Community Garden Exchange

(photo by Scott Varley / Daily Breeze Staff Photographer)

On Tuesday March 24, Peter and Harvest Westchester appeared on the front page of the Daily Breeze.  And on March 26 the story made the 6pm news on Channel 4.

Harvest Westchester is a very recent expansion of the Community Garden’s efforts.  Many people in our area have backyard fruit trees.  Often the trees yield far more than the owners can use.  Rather than the extra fruit rotting on the ground or attracting pests, Harvest Westchester was conceived to collect that extra fruit and share community bounty.  Read the rest of this entry »

Title: Garden class and Work-Together day
Location: Community Garden at Holy Nativity, 6700 W. 83rd, Westchester (LA 90045)
Description: Garden class begins 9am. Topic: “Getting Started: How to begin your organic vegetable garden.” Work-together day begins 10:30am
Start Time: 9:00
Date: 2009-04-18

While you’re waiting for the class to begin, here are some Edible Landscaping resources for Los Angeles

Are you eager to see our plans for the new herb garden expansion at the Community Garden?

Here is our “before” picture.  The space has been lawn for as long as anyone can remember, so that means more than 2 decades.  There is a very large juniper tree against the building (to right, out of photo) which we will preserve since it is one of the few trees that neighborhood kids are permitted to climb.

We removed the grass during the Feb 28 workday, and on Mar 7 worked at removing considerable roots, likely from the neighbor’s magnolia tree (visible in background of photo).

Read the rest of this entry »

FEBRUARY 28 WORK-TOGETHER DAY

At our February 28 garden class, participants tried their hand at designing the plant layout for our Spring 2009 season.  During the class, several of our children assisted Gene in removing lawn grass that was pulled out two days prior, in anticipation of our new garden expansion.  The grass was stacked and layered under Gene’s careful direction and will form new compost to be used in the garden later this year.

Volunteers also opened Gene’s last compost pile — created during an October 2008 workshop, a mere 4 months ago, our 4 coldest months — and were awed by the rich soil nutrition, what we affectionately call “black gold.”  We used some of the pile in 4 garden beds which weren’t flourishing.  We’ll use more of the pile next week.

Read the rest of this entry »

Title: Garden class and Work-Together day
Location: Community Garden at Holy Nativity, 6700 W. 83rd, Westchester (LA 90045)
Description: 9am garden class.  Topic:  “Spring Vegetables:  Hybrid or Heirloom?”
10:30 Work-Together day begins
Start Time: 9:00am
Date: 2009-04-04

Title: “Sustainable Landscaping” with Owen Dell
Location: Holy Nativity Church, 6700 W. 83rd, Westchester (LA 90045)
Description: Author Owen Dell will give us a visionary look at the future of gardens. Dell is a landscape architect and author of a new book in the For Dummies bestselling series. Lecture free, books available for purchase.
Start Time: 7:00pm
Date: 2009-04-15

Read the rest of this entry »

Title: Garden class and Work-Together day
Location: Community Garden at Holy Nativity, 6700 W. 83rd, Westchester (LA 90045)
Description: 9am Garden class: “Increase your yields with intensive plant spacing”
10:30 Work-Together day begins
Start Time: 9:00
Date: 2009-03-21

Title: Garden class and Work-Together day
Location: Community Garden at Holy Nativity, 6700 W. 83rd, Westchester (LA 90045)
Description: 9am Garden class on \”Soil Building\”
10:30 Work-Together day
Start Time: 9:00
Date: 2009-03-07

Carouby de Maussane edible pod pea

Last week we missed our regular Thursday evening harvest date because it was pouring rain.  And boy, did our harvest last night show it!

Yesterday we harvested using large turkey-sized foil pans to collect the peas.  We filled two of them!

HARVESTING EDIBLE-PODDED PEAS

One thing about edible pod peas is, you have to keep harvesting.  As soon as you let up, the pea pods grow very large, PLUS the plants quit flowering.  When the pods get large, they certainly remain edible (even the overgrown ones still make good soup) but they move beyond that luscious, delicate, gourmet prized tenderness.

Read the rest of this entry »

This spring we will be expanding the Community Garden, and you can help!

Last year — our first year in the garden — in the interest of “Obtaining a Yield” from this city property, we removed 1,250 square feet of unused lawn to make room for the main part of the vegetable garden.  We removed additional lawn for the Rainwater Harvesting citrus tree portion.  Last summer — our first garden season — we lost count at around 300 pounds of food donated to needy local families via LAX Food Pantry.  Pretty good for a space that used to be scruffy ole grass!

This year we have plans to expand the Garden on several fronts:

Read the rest of this entry »