’t give up their death grip on the City budget so the Council retaliates by cutting services and personnel. In the end, the citizens of this City suffer. The crime rate is going up and we don’t have enough police to respond to the majority of calls. Getting robbed? Good luck because they aren’t coming – at least in a timely fashion.
I live in what I would consider a decent part of town. We know most of our neighbors and have great relationships with them. We all watch out for each other. But we all have had our houses broken into. Our break-in occured while we were in escrow, which was fortunate since the house was empty. There was only damage done to a door and a window. Since moving in we haven’t had any problems due in part to the fact that not only do we have a security system but also that we leave our dogs in the house pretty much all the time. They love to let people know they are in there too – barking at everyone that walks down the street.
As for having an urban farm here? Most likely it’s not legal. I’ve searched the Municipal Code and haven’t found anything specific other than “animal raising” and using “agricultural methods” is limited to Rural Residential Zones (we’re in a Low Density Residential Zone) and hogs and turkeys are not allowed. Could they be more ambiguous? “Agricultural Methods?” Wouldn’t a vegetable garden fall under that category? “Animal Raising?” So you can’t raise any animals? What constitutes “raising?” And why turkeys? I can understand hogs – they can be stinky, but turkeys? I guess it’s a good thing we don’t have either of those…yet.
Well, the Toms can be a bit noisy, especially when they're alarmed and gobbling, and even a few turkeys can generate some odor. Maybe that's why they got lumped in with the hogs…or maybe the person that drafted the code had a disdain for turkeys? Who knows. I'm guessing the person that drafted the City of Santa Cruz code was petrified of bees…a $1000 permit, even for just one hive. I wish cities would revisit and review their codes from time to time.
Ha ha. I doubt turkeys could ever hold a candle to the German Shepherd across the street that barks 24/7. Our city does allow (from what I've been told) people to have upwards of 25 chickens (and a rooster if it falls under the noise ordinance). My guess is un/miseducation of the Council.
Municipal codes are funny, aren't they? In our case, Oakland allows everything we do, but our Home Owner's Association is questionable and the document could be read that chickens aren't even allowed, though I've chosen to read that section as "for commercial use" which ours certainly are not.
As for break-ins, don't I know it. We've been lucky so farm but many of our neighbors have not. It's just part of living in an urban area – we don't like it, but we do what we can to be safe.
Thanks for the thoughtful post.
-Nicole
I live in North Platte NE, in the middle of beef country and ranch country. I am in a medium sized town/city of 25,000. It is sort of retarded in its thinking and operating, and is corrupt also in many ways.
A few months ago, I had some issues with cars that were not plated, the neighbor across the street ranted about the cars here as I live in a trailer park and it has general issues pertaining to that. When the cop got to my house about a project car that I am storing for someone, the cop told me that my little tiny garden that I grow in pots and containers was illegal? Go figure.
You would think that we have access to food because of the area that I live in, I assure you we don't. I cater to the farmer's market as well as have a booth there in spring, summer, and fall and buy most of my food there and barter for meat from the other vendors. We have nothing but Wal-Mart, and some chain groceries that are short of a joke. We are dominated by fast food, and like Rachel says, we are very food and food culture challenged. You would think that we would have access to fresh available food, but we don't. And to buy meat, it is unaffordable here, if you can believe it. That is why I barter, as I generally cannot afford to buy meat hardly at all.
Thank you for your thought provoking post today.
Denimflyz
I hear you on abbreviated police departments. Pittsburg has something like 1.7 cops on Sundays, serving the city (and I guess Bay Point, too). I learned this when some druggie kicked in the side door of the garage and came into the house through the kitchen and fleed just as we were coming in from taking one of the cats to the vet.
Nothing was stolen, but everything was turned upside down like they'd searched for drugs, and that was it. Breakinus interruptus.
I like my neighborhood, too. It's decent working class part of town, with 1950s housing tract homes. But there's the meth element a few blocks away.
I'm not allowed chickens. But in the same paragraph of city code, instructions are given for having livestock 20 feet away from any house nearby, and instructions are given for how to have everything up on a concrete slab. Anyway, the .7 cop who came when the break-in happened said, "oh, nice!" when he saw the girls preening in their run.
Oh the tweekers! We have a compound – yes a compound – of them living 4 doors down from us. I've caught their "ring leader" in my fenced and gated front yard and snooping around our neighbor's yard before.
We have a compound nearby, too. They inhabit this particular row of bungalows, with half of them living homeless out in the bushes on that property. I don't even bike through there at this point. Actually, my .7 police officer knows them all by name.
Quite a few of the tweekers patrol the neighborhood on bike looking for open doors and open windows, probably daily for all I know. They know we don't have anything. And thankfully they didn't discover my containers of lye for soapmaking. Egad, that would have led to further break-ins.