The Central Valley is a great place to grow things. Locals that keeps a garden here can tell you, you are going to be eating lots of vegetables and giving lots away. Planting more than one squash plant can become a curse for any house. The sun, the heat, the water and the soil are special, even in the city limits.

In Sacramento we’ve been calling ourselves America’s Farm to Fork Capital for five years now.

In Sacramento we’ve been calling ourselves America’s Farm to Fork Capital for five years now. I think it means a lot of things to lots of people. There are amazing giant commodity crops like rice and tree nuts, stone fruits and tomatoes and wine and olives and just about anything you could imagine within a 30 minute drive from the State Capitol.

For us here at Magpie, being in Sacramento means that there are also some very small farms that focus on sustainably growing heirloom vegetables and we can source them and we get to make food with their stuff.

Here are a few:

Azolla Farm, Pleasant Grove, CA

Scrivner Hoppe-Glosser started Azolla Farm in 2010.

Before starting the farm Scrivner worked for a time at Chez Panisse  as a busser.

His passion for organic farming and understanding of restaurant culture always shows in his amazing produce.

Root 64, Sacramento, CA

Root 64 is a 1-acre urban farmstead, located in the Tallac Village neighborhood of Sacramento run by partners Sarah McCamman and Randy Stannard.

Root 64  is just a few miles from the restaurant and is within the city limits of Sacramento making it a true urban farm.

You can find them at Oak Park Farmers Market (May-Oct) Root 64 Farm Stand (Every Tuesday evening starting soon) and at Magpie.

Stone’s Throw Farm, Colf

Stone’s Throw Farm is just outside of Sacramento.  At over 2000 feet in elevation they are able to grow amazing lettuces in the middle of summer.

They are half way between Sacramento and North  Shore of Lake Tahoe and they have Airbnb on the farm which is pretty cool.