Seminar: Essentials of Vegetable Seed Saving - Enroll Today!

Genetic diversity is evident in these ears of corn, all from the same batch of seed...  this richness must be preserved!

Happy New Year everyone! 
 
The Learning Garden at Venice High School is offering an exciting new seminar for January 29th, 10:00 to 3:00 (lunch included!): Essentials of Vegetable Seed Saving.
 
Seed saving has become a 'must-know' skill as people have recognized how utterly essential seeds are to our ability to survive. 
 
Generations before us understood the importance of saving seeds. Saving seeds to plant in the coming year was essential and, long before science showed the why of it, humankind understood we could select the best plants and improve the varieties we depended upon. This vital connection was lost as we began to purchase our seeds from seed sellers making the need to save seed seem less relevant. In recent times, we are confronted with GMOs and monster corporations controlling the seeds they created and with that came the very real specter of seed corporations having control over the food supply.

Saving our vegetable biodiversity today provides us

• those delicious open pollinated varieties that were bred to taste good.
  
• a wider range of vegetable varieties that aren't often available through catalogs.
  
• a closer participation in the cycle of life.
  
• a hedge against our own personal misfortune of losing a job or other financial setback.
  
• a safeguard against food shortages caused by natural or man-made disasters.
  
• with our own means to mitigate against global climate change and it's impact on agriculture.
  
• the means to fight our shrinking biodiversity.
  

Seed saving enhances the gardening experience even more because good gardeners become better gardeners and some will go on to create unique open-pollinated vegetable varieties – adapted to this place!

This is the seminar you need if you are concerned about -

• the presence of GMO's in our food. 
• the preservation of old 'heirloom' vegetable varieties. 
• equal access to good clean healthy food for everyone regardless of economic status.
• our ability in Los Angeles to produce vegetables acclimatized to our local (and very unique) climate.
• the future of seeds and food!
  

You will learn

• to plan for your seed saving – things to do to enable success.
• how different plants are pollinated and what that means to saving seed . 
• to identify different plant families and how that affects the seed saving process. 
• the best time to pick for the best seed viability.
• to ensure your seed is kept pure from other varieties and unwanted characteristics.
• to clean and dry different seeds and other processes for optimum storage.
• the equipment and essential supplies you will have to have if you want to save some seeds and what you won't need for MOST seeds.
  

Taught by The Learning Garden's Gardenmaster, David King, this seminar will emphasize how to do it and practical examples will show everyone how to best save the more common vegetable seeds with information on saving all kinds of seeds included.  

David King is an experienced lecturer, well known for practical seminars that are accessible and informative.  The lively lectures, full of quirky humor, move through the topic, getting to the heart of the matter without a lot of extra jargon, but with the data you need to get out and save some seeds!

Lunch will be served enable participants to join in community over the break (12 to 1:00 PM). Pamela Nears, an accomplished organic and 'fresh from the garden' chef, will treat all with a vegetarian stew and other menu items (price included in your registration) that will nourish and enhance the garden experience. Coffee, tea and water will abound.

Weather permitting, the seminar will be held outside.  The Learning Garden is usually cooler than any other place in Los Angeles, thanks to the three large trees shading the patio, please dress warmly in January - although if it is too cold, we will be indoors.

Early registration helps us plan and will save you money.  Registration at the door is on an 'as available' basis - seating is limited and we expect to fill!

  
Use the PayPal button below to enroll now.  If you have diet concerns (other than vegetarian) please make a note on your registration and we will work something out.

Members of Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA) will receive a $5 discount - all other attendees will become members of the Seed Library of Los Angeles; $5 of your registration fee goes to SLOLA for your membership automatically.


Thank you, 
david

As of today, the 25th of January, this seminar is full.  If you are interested in a future offering, or wish to be on a wait list for this offering, please leave me a comment and we'll work something out - if we have enough interest, we'll plan a second offering as soon as we can.

Thank you, 

david

Instead of A Bomber...

