Skid Row Gardening: December 2010

Welcome to Skid Row Gardening!

Gardening, Civil Rights, and Community Organizing

Skid Row is a fifty square-block area nestled on the eastern flank of downtown Los Angeles, and is home to over 11,000 homeless and extremely low-income people. The population includes single individuals and families with children, chronically homeless people, people with a mental illness and/or a substance abuse problem, veterans, people with other disabilities and chronic health conditions.

Recently, Skid Row has come under increasing attack by politicians, city planners, and criminal justice officials who refuse to acknowledge Skid Row as a “real” community. Much of this has to do with a recent wave of redevelopment and gentrification that makes Skid Row’s land highly valued. This has led to widespread violations of community residents’ civil and human rights on a massive scale. The Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN) is an outspoken opponent of these city efforts (for more detailed information on LACAN campaigns, visit www.cangress.org). Like many of the prominent civil rights organizations coming before them, LACAN sees civil rights as inseparable from food justice and equality.

In the summer of 2010 LACAN launched its own community garden located on a rooftop on Main Street. Stay tuned to this blog and watch the garden grow. We aim for democratic control where residents can work together to produce the healthy food that this neighborhood deserves.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

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!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

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