Vital Zuman Organic Farm & Fig Tree Ranch Blog

The entire farm is a 6.2 acre compost site.  Let me give you perspective on this 58 year old unequalled composting monument : from time to time you’ll see a local newspaper story on some person, usually in the Valley  who has amassed a huge multi-story compost heap in his back yard.  Some of the neighbors are complaining, there’s talk both pro and con locally about the pile, eventually a paper does a story. 

If  you can imagine multiplying that huge heap of  compost many times over, in the hundreds,   And  then understand that this super-mass of compost has been patiently rototilled into the topsoil of Vital Zuman over a period of nearly six decades, then you’ll have an idea of what the “Vital Zuman Farm / Compost Site”  is !  You will have to see it and walk it to believe it.  Farm Front open most days of the year noon to 5pm.  “All that is . . . is ALIVE !  And THE VITAL at ZUMA is Called VITAL ZUMAN !

Just a word of appreciation to all our awesome volunteers, vendors, students, and customers !  It’s been an amazing year and 2013 is going to be way beyond magical ! 

We are open nearly every day, noon to 5pm on Pacific Coast Highway. Please feel free to call ahead your orders as well at 310 924-2210.

Sign up for our organic Farming Class on line through the City of Malibu.  Next term begins Saturday, January 19th at 10am.

Alan G. Cunningham

VITAL ZUMAN

Master, Malibu Grange

310 924-2210

VZOF, Malibu

Here at Vital Zuman, Malibu Grange, we do two productions of pumpkins annually ; one seeded in Spring for spiced Summer soup, Bar-B-Q-marinated pumpkin meat filletts, and Summer pumpkin pies.   The other, larger seeding, in Summer for Fall Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Winter holiday foods and celebration.  We only seed and produce heavy, super-dense, super-nutritious, eating pumpkins.  This year we are growing classic, European, heirloom pumpkins exclusively ;  flat and heavily-ribbed  ”Cinderella” and “Fairy Tale” varieties. Anywhere from 5 to 35 lbs. in weight, avering about 20 lbs each.  Beee-yooo-ti ful decor, and awesome food !

I like to refer to all our pumpkins and winter squashes as “VITAL ZUMAN GIANT FIELD NUTS”, as these vegetables are super heavy, super nutritious, and properly cleaned and stored, can last for years as an amazing, ready, long-term food supply. The more they age, the more dense and resonous they become. These pumpkins can be used for Halloween decoration, but are not carving pumpkins ; they are real food.  You paint decorations on these animals with non-toxic paint, then  they are used for baking and pumpkin pie. 

Much more later on the amazing pumpkin as food source ; we’ve just seen the surface here.

Alan G. Cunningham,  “Vital Zuman”.   Master, Malibu Grange.  310 924-2210. vitalzuman@earthlink.net  alanmalibu@aol.com

Fresh, daily-picked, organic  peppers at Vital Zuman.  Hungarian sweet peppers, jalepenos, bells, pablanos, and many more.  Fresh-picked natural Summer peppers have an electric, electrolitic compulsion for those whowork with fresh foods. They’re very healthy, giving a quick potasium fix and subtle energetic payback. Good for the nerves, skin,and brain especially.  Get your peppers daily at the Vital Zuman Farm Market for best nutrition.

This year we’ve added Ghost Peppers to our main field.  We begin harvesting them the beginning of September. Not for everyone, these are EXTREMELY HOT PEPPERS, appropriate really only for studied foodies (you know who you are) who know what they’re doing.   Special Foodie Note ; look forward to our Dill Pickled Ghost Peppers later this year.

Busy Summer season, every day a blur of constant activity . . . harvesting tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, mulberries, greens, honey, making and placing signs, stocking and setting up the market, entertaining guests, students, and customers, laying amendments.  And water !   Water, water, and more water !  Water from the 300 ft. well.  Water for the vegetable patches, water for the trees and herbs, water for the bees, bunnies, coyotes, racoons, and cats, water for the workers and volunteers, water all around. 

It’s times like these it serves us to reflect that authentic hands on agriculture–the alignment of Heavan, Human Beings, and Earth– is primarily an undertaking of peace ;  peace in the moment, peace in the midst of activity, peace both in meditation and waking . . . peace all around. 

Echoes and rhymes in eternity link past and future in a blessed now.  Jerusalem !  More than just a geographical location :  ”To storm Jerusalem, the Holy City of Peace, between the eyebrows of the ‘Son of  Man’”, a notable saying a thousand years ago.  Jerusalem, equally sacred to Christians, Muslims, and Jews.  Jerusalem, a most ancient name, meaning “Reign of Peace”, and by assumption, “Rain of Peace”, was one of the original titles painted on the front wall of Vital Zuman Farm in 2000, as an expression of  the Peaceful Alignment of Authentic, Heritage, Family Farming.

Here’s a  true story from the earlier years of Vital Zuman ; the construction of the VitalZuman Farm Market and Main Gate :

In December of 2001 we started construction of the two large wooden gates that would open and close the market daily.  These gates we’re very heavily built, each weighing well over three hundred pounds. This construction took a number of days, alternating workers and intensity.  I realized one day, without expectation, that the gates were going to be raised on Christmas Day.

