Long Beach garden continues to flourish

Nov 10, 2011

Chefs from area restaurants prepared a six-course dinner at the farm with ingredients grown in the Carmelitos garden for an October fundraiser.

Chefs from area restaurants prepared a six-course dinner with ingredients grown in the Carmelitos garden for an October fundraiser.

A seven-acre community-supported garden in the Carmelitos Housing Development produces food in the middle of an urban North Long Beach neighborhood, said an article in Gazettes, a local community newspaper. The farm was started as a joint effort between the Housing Authority of the County of Los Angeles and the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Called "The Growing Experience," the garden supports a Community Supported Agriculture program, which supplies weekly boxes of fresh produce to families who pay a subscription fee.

“The box of food contains seasonal produce,” said garden coordinator Jimmy Ng. “Right now, we have a lot of collard greens, summer and winter squash, apples, herbs, basil, beets, turnips and we also have eggs.”

The Growing Experience also sells food to gourmet restaurants.

Deadly oak scourge threatens Burlingame Hills trees
Michele Ellson, San Francisco Examiner

Burlingame Hills homeowner Steve Epstein is on a quest to eradicate the Sudden Oak Death in this densely forested canyon enclave of 426 homes west of Hillsborough.

The disease arrived in the Bay Area 15 years ago on ornamental plants such as rhododendrons, said UC Berkeley sudden oak death expert Matteo Garbelotto. The wind carries it from hosts such as the bay laurel to nearby oaks. He said the Peninsula was infected “fairly severely” by the disease and that last spring’s rainy weather intensified its spread.

“Because the organism likes warmer weather, it really spreads when it rains between late April and June,” Garbelotto said.

By Jeannette E. Warnert
Author - Communications Specialist

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