Southern Sonoma Country Life

Second Annual Petaluma River Promenade Honky Tonk Piano Competition Sept 15th 2019 — Brewsters Beer Garden 3pm to 6pm

There's been a renewed focus on our Petaluma River turning basin and waterway with a new campaign for dredging (see Argus Courier article on STORM) but let's not forget the wreckage of the trestle fenced off along the central riverfront from Water Street to B Street. Petaluma Pete and The Petaluma River Promenade Honky Tonk Piano Competition teams up for its second annual fundraiser and awareness musical event on Sunday September 15th (Petaluma Pete Day) at Brewsters Beer Garden from 3pm to 6pm.

THIS EVENT IS FREE

However, if you would like to Brewsters give this fantastic nonprofit 15% of what you spend on food and drink during this event, donate a $10 minimum donation by clicking here. A donation hat will also be passed around onsite.

In other words, there is no cover for this event but please do show your support by making an online ticket donation. Present your receipt and Brewsters will donate 15% of your food & drink purchase to this important cause.

For more information on what's going on with the trestle campaign, click here to check out the website for the Save The Trestle Foundation website. 

 

Paella, Sangria, Live Music & Auction — Petaluma Arts Center Fall Fundraiser Sunday Sept 22nd, 2019 4.30 to 8pm

 

 

Celebrate the art and artists of Petaluma and surrounding communities and raise funds for some much needed improvements at the Arts Center.

Sunday, September 22nd, 2019  Doors open at 5pm.  Dinner served at 6pm. Seating is "Family Style"  

Fundraising for:

Repair the H/AC system

Patch, paint and winterize the building

Furnish the new "Gallery Boutique"

Your ticket at $75 for one or $140 for two includes delicious paella by Paella Del Reyes, Molly's Sangria, local music, and one entry into a drawing for a beautiful framed painting by Clark Mitchell.  During the event, you may  purchase additional wine and beer.  All of his, plus some exciting silent auction items only available at this fundraising event! 

Click here for tix 
 

An Evening on the River in Support of Petaluma River Park — Sat Sept 21st, Foundry Wharf 5-9pm

Classical Musings at Petaluma Museum and Historical Library: Elizabeth Walter at the Piano — 4pm Sunday Sept 22nd

Petaluma Museum Association and Sky Hill Cultural Alliance are pleased to present a benefit concert performed by pianist Elizabeth Walter on Sunday, September 22 at 4:00 p.m. Elizabeth will be performing on the legendary 1899 Henry F. Miller concert grand which currently resides in the acoustically superior "Carnegie Hall" of Petaluma, the former Carnegie Library which is now home to the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum. She will be playing works by Mozart, Beethoven, Maurice Ravel and the Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera.

Elizabeth is a renowned pianist who is currently acting on the board of Directors of the Petaluma Museum Association as the Music and Cultural Outreach Director. Over the last decade she has brought stellar performances to the Museum, with high-caliber musicians from the San Francisco Symphony and other talented musicians under the aegis of the Sky Hill Cultural Alliance, an organization devoted to fostering the joy of music to young people.

Elizabeth is generously donating her performance to benefit the future of both the Petaluma Museum Association and the SHCA. Complimentary wine and cheese will be served. Concert admission is $40 in advance and $50 at the door. Balcony Seating with Elite Beverage Service is $50 in advance and $60 at the door if seats are still available. The Petaluma Museum is located at 20 Fourth Street in downtown Petaluma. Tickets can be purchased at petalumamuseum.com. For more information call 707-778-4398.

A Midsummer Night's Tea and a Vibrant, Modern & Inventive Open Air Afternoon Performance at Shakespeare's Globe

Whenever I am in London, I make a date with my dear friend, Bev, who I met in journalism school in Harlow, Essex in the late 80s. We pick out something special to do together for the day and given that Bev lives in the greater London area, something central is usually on the cards. This summer, we opted for afternoon tea at stylish and super-view positioned Swan on the South Bank by the Thames for lunch, followed by an equally memorable matinee performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream right next door at Shakespeare's Globe theatre, Bankside. 

Located at the iconic Shakespeare’s Globe, Swan is a stunning Bar and Restaurant set over two floors, with great views of the river and St Paul’s. It's open all day serving modern British food, high tea and available for morning breakfast to evening cocktails and everything in between. Despite its touristy location it's a smashing spot to celebrate something fun or special, or just to hang out. A proportion of the revenue from Swan goes to the Shakespeare’s Globe Trust, a charitable organization set up to further the experience and international understanding of Shakespeare in performance.

