Everyone start planning your fall veggie garden….great time to grow kale,cabbage,chard, and lettuce also plant your bulbs for garlic and onions.

Sugar snap peas and snow peas can be started from seed now to be planted out in the garden next month.  Always protect them from birds by covering with floating row cover.  Their roots will get established now while the weather is still kind of warm and sit through the winter but as soon as spring comes they will take off and grow fast and give you a great crop.  Mmmmmmm!

What is the unique contribution of Cornerstone?
What can one expect to take away from this strangely wonderful mix of gardens, art, and ecology?

Much has been written already about the gardens as art—as personal expressions by some of the very best landscape architects working today. Cornerstone is an international center for design experimentation, a place where garden ideas can run freely. Yet there is more going on at Cornerstone than meets the eye, more public ideas hidden below the surface of these important gardens. They are part of our larger public imagination.

More than plants, paths, and dirt, gardens live in our minds and hearts. They are often how we experience place and come to attach meaning to our larger environment. They occupy our childhood memories and inform our own environmental autobiographies. They are often the most important places in our lives.

"Cornerstone moves garden design
out of the realm of gated gardens,
fancy magazines, and elite professional
discourse into the public realm."

This I believe is the true contribution of Cornerstone. It moves garden design out of the realm of gated gardens, fancy magazines, and elite professional discourse into the public realm. The gardens inform our personal and collective memory and inspire us to act on them. They provide new ways of looking at the garden not just based on aesthetics but also grounded in meaning and memory. While serious works of landscape architecture, the gardens are also playful and humorous. They will make you laugh and want to rush home and tell your friends.

As more people explore these wonderful gardens, it is my hope that they ask themselves if they can do this in their own backyards. The answer is yes! My caution is not to simply copy the innovative design elements you see here, but to construct your own creative garden. After visiting, I suggest that you rummage around in your mind and garage, then venture outside with shovel and imagination in hand and make a creative act. This should be something not for your friends or neighbors, but for you and your family. An act of creative expression.

Visit Cornerstone, enjoy, tell your friends, but most importantly look at your own landscape differently.
Something quite wonderful may result just as it does in these gardens.

Mark Francis is professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of California, Davis.

Over 120 tomato aficionados showed up Sunday to watch a Spicy Gazpacho cooking demo by Master Chef Eric Hollis, taste 22 tomato varieties from the Cornerstone’s Kitchen Garden and 22 varieties from contestants’ home gardens, and vote for their favorites.

Participants’ home-growns could compete in one or all three of the categories: “Best Overall”,
“Best Taste”, and “Best Shape”.  The variety of shapes, sizes, and colors was astonishing
and the taste of every single entrant put supermarket tomatoes to shame.

It was a hotly debated contest and the participants were incredibly vocal about their choices (these are tomatoes we’re talking about, after all). After all was said (and even more was said) and done, 72 final ballots were submitted and counted amidst hushed, anticipatory silence.

The Winners of The 2011 Great Tomato Tasting are:

Best Overall
- Jaune Flammee’ – grown in Sonoma by Gail Wolf. We loved its rich flavor but this variety won for its deep yellow color both inside and out.  The flesh of this tomato has the consistency and texture of a ripe persimmon and is almost translucent in color: both beautiful and delicious.

Best Taste:
Grapette – grown in the East Bay by Cheryl Reddick.  This oblong, red cherry varietal packed a ton of flavor – sweet to smoky with a clean finish. The perfect salad tomato.

Best Shape:
– Howard German, grown by Steve from the city of Sonoma. This yellow Roma was the size and shape of a large bell pepper, lobed and voluptuous. But surprise!: all that meaty goodness enclosed just five seeds in the entire fruit. Wondrously bizarre and beautiful.

Congratulations to this year’s winners, who will receive a garden full of tomato plants in the spring,
compliments of Tomatomania!, the world’s largest (and most fun) heirloom tomato seedling sale.
Tomatomania! will pull into Cornerstone for next year’s tomato seedling buying frenzy
on April 14 and 15, 2012.

