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.