How could we resist? Swan’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream afternoon tea is inspired by the journeys of the characters: from the pea flower of Oberon’s love potion, the apricots Titania feeds to Bottom and mulberries from the lovers’ tree.

Love may not look with eyes, but beautiful traditional tea treats, presented on bespoke crockery designed by Annika Wester, are almost too pretty to tuck into. If you go, for tea or other refreshments at Swan, click here. 

No photos are allowed during performances in the Globe, but the school groups who were enthralled by the modern, upbeat and creative production of A Midsummer Night's Dream were clicking away on their phone cameras before the show started, so I snapped a couple of quick pix to show you how fantastic the reproduced Globe truly is. I have toured a couple of times with the boys when they were younger, but never had the time to catch a full performance. It was well worth the wait! 

Go London described the producers as having: "created a carnivalesque atmosphere, with fairyland an explosion in a neon-coloured dressing-up box." And The Guardian: "The fully populated stage looks like the clean-up operation after Pride. Bafflingly, fairy queen Titania lives in a flower-laden recycling bin, her fairies resemble the results of a hurricane in a craft show, and Bottom’s ass is a papery rainbow piñata. The direction is sometimes scatty and the fairy scenes feel like filler, rushing through the words in favour of visual spectacle."

But I thoroughly enjoyed it and so did Bev. We thought it was brilliant in that the hundreds of school kids in the largely open-air audience were thoroughly enthralled and rapt by this up-to-the-minute take on one of Shakespeare's most fantastical tales. And isn't that just as fantastic in this day and age? None of them were looking at their screens once the cast took to the stage. It helped that the whole cast could sing and contemporary music made it all the more compelling for those who might otherwise have wished they were anywhere other than stuck in a theater watching Shakespeare. 

If you go, plan your visit ahead of time by clicking here.  

This landmark attraction along the South Bank is actually the fourth reincarnation of what was Shakespeare’s original theatre. London’s first purpose built theatre was on Curtain Road in Shoreditch in the 1500s, and named “The Theatre”. Shakespeare began his writing career in earnest and his earlier plays were performed here.

The Bard and his company are believed to have run into trouble with their landlord and were forced out of the The Theatre until one of the group spotted a loop hole in their contract and discovered they actually owned the wooden structure. A plan then emerged. According to info on the Swan's website, it was over the Christmas holidays while the landlord was away that Shakespeare and his company literally stole the theatre over the course of four nights and when the weather improved and the river Thames thawed they floated the timbers across the river on barges, over to the Las Vegas of London, Bankside, on the south side of the river.

It took seven months to rebuild The Theatre, renamed The Globe, presumably so no one would notice they’d stolen it. The Globe ran from 1599 until 1613 until an incident involving gun powder and other over-zealous special effects caused the theatre to burn down during a performance of Henry VIII.

The replacement Globe was rebuilt within a year, however this time with a tiled rather than thatched roof. Although Shakespeare died in 1616 the Globe continued without him until the 1640’s when the puritans took hold and all the theatres were pulled down.

It wasn’t until the 1940’s when American actor and visionary Sam Wannamaker came to London and was shocked to find nothing but a small plaque to commemorate Shakespeare’s work in London that a decades long campaign was launched to rebuild the Globe, which finally began in the early 1990s. Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre that we know today, the fourth of its kind, opened in 1997, half a century after Wannamaker’s campaign began. 

 

Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams, Starring Clove Owen, Lia Williams and Breaking Bad's Anna Gunn

With time in my travel schedule for just one West End play (plus an afternoon performance at Shakespeare's Globe), imagine my delight when Clive Owen popped up on my play search newly staring as a suitably disheveled the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon in a summer opening of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana, joined by a cast including the super talented Anna Gunn (Skyler White of Breaking Bad fame), Lia Williams and Julian Glover? Everyone has a heart-throb actor, or should have and Clive is mine! Though I've seen him in theater in a Pinter Play on Broadway in New York, the last time he played London's West End was in the wake of 9/11.

The Night of the Iguana was first staged as an one-act play in 1959, before eventually settling on a three-act play in 1961. A film adaptation was released in 1964, starring Richard Burton as Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon. This is one of Williams' lesser known works, though it has been revived numerous times across the West End and Broadway, with actors including James Earl Jones, Eileen Atkins and Alfred Molina all having a The Night of the Iguana credit to their name. This new production includes a star-studded cast of a similar calibre and a terrific set design which transports audiences to the 1940s to meet a clergyman at a hotel in Mexico, who has recently been ousted from his religious circles for referring to God as a “delinquent”.