Venice High School students grow a variety of winter vegetables in their gardens at The Learning Garden, including broccoli, cabbages, chard, kale, lettuce and peas.


In 2002, volunteers from the community gathered to create a garden at Venice High School on the unused portion of a garden site that was being used as a dumping ground by the high school. There were a few gardening classes, but their efforts only used a small portion of the almost one acre site, with the rest of it untouched.

The community volunteers, led by David Crow and Julie Mann, both educated in the traditions of using plants (herbs) as medicine, formed a not for profit, 501 (c) 3, called The Learning Garden. From that day forward, the portion of the garden not used by the high school students has been transformed into a vibrant and lush little Eden in that part of Los Angeles called Mar Vista.

In the six years The Learning Garden has been around, we have brought a considerable amount of resources to bear on this corner at Walgrove Avenue and Venice Boulevard. The Garden boasts one of the most eclectic collections of Chinese Medicinal plants in any public garden, as well as plants from the Ayurvedic and homeopathic herbal traditions. We have planted over 50 fruit trees and have a beautiful succulent garden and a California Native garden, both curated and cared for by one very dedicated volunteer.

The garden sends all excess produce to the West Los Angeles Food Bank – in many weeks we take over 20 to 40 pounds of food – we always include fresh herbs as well as the vegetables and occasional fruit because all food, even food for people in need, should taste good. Most of the food we send over is excess grown by high school students or by the volunteers – our goal is for nothing to be wasted.

We have worked hard to create not just a garden, but also a community. Almost every month the Garden has an event, ranging from our big gala whoop-de-do, Pesto Day, to other, more low-key events like Valentines’ Day where we make the valentines from plants and objects found in the Garden.

Now in it’s sixth year, the Garden is no longer funded. We hold plant sales which pay for potting soil and other incidentals but there is no more money for staff. The one single reason this Garden has been a success when so many others like this have failed is that we have had an on-site garden manager (the Gardenmaster) who has coordinated the efforts of all the volunteers and has been there to water the plants when volunteers didn’t come through. At this time, the Gardenmaster is an unpaid volunteer who shows up as much as he can while finding work to pay bills like rent, food and little things like that.

So now, the Garden struggles forward. As a gardener, I cannot plant as though there is no tomorrow; the only way to steward the land is to act as though we will be still be here and working this soil a year or more from now. I helped plant carrots today. There will be no carrots to eat for better than 75 days, that’s two and a half months. And they might not even be ready then if we have a colder than normal winter/spring. However, in order to garden, I am required to think in this kind of time line and of the future. It is said, “there will always be hope as long as seed catalogs are printed.”

In moments like these, I remember the old Vietnam War era slogan, “What if the Air Force had to have a bake sale to buy a bomber?” recalling our government’s fascination with funding wars and war making and not funding benefits for the citizens and their children. Truly, one day in Iraq could do an awful lot of good here in our own country towards ameliorating poverty and feeding everyone good, clean, healthy food.

Some of us are blessed to do the work they were called to do. Having been the Gardenmaster in charge of this project, for the last six years, I have been one of those so blessed. The time I have spent with The Learning Garden has been an economic challenge, but I would not trade one day at the Garden for a paycheck from behind the desk. The lives that have been touched by this project cannot be calculated – from pre-schoolers, to elementary students, to high school students from several different schools, and the adults that volunteer and the students of UCLA Extension and other adult schools.

Every school needs a learning garden. But it is not a priority among the brass at the LA Unified School District – and probably at very few schools. Still, we, as a society, cannot forget where our food comes from and ought not forget how it’s grown. Remaining somewhat connected to the earth aids our society in ways large and small, though we might not see it for a decade or more. Our detachment from nature in a world of cement and shopping malls and gang violence can be ameliorated with the presence of a garden in a school that gives respite to the students and teachers and provides an object lesson in the ever changing canvass of life.

Funding opportunities exist! Will you help us keep the gates to The Learning Garden open? Contact me and I’ll put you in touch with our treasurer; all donations are tax-deductible – might be better karma to help fund The Learning Garden instead of another bomber.

david