FarmApartment

There are vacant lots all across Los Angeles.  Spaces waiting to be filled.  Between the concrete walls, patches of earth sit, waiting to be reclaimed and returned to a primal state.  Though it seems improbable in this industrialized, over-developed, metropolitan behemoth of a city, there is still breathing room.

These empty parcels of land create an illusion that “nothing” is there.  In reality, it is simply in a dormant state.  I love that word.  Dormant: lying as if asleep; inactive; torpid.

Last weekend, 45 people from all over California and Los Angeles gathered for the Growing Communities workshop to learn how to lift these barren landscapes out of their slumber and return them to life, as in some kind of urban fairy tale, by creating Community Gardens.

David King, Master Gardener at the Learning Garden of Venice High and Al Renner, head of the LA Community Garden Council, were our wise teachers, sharing decades of experience with plenty of humor and charm.

It’s funny, because I started this blog while meditating on my fruit bowl.  It boggles my mind how fast the journey was from my plate to the rest of the world.  My quest to find somewhere to plant a seed led me directly into a community of activists trying to shift our entire culture.  Before I could say “tomato plant”, I was thrust into a political movement.

Beyond the wealth of information, most of which I’m still trying to digest, the real benefit for me was my fellow classmates. I met teachers, city officials, organization leaders and just plain concerned citizens trying to start their own gardens.  What brought us all together was a deep commitment to “food security” (making sure that nobody goes hungry and everybody has access to fresh food) and a farm-to-plate ethos, something I find increasingly important in my own eating habits.

So why community gardens?  There are the obvious answers: neighborhood unity, fresh food, urban beautification.  But just as important is that, amidst the chaos of the city, a garden is a place where the simplicity of nature is protected; held sacred.  The lush surroundings reflect a natural abundance, which is an essential contrast to the scarcity experienced in so many parts of the city.

Solano Gardens

Gardening also offers people a simple, rewarding, highly therapeutic relationship that is, all to often, hard to replicate in the complicated world of human affairs: if you give to plants, they will give back.

Recently a friend sent me a story in the New York Times about the incredible effectiveness of the Veteran’s Administration’s  Garden Therapy Program in rehabilitating soldiers returning from Iraq who were suffering from PTSD.  By learning to deal with plants, they eventually were able to learn how to deal with society.

It follows then that the workshop curriculum had to do with tending people, not gardens.  We learned how to navigate the jungles of government bureaucracy, grow neighborhood interest, attract volunteers.  We were warned about some of the common pitfalls within organizations caused by the imperfections of human beings.  Emphasis was placed on the personal beliefs of a good community organizer:

– people are basically good and want to do the right thing,

– people can be trusted,

– groups make better decisions than individuals

– everyone’s opinion matters

We were encouraged to adhere to these principals even if we didn’t necessarily believe them.  If not for our organizations, then for our plants.  These basic tenets give space for people, and gardens, to grow.

CLICK HERE to purchase the in depth Growing Communities Curriculum on which the workshop was based.

As a parting gift, here are just a few of the organizations and gardens I learned about this weekend.

The Learning Garden at Venice High School – launched in March of 2001, it  has quickly become one of the country’s largest and most successful school gardens.

Los Angeles Conservation Corp – a group that provides at-risk youth with job skills with a focus on conservation and community projects.

Mudtown Farms, 2.4 acres in the middle of Watts, one of LA’s poorest neighborhoods, that is being tended by 118 farmers.

SHARE -  works to find affordable house for disabled people.

Millagro Allegra – the newest community garden in Los Angeles located in Highland Park

Solano Canyon – a community garden just East of Chinatown

There are plenty of places to jump in and get dirty.

Let’s face it.  There are a lot of stupid laws out there.  Just a brief investigation revealed these gems.

In California:

• Animals are banned from mating publicly within 1,500 feet of a tavern, school, or place of worship.
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• Community leaders passed an ordinance that makes it illegal for anyone to try and stop a child from playfully jumping over puddles of water.
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• In 1838, the city of Los Angeles passed an ordinance requiring that a man obtain a license before serenading a woman.

I’d like to add another one to the list.

• In 1946, Los Angeles passed a municipal code known as the Truck Gardening Ordinance which currently prohibits selling fruits, nuts, flowers or seedlings grown in residential zones at local farmers’ markets.  The ordinance allows selling vegetables grown on private properties, but excludes everything else.

Total twilight zone.  I can almost see Rod Serling standing beneath an apricot tree, in a garden located somewhere between time and space, explaining this bizarre reality.

This all came to  light last March when Tara Kolla, who runs Silver Lake Farms, was ordered to cease and desist selling her cut flowers at the local farmer’s market.

In response, she and a few other urban farmers banded together to form the Urban Farming Advocates.  The group is pushing the The Food and Flowers Freedom Act to overturn the ordinance.   Kolla continues to run her impressive mini-farm at her home in Silver Lake and has since set up a CSA.  CLICK HERE to check out all of her exciting workshops and the goings on.

Luckily, Councilman Eric Garcetti is all over this. Garcetti, who has himself transformed his hillside lot in Elysian Heights into an edible garden, has said,

• “it is in the interest of the city to promote the growth, harvest, on-site consumption and off-site sale of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and other urban gardening products in the city.  The growth of these products, and their sale at local farmers’ markets and other fresh food access programs, are directly related to the city’s efforts to green Los Angeles (by reducing the carbon footprint of food imported from other parts of the country and world), promote nutrition (by providing fresh produce in the city), and foster stronger bonds in the community (by encouraging local participation in farmers’ markets and other fresh food access programs), and create local sustainable job opportunities.”

Go Garcetti!

To find out what you can do to overturn this archaic, rotten law, visit Urban Farming Advocates.