The Farm & Garden at Esalen

Spring 2010 Report

As the days grow longer on the California coastline, Esalen Institute’s Farm and Garden is preparing for a long and bountiful year of food, education, and community. The nursery is full of vibrant, young seedlings – daily harvests of fresh, organic, and lovingly-reared produce grows larger by the day – new apprentices reap the bounty of life’s lessons found within the seed and within the soil.

With so much going on, we still make time to look back with gratitude and awe for the richness we have been afforded by this magnificent land. In the past year, we exceeded our production goals of vegetables and greens for Esalen’s chefs and kitchen. We have educated hundreds of seminarians, apprentices, workscholars, and volunteers; and we have enhanced the vitality of the land through dynamic land stewardship and permaculture design practices.

See some of our hard work first hand in our recently-released Esalen Farm and Garden video on YouTube.

In the same richness of our dark soils, we are full of opportunities for growth in the coming season. All are welcome to join the Farm and Garden family as we move within the ancient and sacred practice of cultivating food and the spirit. You can experience this practice in a number of ways:

• Seminarians are invited to participate in our catalog workshops, which lead individuals through all of the aspects of the abundant art of growing food;
• Volunteers are welcome each weekday to help bring in the harvest and tend the land (if you’re not already visiting, please send us an e-mail to make arrangements);
• Workscholars are encouraged to study the finer details of our forty-year operation; and
• Apprentices are sought to delve deeply into the study and rhythm of agriculture over the course of three to six months.

As the present link between those that have come before us and those that will come after us, the Farm and Garden family takes great joy in making visible our love for this land through our work. We encourage you to join us on this path and help nourish seeds for a beautiful future.

More About the Farm & Garden

Gardeners gather at dawn amid steaming cups of tea while the harvest  leader reports the requests from the kitchen for lunch and dinner. By the  time they've paused for breakfast, the harvest will have been washed and  moved to the kitchen's cooler.

The five acres that comprise the Farm and Garden at Esalen produce  hundreds of varieties of vegetables for the kitchen. Blessed with a rich  soil and abundant water, the area has an ideal climate for cool season  crops. Add to this the care of gardeners who simply love what they are  doing, and the results are gardens that feed us physically, emotionally  and spiritually.

Vegetables produced within a stone's throw of the kitchen mean more than  freshness. Since the Garden is part of a main footpath through Esalen, our visitors see how their food is grown, and the gardeners know who they are feeding. Colorful lettuces seen growing in garden beds at dawn have by  nightfall become the bodies of the children and adults who visit and live at Esalen.

You can also read about and apply for a Farm and Garden Apprenticeship.