Permaculture design. Herbalism. Medicine making. Regenerative beekeeping. Healthy produce for the people.
Santa Cruz Permaculture seeks to outfit anyone interested in all of the above—basically everything you need, nothing you don’t, indefinitely—with a clear goal in mind, as director Dave Shaw articulates.
“Permaculture is about permanent culture, and living on the planet as if we humans wanted to be permanent inhabitants here and thus want to ‘leave things better than we found it’ for future generations,” he says.
SCP does consulting and land stewardship to that end, and as of 2022, stewards a 26-acre organic farm that’s evolving further to be a regenerative, no-till, mixed vegetable, flour, fruit, herb and agroforestry wonderland.
The emphasis at the farm is educational, and upcoming classes—open individually or as a slate—look most promising.
This weekend (Feb. 10-11) brings on herbal preparation how-tos—think body oils, salves, lotions, poultices, tinctures and even natural first aid—followed by landscape construction (Feb. 17-18) and food forest propagation (Feb. 24-25).
Good Times came across SCP at last month’s EcoFarm, where communications chief Leah Stern was sharing the good dirt.
“Preparing society for the ‘great turning’ from industrial growth society to regenerative society is the most important issue we’re facing,” she says. “We want to give people the tools for personal resilience.”
More at santacruzpermaculture.com.
UPLIFTING UPDATE
Irreverent-and-informative news site The Hustle recently took a long look at how restaurants are doing, and it gives my hungry heart hope after more than 72,000 restaurants shuttered due to COVID in the U.S. alone. Some 53,000+ opened in 2023, a clip of 16 for every 100,000 peeps, while a bunch of categories are popping, including pop-ups (up 66% year over year), desserts (also 66), hot pot (53) and creperies, of all things (63), which makes me grateful for the midtown institution that is The Crepe Place. Give me all the spinach-onion-mushroom-white cheddar-gruyere-garlic crepes please; thecrepeplace.com.
DOWNTOWN UPGRADE
Pretty Good Advice #2 (1319 Pacific Ave.) debuted last week in downtown Santa Cruz. The menu features the same hits that headline at their original Soquel hub—veggie burgers, seasonal salads, soft-serve, spicy chicken sandwiches, and burly all day breakfast sandwiches like the Final Meltdown with roasted mushrooms, fried egg, caramelized onion, crispy potato, pepper jack and secret sauce, prettygoodadvicesoquel.com.
FAST AND JUICED
Wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains’ eighth annual Grand Wine Tasting, tagline “Mountain vines, elevated wines,” uncorks March 24 at Mountain Winery with more than 45 vintners in the mix, winesofthesantacruzmountains.com…Cavalletta (9067 Soquel Drive, Aptos) is dishing on weekends and ready to fully open with its housemade pasta and wood-fired pizza once it has the staff, cavallettarestaurant.com…Watsonville Public House (625 Main St., Watsonville) is eyeing mid month for a soft opening.