Facing an identity crisis, Owen is imperfectly convincing as the unbalanced reverend who takes on a new career as a tour guide. As the story unfolded, I learned a lot more about the other people at the hotel including the manager and a group of German tourists, especially when a torrential storm loomed over the area. Anna Gunn's Maxine, the hotel's widowed proprietor is no slouch on stage and Lia Williams was also great as the nomadic artist and granddaughter of a basically homeless nonagenarian poet, played by veteran English stage, tv and film actor and recipient of the Laurence Olivier Award, Julian Glover. There's a deep sadness surrounding the captivity and projected fate of the iguana on the one night that brings all the characters together and ultimately leaves them all forever altered. 

Watching a play written pre-1960s that is so full on WITH political incorrectness was a bit flinch-worthy. A young German woman sitting to the left of me voiced her discomfort at Williams' portrayal of German tourists, prompting a brief discussion during the interval as to post Second World War attitudes and stereotyping. Similarly, The Reverend Shannon's backstory would blow up a Me-Too backlash if it were today. 

Playing at the Noël Coward theatre, London, until September 28th, 2019. 

 

 

 

Rupert Brooke's Grantchester

It was poet and idealist Rupert Brooke's picture-postcard Grantchester long before it was the brilliant, charismatic, crime fighting fictional character, clergyman Sidney Chambers', lead of the popular Masterpiece tv series set in the quiet Cambridgeshire village of the 1950s. 

Still, the two seem to co-exist peacefully in the long, lazy, summer shadows that stretch across the green meadows by the River Granta attracting visitors to this sleepy little setting situated about two miles up-stream from Cambridge.  

James Runcie is the son of ex-Archibishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. His six book series The Grantchester Mysteries was first published by Bloomsbury in 2012 and is currently airing its fourth series on U.S. television.

Grantchester was the site of Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlements and it was mentioned in the Doomsday Book. Queen Elizabeth I processed through Grantchester en-route to Cambridge from London in 1564.

Rupert Brooke was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, son of the public school housemaster, in 1887. He was considered a young Apollo for his striking good looks and golden hair and said by the poet W.B. Yeats to be the handsomest young man in England. He won a classics scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where lectures on Literature, Philosophy and Art were of most appeal to him. Brooke enjoyed a big group of eclectic friends, including the writers E.M Forster, Henry James and Virginia Woolf and playwright George Bernard Shaw. 

His tutor recommended he move out of Cambridge to focus more fully on his studies. In 1909, Rupert Brooke took rooms in Grantchester in a former farmhouse called The Orchard and later, next door to the vicarage. This was a serene and gloriously happy time for him, walking, camping out under the stars in summer, berry and fruit picking. 

After the start of the First World War, a by-then world-traveled 27-year-old Rupert Brooke was posted to Belgium. He wrote and published numerous war poems, including The Soldier. In 1915 his troop ship sailed to the island of Skyros, Greece, where he died after developing septicaemia from an insect bite. He was the first Fellow of a Cambridge College to die on active service in the First World War and Winston Churchill wrote his obituary. 

I'm a big fan of Rupert Brooke's poetry and Sydney Chambers of the Grantchester television series (played by the handsome James Norton) and so I was more than happy making a pit-stop in the village this July while traveling from my parents' home on the Lincolnshire/Cambridgeshire border, south to Kent, to visit one of my sisters and also my sister-in-law.

After a pot of tea in a deck chair the bucolic gardens of Orchard House and a walk along the river, the sight of a big group of people gathered outside of the vicarage and church had me wondering if there was a walking tour I hadn't read of. Turns out it the production crew was on location that morning making plans for the upcoming shooting of Season Five of Grantchester. A brief chat with one of the producers informed me that it takes one week to shoot the Grantchester scenes of an entire series, with locals appearing as costumed extras. 

It must be a bit of nuisance to villagers to have their narrow streets and pubs and church commandeered for a whole week, but I'd imagine charitable causes such as the church fund benefit from the production fee. 

Grantchester is just enough off the beaten track to remain a glorious, gorgeous, unspoiled English village of the story books. If you go, do plan on a cup of tea at The Orchard Team Room & gardens. 

