- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Efforts by UC Cooperative Extension to encourage Californians to garden were, coincidentally, the topics of two blog entries this week.
An unsigned entry in the San Diego Roots Sustainable Foods Project blog noted that a two-hour planning meeting for the ONE Garden at a Time Project in San Diego County was held last Thursday at the "Farm and Home Advisors Conference Room." (I'm not sure that's what the conference room is really called, but it is a quaint name -- a throwback to UCCE's roots.)
In addition to UCCE and the Master Gardener program, the following organizations helped lay the project's groundwork:
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- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Los Angeles County UC Cooperative Extension Common Ground gardening program was credited in a TV spot this week for providing information to the public about growing food at home to offset the rising cost of fresh produce.
Reported by Janet Choi of KTLA News, the 2:22-story opened at the a lush Altadena garden. Mary Gotharad said she and her husband have cut their expenses by selling their second car, stopping cable TV, and conserving water and electricity, but they still "enjoy food."
"This helps us live rich," she said....
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Los Angeles Times today ran an interesting piece on guerrilla gardening, the practice of surreptitiously planting flowers or vegetables on vacant land. The story focused on a Norwalk man who has secretly tended a cactus garden on a Long Beach street median for 10 years.
For the story, freelance writer Joe Robinson spoke to UC Cooperative Extension Ventura County advisor Rose Hayden-Smith.
"It reminds me of the Vacant Lot Cultivation societies," Hayden-Smith was quoted. In the wake of the economic meltdown of the 1890s, many American cities, from Detroit to Philadelphia and Boston, formed Vacant Lot...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Ventura County Star on Sunday ran a lengthy op-ed piece by UCCE advisor emeritus Daniel Desmond and horticulture and 4-H advisor Rose Hayden-Smith with a headline that begs for explanation: "Food will win the war."
The story gives a historical perspective on gardening's past ties to patriotism and makes that case that today, in light of high food and fuel prices and ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, it's time again to pick up a hoe for the homeland.
"During both world wars, food was vital to national security. To protect our country, Uncle Sam called on Americans to garden, and they did, in record...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Just a few weeks after garden writer Anne Raver of the New York Times interviewed a UC Cooperative Extension advisor about blueberries (as reported in this blog entry), she looked westward again for more insight on home gardening. Raver contacted UC Cooperative Extension horticulture and 4-H advisor Rose Hayden-Smith to get a historical perspective on gardening for today's column.
Raver reported on what must have seemed a preposterous...