The judging continued with folks chewing, slurping, and swallowing
tastes of 22 different tomato varieties from the Cornerstone Kitchen Garden.
The favorites were:

#1 – Riesenstraube
#2 – Golden Rave Hybrid
#3 – Lemon Drop
#4 – Arkansas Traveler
#5 – TC Jones
#6 – Ananas Noir
#7 – Babywine
#8 – Pink Cadillac
#9 – Green Grape
#10 – Lynn’s Mahogany

All of Cornerstone’s tomato seedlings were donated by Tomatomania!,
so take notes for your tomato seedling shopping trip next spring – April 14 and 15, 2012 at Cornerstone.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s contest!

Spicy Gazpacho

8     large ripe tomatoes quartered
1     English cucumber peeled and roughly chopped
1       Small red onion sliced
1        Red pepper chopped
1-4    Jalapenos, seeded and chopped
½ cup     Red wine vinegar
1TBL       Black pepper
1TBL       Salt
4     Cloves garlic, chopped
4     Shots Tabasco

Directions: Mix all ingredients in a bowl and let marinate overnight.  Run through food mill, and then place in blender briefly.  Do not over blend.  Garnish with tomatoes ¼” dice, cucumber, red onion, red pepper, cilantro, Italian parsley. – fold in garnish and top with crème fraiche & julienne basil.

Chef Eric Hollis – Alsina Station Grill

This Saturday!, OCTOBER 1ST
12 P.M. TO 4 P.M.

Celebrate with Meadowcroft Wines One Year Anniversary Party
& Wine Club Pick-up Party

• Live Music by Liz Brown
• BBQ by Patrick Kenny
• New Release & Award Winning Wines
• Games & Prizes
• Special Sales & Discounts

RSVP 707-934-4090

Sonoma’s own Children’s Cancer Community will be hosting “ Movie Night"
at Cornerstone on Friday, October 14th from 6:30 to 10:30 pm.
All are welcome.

This year’s themed event – "British Invasion" will feature films by rock’n’roll legends from the British Isles as well as some all time greats of British comedy.  (Films are appropriate for all ages).

Enjoy Fish & Chips battered up and cooked on site by master English entrepreneur Paul Stokeld of Santa Rosa’s Toad in the Hole fame plus plenty of beer and wine produced by local craftspeople.

Attendees are invited to try out their Halloween costumes early and get their 60’s gear on for the costume contest. Prizes will be awarded for the best looking dude and chick in period chic.

Tickets are $45 and available by calling 707 234-7398.

All proceeds will benefit support programs for children undergoing cancer treatment, their siblings and family. *Children’s Cancer Community was founded in 1997 by Michelle Bertrand, a teenage cancer survivor, and is dedicated to providing a support network of information, companionship and hope to children living with cancer and their families. Our focus is in Sonoma County with support extending throughout the North Bay region to Marin, Napa and Solano counties. Our work is carried out through support groups, resource referrals, and Family and Financial Assistance programs. There is no charge to the children’s family for any of our services.
For more information about the event: www.hopeforcancerkids.org

Come Celebrate this Year’s Harvest with a Tomato Tasting at Cornerstone Sonoma

Sunday September 18th – 11-2pm

Taste 20+ varieties from our garden plus take this opportunity to check out the edible garden where 58 tomato varieties were planted this year following Tomatomania*

Enjoy Cooking Demo by Chef Eric Hollis of Alsina Station Grill and learn the secrets of Argentine Gazpacho.  Demo Start at 11am sharp

Please Bring:  one homegrown, correctly labeled tomato to be entered in the mini expo/contest.  suggestion only.  We are just really curious to see what tomato varieties you’re growing this year.

Tomatoes can be entered in one or all of the following categories:

• Shape

• Size – looking for the largest

• Color

The winner in each category will receive a Garden Full of Tomato Plants for 2012 from Tomatomania.

Please email: info@cornerstonesonoma.com or call 707 933-3010.

*Tomatomania – world’s largest tomato seedling sale hosted at Cornerstone every April

We have been big fans of Paul Stokey’s beautiful shop in St. Helena for the past 15 years and are excited to announce that Tesoro has moved to Cornerstone.

Regarded as one of the finest floral design shops in California, Tesoro has been featured in House & Garden, Architectural Digest, Interior Design, Veranda, Gourmet and The San Francisco Chronicle.

Not only is Tesoro a fabulous place for all things floral, the store is stocked with unique containers, gift cards, candles…and over the holidays, Tesoro is one of my favorite places to pick up garlands, ribbon, ornaments, wreaths and more.