                                                                                                                                      Rupert Brooke 

Grantchester's Robson Green as Detective Inspector Georgie Keating & James Norton as Sidney Chambers

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester
(Rupert Brooke, Cafe des Westens, Berlin, May 1912)

Just now the lilac is in bloom,
All before my little room;
And in my flower-beds, I think,
Smile the carnation and the pink;
And down the borders, well I know,
The poppy and the pansy blow . . .
Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,
Beside the river make for you
A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep
Deeply above; and green and deep
The stream mysterious glides beneath,
Green as a dream and deep as death.
— Oh, damn! I know it! and I know
How the May fields all golden show,
And when the day is young and sweet,
Gild gloriously the bare feet
That run to bathe . . .
                                 ‘Du lieber Gott!’

 . . . would I were
In Grantchester, in Grantchester! —
Some, it may be, can get in touch
With Nature there, or Earth, or such.
And clever modern men have seen
A Faun a-peeping through the green,
And felt the Classics were not dead,
To glimpse a Naiad’s reedy head,
Or hear the Goat-foot piping low: . . .
But these are things I do not know.
I only know that you may lie
Day long and watch the Cambridge sky,
And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,
Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
Until the centuries blend and blur
In Grantchester, in Grantchester. . . .
Still in the dawnlit waters cool
His ghostly Lordship swims his pool,
And tries the strokes, essays the tricks,
Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx.
Dan Chaucer hears his river still
Chatter beneath a phantom mill.
Tennyson notes, with studious eye,
How Cambridge waters hurry by . . .
And in that garden, black and white,
Creep whispers through the grass all night;
And spectral dance, before the dawn,
A hundred Vicars down the lawn;
Curates, long dust, will come and go
On lissom, clerical, printless toe;
And oft between the boughs is seen
The sly shade of a Rural Dean . . .
Till, at a shiver in the skies,
Vanishing with Satanic cries,
The prim ecclesiastic rout
Leaves but a startled sleeper-out,
Grey heavens, the first bird’s drowsy calls,
The falling house that never falls.

God! I will pack, and take a train,
And get me to England once again!
For England’s the one land, I know,
Where men with Splendid Hearts may go;
And Cambridgeshire, of all England,
The shire for Men who Understand;
And of THAT district I prefer
The lovely hamlet Grantchester.
For Cambridge people rarely smile,
Being urban, squat, and packed with guile;
And Royston men in the far South
Are black and fierce and strange of mouth;
At Over they fling oaths at one,
And worse than oaths at Trumpington,
And Ditton girls are mean and dirty,
And there’s none in Harston under thirty,
And folks in Shelford and those parts
Have twisted lips and twisted hearts,
And Barton men make Cockney rhymes,
And Coton’s full of nameless crimes,
And things are done you’d not believe
At Madingley on Christmas Eve. . . . 
But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester!
There’s peace and holy quiet there,
Great clouds along pacific skies,
And men and women with straight eyes,
Lithe children lovelier than a dream,
A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream,
And little kindly winds that creep
Round twilight corners, half asleep.
In Grantchester their skins are white;
They bathe by day, they bathe by night;
The women there do all they ought;
The men observe the Rules of Thought.
They love the Good; they worship Truth;
They laugh uproariously in youth;
(And when they get to feeling old,
They up and shoot themselves, I’m told) . . .

Ah God! to see the branches stir
Across the moon at Grantchester!
To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten
Unforgettable, unforgotten
River-smell, and hear the breeze
Sobbing in the little trees.
Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand
Still guardians of that holy land?
The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,
The yet unacademic stream?
Is dawn a secret shy and cold
Anadyomene, silver-gold?
And sunset still a golden sea
From Haslingfield to Madingley?
And after, ere the night is born,
Do hares come out about the corn?
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown, above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?"

 

 

British Fashion Icon Mary Quant Whose Designs Are Still Fresh as a Daisy — Visiting an Exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

"The whole point of fashion is to make fashionable clothes available to everyone," 

Mary Quant

From miniskirts and hot pants to vibrant tights and makeup, Mary Quant took the sixties by colorful, riotous storm, launching a fashion revolution on the British high street and around the world. An exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London showcases over 200 garments and accessories, including unseen pieces from the designer's personal archive.

I was lucky enough to be in London for a few days of selfish pursuits which was a rare commodity for me in the midst of an overdue extended family trip to Sicily and the UK and a multi-generation family reunion to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday.

Inventive, opinionated and commercially minded, Mary Quant was undoubtedly the most iconic British fashion designer of the 1960s. A design and retail pioneer, she popularized super-high hemlines and other irreverent looks critical to the development of the 'Swinging Sixties' scene. Exhibit fashion collections include examples of her famous designs from across the 1960s and 1970s, on loan from women who responded to a call for original Quant designs hanging in their wardrobes. 

