Winter planting

The earthboxes are a continued success. Our beans have grown so quickly that they pulled down the lattice that we set up for them. The plant is strong, and the beans are crispy and sweet. We tasted a few on our last trip up to the roof, along with some delicious red chard and greens.

Today we executed our plans to expand the garden for the winter. We utilized four more homemade earthboxes that we built a month back, and we planted the two "official" earthboxes that were donated to us by a supporter that had read our write-up in the LA Times. We also did some additional herbs in some of the traditional pots that we used during the fall.

We planted about two dozen new vegetables -- two different varieties of lettuce, brussel sprouts, and kale.

The only problem...the 4-day storm that is on its way here. We're keeping our fingers crossed that our newly planted seedlings will survive all of the violent rainfall. But, even if they don't, we can simply re-plant!

Big plans, big plants

At our meeting today we took the opportunity to look back on the last six months or so of gardening and make plans for 2011. If one thing has become clear, it's that we are more than capable of maintaining a garden on our rooftop, and others find this a worthy pursuit (see out LA Times article!).

For 2011 a big priority is to expand our garden significantly. In just two weeks, our earthboxes have shown that they greatly help our plants reach their full potential. The beans that we planted have grown beyond even what we had expected. We tried pole beans in our very first planting, and unfortunately, these were some of the most reluctant of our plants. Now, however, they have just exploded, growing up the small wall on the edge of the roof, and attaching themselves on the metal lattice we constructed for them.

In addition to expanding our garden, we intend to begin building strong bridges with other networks of community gardens in the city. Also, we are looking into new ways to involve other Skid Row residents in the gardening process. One way we can do this is by creating an "adopt-a-seedling" program. We don't have a whole lot of space here in downtown LA, but we have lots of enthusiastic residents and some windowsills perfect for raising seeds! Stay tuned.

Two Weeks Ago

Today

LA Times article on our garden!

Today the LA Times published an article on our garden. Along with some wonderful photos, the garden received some great praise. Pasted below, the article can also be found here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/11/skid-row-community-garden.html with some outstanding photos.

Skid Row Community Garden: bounty by the bucket
November 10, 2010 7:00 am

Community gardens dispatch No. 7: Skid row, Los Angeles

The newest community garden in Los Angeles has no soil, bakes in all-day sun and is seen by few outsiders except those who pass above in helicopters.
The Skid Row Community Garden is on the roof of a four-story building on South Main Street, between 5th and 6th streets in downtown L.A. It's part of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, an 11-year-old organization with more than 600 members working with homeless and low-income people in the Skid Row area, a population that by some estimates totals about 13,000.

Pete White, founder and co-director of the group, points to the south noting that just a few blocks away is the produce market, the hub for much of Southern California's fresh fruit and vegetables, but the residents of downtown wouldn't know it. Want a definition of food insecurity? Try to buy a fresh carrot around here.
"If the city can't get fresh produce to skid row, we'll grow our own," he says.
The garden is young, started in late June with tomatoes, peppers and herbs, everything planted in plastic containers. Now, with the help of master gardeners Anne Hars and Maggie Lobl, the first fall crop will be going in: fava beans, radishes, brassicas such as kale and mustard, peas, herbs, micro-greens and catnip, the last two intended for downtown restaurants and pet emporiums, a potential revenue source.


The building had been the home of an Army-Navy department store with an unreliable elevator. Even though the summer was mild, gardeners had to trudge up more than 100 steps to water plants on the roof, sometimes twice a day during a heat wave.

For the fall crop, Hars enlisted the help of Erik Knutzen, co-author of "The Urban Homestead." Using a 1917 design, he showed the volunteers how to construct a self-irrigating pot system, or SIP, using two 5-gallon paint buckets, an 18-inch piece of 1-inch plastic pipe and a plastic party cup. (See the YouTube video or read full instructions.) The SIPs work off the wicking method, drawing water up from a bottom reservoir to feed the roots. Though others do use potting soil, the growing medium at the skid row garden is not dirt but a soil-less compound, similar to a seed starter.

It's a nutritional mix that is just the right weight," Hars says. "The water wicks up nicely and doesn't get too soggy at the bottom. If you used regular dirt, there would be no wicking action."
The first two SIPs are a few weeks old and are thriving. The fava beans are bursting out of the protective sheeting on top in a thick bouquet.
"They're doing better than my ones at home are," Hars says.