“Everything in the store feels fresh
and carefully chosen, making Tesoro a great
resource for bringing beauty into your home”.

So a big Welcome! to Paul and his team -

Tesoro is located just behind Keating Wines next to the Pavilion.

It takes a village:

Before Andy Cao arrived at Cornerstone fresh off a Leob fellowship at Harvard, I wondered what to expect. Would he be some holier-than-thou Designer with a severe case of badassitude? And his design team: a coterie of crackpots from LA, impossibly trendy in head-to-toe black?

I needn’t have worried. It’s easy to see why Andy’s successful. In addition to his amazing talent, he’s a really nice guy. And the design team? Also really, really nice (mostly) guys. And the rest of us: volunteers, donors, and cheerleaders, a motley albeit usually nice group. Meet the team…

Xavier Perrot is the “perrot” of cao | perrot studio. He lives and works in Paris and was awarded “Emerging Young Landscape Designer” by the French Ministry of Culture in 2008.

Stephen Jerrom is cao | perrot studios in-house photographer and long standing creative consultant.  He’s also the studio’s  Sounding Board/Voice of Reason and says “sometimes my job is to just say no”.

I spent an evening stringing thousands of crystals onto wires with The Guys from Portland. They are friends of Andy’s who go way back. They all work at Atelier Dreiseitl, a landscape architecture firm based in Germany with offices in the US. They are:

Michael Moyers – family man and chicken farmer. His assessment of the project so far? “It’s hard on your hands.”
Nathan Hilmer – crankin’ the iTunes, Nathan thinks the gardens at Cornerstone resemble sketches because “they’re each like an aspect of landscape architecture distilled into a single idea.”

Zeljka Carol Kekez is a principal at Atelier Dreiseitl who has worked with Andy for years. A true multi-tasker, she holds an MBA as well as design expertise.
Others from the Atelier Dreiseitl crew who had to return early to the office (someone has to keep the lights on, after all) are Charlie Brucker, Eric Bode, and Matt Noyes.

The Architect – is J.P. Paull of Bodega Architecture in Portland. He worked with Andy on an award-winning project for Laurent-Perrier in Paris. “It’s always a surprise to see the materials shape the ideas and vice versa during each installation.”

The Young Turk – Originally from Mexico City, Christian Berman observes common elements in both Mexican and Asian art. You’re in good hands when a designer expounds upon magical realism in art at the mere mention of Garcia Marquez.

Real-world experience for Matt

Matt Moffitt is The Intern. If you never watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, put it at the top of your Netflix queue and envision Matt walking out with the espresso machine. He’ll be a senior in landscape architecture next year at Penn State. VIEW

The Barbacks, aka Teresa Raffo and Chris Hoagie, the owners of Cornerstone. They are also experienced dirt shovelers, water wallahs, pond-liner-layers, and general on-call project grunts.

Dawn Smith is the Cornerstone Garden Manager and in the past few weeks has done everything from sourcing eco-friendly railroad ties to harvesting prickly pear cactus at a local ranch. She’s still limping from cactus spines in her legs and thinks the project “is hard on the entire body.”

A lot of heavy lifting is being done by Los Muchachos, Rigo and Chavo, on Cornerstone’s permanent garden staff. Rigo’s specialty is concrete, and he did an amazing job overseeing the new tinted walkways. Chavo is a professional painter and construction foreman. He’s also very artistic: a great fit for Cornerstone.

Friends, Benefactors and Heroes – Big appreciation goes out to the following folks, without whose help White Cloud (Bai Yun) and Red Lantern would never have gotten off the ground:

Scott Wilson, the owner of Pond and Garden Nursery in Cotati
Tony Giaccio from Napa Valley Wine Train
Brad Buckley at The Abalone Farm
Meadowcroft Wines
Cliff Bar Foundation
Meg, James, Grace and Luisa Ellsworth
Elizabeth Cotton
Carl Ostroff and Joan Cotton
Geraldine Caldarola, Jeff Lapic, and Gerald Raffo

Stay tuned for a project post-mortem and “up next” missive, to follow after everyone’s caught up on their zzzzz’s.
Click here to find out more about the grand opening event:

Join us to meet the artist at a reception on Saturday, September 3rd from 2-5PM.  The show will continue throughout the weekend and on ’til October 15th.  Don’t miss this intelligent, thought-provoking and engaging new exhibit!