I'm not sure if my mum had any original Mary Quant outfits in her closet during the years of my childhood, if she did, she didn't hang on to them, but she certainly dressed in the Quant style and likely bought affordable Mary Quant tights and makeup. 

Quant was a self-taught designer, attending evening classes on cutting and adjusting mass-market printed patterns to achieve the looks she was after. Once technically proficient, she initiated a hand-to-mouth production cycle: the day's sales at Bazaar paid for the cloth that was then made up overnight into new stock for the following day. Although exhausting, this cottage-industry approach meant that the rails at Bazaar were continually refreshed with short runs of new designs, satisfying the customers' hunger for fresh, unique looks at competitive prices.

Quant's developing aesthetic was influenced by the dancers, musicians and Beatnik street chic of the Chelsea Set, and the Mods (short for 'Modernists'), a subculture that helped define London's youth culture in late-1950s Britain, with their love of Italian sportswear, sharp tailoring and clean outlines. Quant's first collections were strikingly modern in their simplicity, and very wearable. Unlike the more structured clothes still popular with couturiers, she made"relaxed clothes suited to the actions of normal life". Pairing short tunic dresses with tights in bright, stand-out colors – scarlet, ginger, prune and grape – she created a bold, high-fashion version of the sorts of practical outfits she'd worn as a child at school and at dance classes.

Quant is frequently credited with inventing the decade's most iconic look: the mini-skirt. Who first took hemlines north of the knee is up for debate, but she certainly was one of the frontrunners. 

Capitalizing on the sixties love affair with new materials, Quant was the first designer to use PVC, creating 'wet look' clothes, and different styles of weatherproof boots in her footwear range, Quant Afoot.

As London's boutique scene continued to build, Quant was cementing her position as a commercial and cultural powerhouse around the world. In 1962, she signed a lucrative design contract with American department-store chain JC Penney.

In 1990 Mary Quant was awarded the prestigious Hall of Fame Award by the British Fashion Council, recognizing her outstanding contribution to British fashion. She published her second autobiography in 2012, and became a Dame in the 2015 New Year's Honors list.

The printed dress above was made for the American market in the seventies. It would not look a stitch out of place today, lovely fall colors!

Red and white platforms are a little too rock and roll for me but I would love a pair of these multi colored heeled sandals and a red pair with ankle straps further on.

The Manhattan is perhaps my favorite. 

The Mary Quant exhibit runs through 16th February 2020. If you go, tickets are 12 pounds and it's a good idea to click here and book ahead to avoid lines or disappointment if the museum is too full. 

Mary Quant smashed fashion norms and traditions and her designs still have a lot of influence on contemporary designs.

Top Pick for Weekend Warriors — Windsor's Notre Vue Estate Hosts 4th Annual Tour de Cru Wine, Food, Music, Running, Biking, and Hiking Event

Wine lovers and fitness enthusiasts are invited to experience one of the most scenic and inspiring workouts in Sonoma County. Notre Vue Estate Winery in Windsor will welcome guests for a day of wine tasting, exploring the property, an outdoor lunch from The Wurst and live music from Rag Tag Sullivan on Saturday, June 29, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Guests will be able to hike, bike and run along the Estate’s private trails. Tickets are $55 per person, and kids’ tickets are $25 and are available at http://www.tourdecru.com. The winery is located at 11010 Estate Lane in Windsor (95492).

 Chamomile and mustard will be in full bloom as guests traverse the scenic trails winding through the 250 acres of vineyard and along the 350 acres of open space. Red-tailed hawks, turkeys, hummingbirds and perhaps a Golden Eagle or two will soar above as bikers, hikers, runners and walkers enjoy the views of the estate’s lakes and rolling hills. At the highest point on the property there are sweeping views to the east to the mountains above St. Helena and to the west as far as the Pacific Ocean. The Notre Vue Estate encompasses both the Chalk Hill and Russian River Valley appellations.

 There are five hiking, running and biking trail options which accommodate both novices and experienced athletes, ranging from 1 mile to 5 miles. Following an active morning on the trails, at 12 p.m. guests will return to the winery, crush pad and lakeside pavilions to relax and enjoy wine tasting followed by a lunch by The Wurst and wines from Notre Vue Estate and Balverne Wines. 

