Attention Angelinos (and folks nearby):

Our incredibly groovy publishers, Process Media, and their sister company, Feral House, are throwing a holiday party this Thursday. We’ll be there, just hanging out. If you don’t know Wacko/La Luz de Jesus, it’s a combo art gallery, book store and novelty shop. You could get a lot of Christmas shopping done there while you’re visiting us. Of course Process will be selling our book there, as well as their other wonderful offerings.

You can also meet:  Deborah Eden Tull (“The Natural Kitchen”), Mel Gordon (“Voluptuous Panic”),  Cletus Nelson (“Depression 2.0”) and Louis Sahagun (“Master of the Mysteries”) and Mr. Adam Parfrey, publisher.

Attention Everyone:

As part of the celebration, they’re offering a great sale on books: Buy any two Process or Feral House books online and get the third for free. Order here:

http://processmediainc.com/

http://feralhouse.com/

What the Winnetka Farms folks have done with a typical San Fernando Valley backyard is truly amazing. They’ll be sharing that knowledge by teaching a vegetable gardening class this Saturday December 4th from 9 am to 12 pm in Pasadena, CA. More info here. The class will conclude with a lunch of salad greens and homemade bread, all for $20. If you’re interested in vegetable gardening in Southern California I highly recommend this class.

Ranch photo from the Huntington’s Ranch blog.

I’ve never had so much fun at a symposium as I did at the Huntington’s urban agriculture blow-out this weekend. The two day event launched the Huntington’s new experimental urban agricultural station known as the “Ranch” and featured a diverse bunch of speakers. The Ranch will provide much needed information on edible landscapes and food forestry, particularly for those of us in the southwest. Designed by Scott Kleinrock, the Ranch, with its combination of fruit trees, intensive vegetable plantings and California natives is already stunning–by next year it will be a paradise. The Ranch has a blog at http://huntingtonblogs.org/theranch/.

Some highlights from the symposium after the jump:

Author Gary Nabhan presented “Adapting Food Production to a Hotter, Drier World: Using Agricultural Stations to Train Future Farmers.” Nabhan stressed the dire situation those of us living in arid climates face with climate change and the importance of experimental stations such as the Ranch in figuring out next steps. You can read some of Nabhan’s articles on his website at http://garynabhan.com/.

Dr. Susan Mulley of Cal Poly Pomona presented the results of her research in a surprisingly engaging and amusing lecture, “Are Vegetables Private?” and Other Questions: Belief and Perception and Their Impacts on Urban Agriculture.” Mulley’s work involves surveying the general public and landscaping professionals on their aesthetic likes and dislikes. The data she presented during the lecture involved perceptions of residential and institutional edible and native landscapes. Not surprisingly, the general public tends to favor landscapes that are orderly and neat while landscape professionals are more comfortable with “wildness.” The take-away for me is that those of us in the “urban farm” movement need to be more cognizant of aesthetics. As Mulley put it, most people prefer landscapes that show, “the human touch.” I think it would be best to work with that human touch rather than fight it.

Tara Kolla of Silver Lake Farms told the story of her journey to make a living as an urban farmer growing and selling cut flowers. Kolla began by emphasising something most people don’t know, that most cut flowers you buy at markets are drenched in pesticides. Kolla’s entrepreneurial efforts were soon thwarted by NIMBY neighbors whose complaints to local inspectors resulted in the birth of the Urban Farming Advocates. The UFA went on to craft, along with the city’s planning department, the “Food and Flowers Freedom Act” which made it legal in the city of Los Angeles to grow fruits, nuts and flowers and resell them.

Kelly and I spoke next in a rambling and bizarre lecture that involved vegetables, barefoot running and humanure among other topics. Kelly kept things on track, as usual, and headed off my tendency towards pretentious quotes. I did get to use my favorite Marshall McCluhan saying, “If you don’t like that idea, I’ve got others.”

Darren Butler presented a talk entitled, “Food Forestry and Living Systems” that echoed Nabhan’s call for for food forestry research in our arid climate. I’m looking forward to taking Butler’s grafting workshop this winter.

The day concluded with a dazzling presentation by Rosalind Creasy whose groundbreaking book Edible Landscaping has just been updated. As Mulley’s research proves, if we want to get more folks to replace their lawns with more useful plants we’ve also got to pay attention to aesthetics. Creasy, through her gardens and writing, has proven that useful and beautiful can be one and the same. My other thought on hearing Creasy’s lecture is that perhaps we’d be better off not using the phrase “urban farming.” “Edible landscaping” or “edible landscapes” would be more accurate and less likely to bring up bad associations some people have with agriculture.

I’ve left out a lot of details on this amazing conference and may write a few more blog posts to unpack what I learned. Congratulations to the hard working staff of the Huntington for pulling off an auspicious debut for the Ranch.

We’re pleased as punch to have been invited to participate in this fantastic symposium hosted by the Huntington Library & Gardens in Pasadena.  It’s a full day of presentations, tours and practical breakout sessions. We’re generally slow to open the wallet for events, but we’d gladly pay the $25 admission for this one. 

Check out the line up below! Homegrown Neighbor will be there (Full Circle), as well as Tara of Silver Lake Farms–she who knows everything about soil and helped us redesign our garden. Our buddies from Backwards Beekeepers will be there, too.  Food Not Lawns, Fallen Fruit…all these people are so amazing , its hard to even choose highlights.  Seriously. If you live in So. Cal, you have to come. Come and say hi.

In celebration of all that’s home grown, is a day of talks, tours and demonstrations by local experts on topics from nurturing soil to keeping chickens to growing organic flowers and produce.  Rosalind Creasy, edible landscaping pioneer, is the keynote speaker.  Other presenters from: Silverlake Farms, Homegrown Evolution, Food Not Lawns, Darren Butler, Full Circle Gardens, Metabolic Studio, Backwards Beekeepers, Fallen Fruit, Sustainable Habitats, Master Gardeners, and Little Flower Candy Company.

And the day before, Friday, there’s an academic symposium which also sounds fascinating. Gary Nabham wrote Where Our Food Comes From, and about a hundred other books: 

Tickets and details available through www.brownpapertickets.com

This Sunday October 10th from 10 am to 3 pm, Los Angeles will host a bike/pedestrian festival “Ciclavia,” modeled on similar street festivals that originated in Bogata, Columbia. It’s a seven mile route from the Bicycle Kitchen to Boyle Heights with streets fully open to human powered transit (seems like a better way to put it than “closed to cars”). I’ll be there along with Homegrown Neighbor and Mrs. Homegrown More information at http://ciclavia.wordpress.com.

Also this weekend October 9th through the 11th the Huntington Library and Gardens will host their annual plant sale. More information here in their events listings. I’d like to go but Mrs. Homegrown is worried I’ll drag weird plants home that we have no space for. But that shouldn’t stop all of you from going!

On Saturday, October 23rd we’ll join fellow Process Media author Deborah Eden Tull and many other speakers and vendors at the Homegrown “seed to plate” festival (note: though we share the “homegrown” moniker we’re participants not organizers). According to the Homegrown website, it will be a “free event celebrating food, sustainable gardening and an ecological lifestyle.” We’ll be doing a workshop at 2pm on how you can make a self irrigating pot out of two five gallon buckets. At 12 pm Tull, author of The Natural Kitchen: Your Guide to the Sustainable Food Revolution will also do a workshop. The event will be held at Media Park in Culver City. More information at http://www.homegrownculvercity.com.