Late  Christmas afternoon we had the gates completed and, as a four man team, we moved the first one into position on the hinges. To our surprise and embarrassment, we found it took all the strength, balance, and focus of all four men just to set the first one on the hinges, just so, to be properly aligned and in place.  How are we going to slip in the hinge bolts ?  As we’re all looking at each other in puzzlement, a young woman drives up the driveway, steps out of her car and literally says the following : “I just got in from Jerusalem, noticed the farm, and wanted to stop by.”   Seeing our predicament, she stepped forward and slipped the bolts into the hinges, first the right gate and then the left, as we all strained to keep the gates in place. 

This is how the Vital Zuman Main Gates were set, without forethought, Christmas Day, 2001, the first Christmas of the new Millennium. 

Come visit the farm.  We are open nearly every day of the year.  Currently the hours open are 8am to 6pm.  We usually run ten to fourteen days, all day,  before we’re tired enough to be closed a day.  We have fresh-harvested, organic  food items you can only access here.  And more importantly, A PLACE OF PEACE.

OM, HOME, SHALOM, SALAAM, PEACE, AMEN

Sonja Magdevski

Emilio Estevez

Alan G. Cunningham

Sandra L. Peltola

Nicki Jack

Cris Beaty

Mary Walston

Kristal Moffett

Christian White

Yuri  White

Raymond Lee Peltola

Winnie Woo

Victor Stephan Kamont

Matthew Gibbons

Stephan Vodantis

Bruce Schultz

Bibi Jordan

Connee Russo

Prince  S. K.  De Rola

Tressa Klossovski

Kazimir Klossovski

Victoria Scott

Todd McKeown

Stefan Hagopian

Cristopher Peltola

Martha Quinn-Tarlow

Cathy Levine

High winds and rains . . . STILL !  But it’s Spring and the seeds and starters must go in !  These last few days we’ve planted hundreds of tomato plants, pounds of basil and dill seed, purple okra, and much more !  And just now as I am writing this post  farm trustees, amid high wind bursts and scattered showers,  are planting hundreds of delicata and butternut squash seeds on the east border of the farm. 

DON’T MISS OUT !  Contact the City of Malibu for our on-going ORGANIC FARMING CLASSES  and be part of what is. Register on line at : malibucity.org .  Click on “Parks and Recreation” and look us up.  Organic Farm Classes with full organic farm participation ?  Only here, only now, only in Malibu.

Alan G. cunningham 

VZOF,Malibu

You would like to support local,  family farms carrying the authenticity of real, hands-on, instructive, organic agriculture to our culture and community.  Nothing could be more important in this dayof  GMO’s, large acreage monocrop “organic”  food production, and the alarming lack of public-verifiable, organic food crops.

Do partner with Vital Zuman Organic Farm and the Southern California Family Farm Conservancy to this end.  Your donation will be put to good use : organic farming classes, farm to school outreach, internships, instructive volunteer programs, inner city fieldtrips, maintanance of farm equipment, and direct support of other small family farms in Southern California.

To be a Southern California family Farm Conservancy partner,  simply email Vital Zuman Farm at vitalzuman@earthlink.net with your name, your personal, valued input and supportive comments, the amount you’d like to donate, and  credit card number.  Along with your receipt you will receive automatic farm membership and free attendance at farm expositional events throughout the seasons.

We thank you in advance for partnering with us in this important mission.

Best,

Southern California Family Farm Conservancy

Vital Zuman Organic Farm, Malibu

310 924-2210

Locals from all over Malibu bring their surplus backyard produce to Vital Zuman Farm for trade or consignment. The Louks family from Point Dume have brought mixed varieties of lettuce to donate to the farm. Most of it will be sold at the farm stand and some will go into the weekly farm box program, salad bags. Thank you to the Louks family and their support of the farm.

It’s really, really good Malibu, backyard, super-fiber-and-mineral-rich-organic lettuce too. Blue cheese dressing, black pepper, chopped green garlic.  Forget it !  Leave me alone ; I’m busy !  “Chomp, Chomp”

The Farm has reached a point in the last year or so that most of our customers are getting their authentic, Vital Zuman, fresh-harvested produce  bulk.  Bulk for themselves,  bulk in the form of  farm box subscriptions for their schools,  restaurants, etc.  What we have, you can only get here ; you won’t find it in a store or anywhere else. So look it up folks !  Some are wising up and placing orders ahead of time.  We still maintain a traditon of being open some hours daily most days of the year, yet if you want to be assurred of getting what you want it’s best to call me at 310 924-2210 and pre-arrainge your harvest and pick up or local delivery.

Bulk harvesting for bulk orders does take up most of our time now to the point that we don’t have the same availability to casual visitors that we once had. This could  yet change with more hands-on community support. If you’re coming a ways to come to the farm do call ahead to check in on our service availability.  Should you arrive here to find the farm closed, of course do not enter the property, but you may call at 310 924-2210 for assistance. If we’re not swamped we’ll be happy to help you.