Notre Vue Estate encompasses 700 acres and was founded by Bob and Renée Stein in 1992. Approximately 350 acres are dedicated to open space and classified as “Forever Wild” under an agreement with the Sonoma County Open Space District. The vineyards are planted to 18 varietals.

Balverne Wines was established in 1972 at this property and continues today as a line of wines within the Notre Vue portfolio. The name Balverne comes from a hybrid Anglo-French term referring to the beauty of the site, with a literal translation as “A Place of Trees.” The label pays tribute to the wildlife on the property with the image of the red-tailed hawks that fly through the vineyards.

The winery welcomes visitors for tours and tastings seven days a week between 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Reservations are recommended. Notre Vue offers an assortment of tastings and experiences, including the Nouveau (a flight of the estate wines), Eau de Vie (a lakeside pavilion tasting), Cultivar (a tasting accompanied by paired small bites), Heritage (an educational tour with the winemaker, including a walking tour of the vineyards) and Sauvage (a tour, tasting and luncheon outdoors).

Beginning June 2, the winery is starting Summer Sundays, welcoming guests for an afternoon in the sun from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., with live music by Jason Bodlovich and food from the fig rig (the girl & the fig’s food truck). There will be lawn games and more: there is no charge for attending but reservations are suggested, by contacting https://www.notrevueestate.com/events/June-2---Summer-Sundays. The series continues on July 7, August 4 and September 1, with a variety of musicians and food vendors. Food at these events is available for purchase.

Another fun event will be a drive-in movie on September 6.

 

Visit https://www.notrevueestate.com/ for more information.

 

California Rare Fruit Growers Garden Club Annual Tree Sale July 20th — Santa Rosa

The annual California Rare Fruit Growers of the Redwood Empire's annual tree sale will be at the Original Santa Rosa Farmers' Market behind Sutter Hospital at 30 Mark West Springs Road 95403 on Saturday July 20 2019 from 9AM until 1PM.

Dozens of uncommon varieties of apples, pears, plums, pluots, plums, figs, peaches, nectarines, cactus-pear, berries and more will be available. All trees are custom grafted by the CRFG Garden Club to be sold as a fundraiser for donations to students’ agricultural scholarships and other ag-related non-profits.

There are literally thousands of varieties of trees, vines and shrubs that bear edible fruit. Most people are familiar with only the most common varieties of fruits that are available commercially in stores. Many of these commercial varieties are available primarily because of the durability of the fruit for shipping, handling and storage rather than for best flavor.

Even though the best tasting fruits can be too fragile for commercial distribution, they are perfectly suited to the home-gardener. Anyone with at least a six foot by six foot patch of open sunlight can successfully grow a tree with delicious fruits, even if only in a box of soil on pavement. Properly selected fruit-bearing plants can also be used for edible landscaping, proving a pleasing visual display in addition to gourmet treats. Multiple fruit varieties can be grown on the same plant by means of simple grafting techniques, resulting in a "fruit salad" tree! One member has over 100 kinds of pears on one tree!

Rootstocks control the size of the tree, scions control the kind of fruit produced. Types M111 and Geneva 41 rootstock limit tree to 8-20’ high, are highly disease resistant, and have been tested to tolerate wet heavy soil like the Santa Rosa plain. Geneva 202 is a semi dwarf, and Bud 9 & Geneva 41 are extreme dwarfs, which can be kept to 4’ high and 4’ wide with pruning, but will need drip irrigation and staking their whole life, though fruit will be normal large size.

All trees for sale are about 2-3' tall, grafted in March. Note that small trees will outgrow taller root-bound trees within a year or two. Most trees cost $20 in 5 Gal pots. Multi-grafted trees cost more. You can get more scions from in January to add varieties to make a "fruit salad tree", $5 entry, by keeping your tree in the pot and bringing it in for grafting then. Hundreds of more varieties will be available in late January, and entry includes all grafting and pruning classes.. See CRFG-Redwood.org in December for dates and times.

Many of the best tasting fruits are only available from specialty catalogs and growers, or through hobbyist organizations like the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG) garden club. CRFG promotes interest in all aspects of fruit growing, with special emphasis on rare and unusual fruits. North Bay CRFG members  in "Luther Burbank country" get together regularly to taste fruits, trade plants, and to swap tips on local growing techniques and what grows best in local conditions. One recent meeting featured over 200 different locally-grown fruits to taste! The results of prior "hard-core-expert" tastings are available on the club website, along with tips on growing, grafting, greenhouse construction, deer-proofing and other topics, at CRFG-Redwood.org.