-- Jeff Spurrier

Last Thursday we welcomed Jeff Spurrier and Ann Summa to our bi-weekly Team Food meeting, where we built additional earth-boxes, and planted additional winter crops.

Home-made earth boxes

Today has been another great day at LACAN. We came together to construct some earth boxes. Earth boxes are essentially pots with multiple chambers and a water reservoir that allow plants to self-regulate their water supply. Translated for those of us just learning our way around a garden, with earth boxes, when our plants get thirsty they will have a reservoir of water at hand to drink.

The last few weeks of strange southern California have shown us how nice this arrangement might be. One week we had soaring temperatures, even breaking the historic record for heat! Then the next week we had rain and cold. Because our garden is located on our rooftop, our plants are especially exposed to the elements, meaning that they take a real beating from sun, wind, and rain. While we have been amazing with our watering schedule -- despite the 101 steps we have to climb each day -- our plants will no doubt benefit from some earth boxes.

We learned a great design and started building. We'll finish our boxes in our next Team Food meeting 11-4-10, so stay tuned.

Seed starting workshop today

Today we gathered residents and LACAN staff and friends to participate in our seed starting workshop. After much anticipation, we gathered and got our hands dirty. Anne brought her expertise and showed us exactly how to plant seeds so that we can eventually pot them and add them to our growing garden.

We don't have a whole lot of land, green spaces, or plots in downtown. After all, that's why we went vertical -- to the roof. But, seedlings don't require much space at all. Just some sun and a little TLC. When we first began the garden, we had a few seedlings that our gardeners took home with them as they went from seeds to seedlings. A nice breezy window sill works fantastic.

This time, however, we were armed with much more expertise. Our wonderful master gardener, Maggie, has been talking for a while about planting seeds in small cups made of newspaper. As the plants start to make their way to the surface, when its time to pot them, there would be no need to transplant, since the newspaper would decompose in the pot! We thought it was a wonderful idea and we were excited to learn this little trick.

Seed planting workshop planned

In our bi-weekly Team Food meeting today, we began the first steps toward expanding our garden in a significant way. Our partners in the Master Gardener program have volunteered to conduct a seed planting workshop in two weeks, on Thursday September 16th at 9am. We will be covering everything from containers to sunlight, to soil issues. Please join us if you're interested in growing your own seedlings. All you need is some sunlight and some patience!

We are going to be trying out produce that is best suited for the fall season, from Cauliflower to Lettuce, Chard, and Herbs.

The seeds we will be using come from Italy. The region that they come from has a climate that is very similar to that found in sunny Southern California.

Herbs added

One of our goals from the beginning of this garden project has been to provide as much produce from our garden to community meals as possible. We've been holding workshops in the Skid Row community for quite some time teaching residents about the benefits of natural, organic, and non-processed seasonings. Our goal is to reduce the amount of sodium and artificial flavorings and preservatives that the community consumes.

So...it's time for us to begin growing herbs. We have some new plants that are flourishing in our garden. These include Italian Basil and Rosemary.

New harvests for our community meal

Two fridays per month, we hold a resident meeting at our office at 530 S. Main Street in downtown LA. This means that Thursdays are becoming a big harvesting day for us, and it allows us to see the various plants that are really coming along.

This week, our tomatoes have been consistently bigger, and we have a substantial number of peppers.

Good eats!

Veggies galore!

At this week's Team Food meeting, we were greeted on the roof by tomatoes, various peppers, and a squash that were ready to pick.

The plants are coming along better than even we had anticipated, so we're very excited. This means that our garden really works, and can only get better from here.

With this trial period over, we're ready to plant even more veggies to really increase the yield of the garden. We've been looking at new methods, such as "earth boxes" (see http://www.earthbox.com/).

Our first harvest.

We harvested our first vegetable today. We picked the biggest Serrano today.

When we first set out to establish the garden, our stated goal was to bring quality, local, organic food into the Skid Row community. We're taking one step closer to that goal tonight. On the first and third Friday of every month, we hold a Resident Organizing Committee (ROC) Meeting at our office at 530 S. Main St. The meeting, open to the public, brings residents together to discuss the issues that impact our community the most, where we democratically design solutions. We always end each meeting with a family0style meal. We have decided to integrate our health and nutrition component to the ROC meal, and have begun serving healthy meals freshly prepared by residents themselves. Before the meal, we describe the ingredients, our decisions to include those items, and detail any healthy substitutions we've made (natural sea salt instead of more processed sodium substitutes, for example).

Our vision is to begin integrating produce from our garden into these meals, and tonight we are making salsa with our Serrano Chile as the prized ingredient. It will accompany turkey chili and brown rice.

Shade tree added!

Our plants have been taking a beating from the downtown sun, so we have begun experimenting with different methods to keep them cool. The natural shadows from the different ledges on the roof help to cool some of the plants in the morning while shading others when the sun heads west getting closer to sunset.

Today we added a Dwarf Lemon Tree (Eureka Lemon) to help in this effort.

New plants!

We planted additional plants today, thanks to a donation from a friend of the organization.

We now are home to two more tomato plants and strawberries. Strawberries are already growing!

We've got veggies.

Our first vegetables have begun to grow this week! One of our Serrano plants is sprouting peppers on a daily basis. The one here is almost ready to pick. It will be our first vegetable among many to come.

Our Lilac Pepper has also begun to mature, along with a handful of tomato plants and beans. We hope to harvest some of these soon.

Who would have thought that in only a matter of weeks, the Skid Row garden would come to life? Stay tuned.

Our first planting

Today, ten of us, along with our master gardener, got our hands dirty and planted our first crops on our rooftop garden. Using 5 gallon pots, we planted the following seedlings:

Mammoth Jalapeno (x2)
Park's Whopper Tomato (x2)
Pole Bean (x3)
Peter Pan Squash (x2)
Serrano Pepper (x2)
Organic Bell Pepper
String Bean
Lilac Pepper
Sweet 100 Tomato

We arranged a lattice for our beans and set up tomato cages.

For aesthetics and to ward certain bugs away, we also planted 8 marigolds to accompany our plants.

Origins of our garden

In 2005, LACAN conducted a large assessment and survey of Skid Row’s food sources and health. The study found that 87 percent of residents face crisis-level food insecurity. Put simply, healthy food is inaccessible. As a food desert, the only stores within a several mile radius are small “mom and pop” establishments that carry liquor and non-perishable items such as chips, ramen noodles, and canned goods that contain high levels of sodium, preservatives and unhealthy artificial ingredients. Travelling far from home, transporting groceries, and affording fresh food is often unrealistic, and respondents reported often having to choose between eating decently and paying their rent. One third of respondents referenced discrimination as a major barrier to food security, often being forced by stores to show money before entering. Another major source of food is the collection of rescue missions that, offering temporary aid, often fall short. In affordable housing accommodations, residents are often barred from owning appliances, often making storage and preparation of food grounds for eviction. In all, food insecurity in the neighborhood is a fundamental impediment to maintaining health, employment, and housing.

Intentions and plans to begin a garden began long before empirical evidence was collected that proved its necessity. However, urban gardens require land, which, given the recent redevelopment of downtown, is scarce and very expensive.

After surveying the area, LACAN gained permission to begin a rooftop garden high above Main Street.

So we had finally found a plot of land for our garden. What next? We wanted to start a garden that reversed the standard treatment of residents as inferior “clients.” We wanted our gardeners to have ownership over the garden’s daily functioning and its seasonal harvests.

“Team Food” (a subcommittee within LACAN meeting biweekly to organize the community around food/health policy, nutrition, and physical exercise) drew up a proposal whereby resident members could learn how to manage the garden themselves from planting to harvesting. The idea was to establish a core of expert gardeners that could teach others and eventually establish other gardens in the neighborhood.

We contacted the Master Gardener program run by the University of California. The Master Gardener program, conducted throughout the United States and Canada, is a two-part educational effort, in which avid gardeners are provided many hours of intense home horticulture training, and in return they "pay back" local university extension agents through volunteerism. Master Gardeners assist with garden lectures, exhibits, demonstrations, school and community gardening, phone diagnostic service, research, and many other projects. See http://camastergardeners.ucdavis.edu/

We were put in contact with Maggie Lobl, a Master Gardener here in Los Angeles. Maggie volunteered to meet with Team Food twice a month to hold gardening workshops as we developed our garden and our gardeners.