Master Gardening through Edible Education

Last week, I had the honor of attending the Edible Schoolyard Academy in Berkeley, CA. It was a phenomenal experience; one of the greatest of my life. I've always felt a little out of place. Although I had friends and good company all through my elementary years, high school and into my adult years, and despite the everlasting teams I have been lucky to have been a part of like the Swim and Water Polo, there was always something missing.

These past few years of young-adulthood, post-bac years, I guess you can label them as so, have been quite challenging yet enriching. It has been a struggle to find a place, a community, of which I belong and feel at home, other than my family. Internship after apprenticeship, serving Japanese Shabu, washing demitasses at the local coffee shop, a few years, but what seemed like an eternity of searching for something unknown, I think I have found it.

As a newly minted University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener of Los Angeles, I am proud to be a part of a community of like-minded and like-hearted individuals whom I can relate to on so many levels. Yes, I thought I was the only gardener who saw everything I encountered and had to "save," for later use. Toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, pasta sauce jars, plastic salad containers, you name it, I probably saved it. I always felt strong about my choices and stood by them, as my family often mocked me under their breaths, though there was always a small feeling inside my heart that maybe I am crazy for saving all this stuff and trying to make a difference in the world, until I met these magical Master Gardeners.

UCCE Master Gardeners Class 2014!

Being an MG was only something I daydreamed about, until I actually did something about it. I applied. I got accepted. Sacrificed 12 Saturdays of my life at the Muir High school Library in Pasadena. And I learned so much about the Los Angeles garden scene. Ok, 12 Saturdays learning and chatting about stuff I love, wasn't really bad at all. With interesting readings, and discovering a network of fellow gardeners and their fabulous projects to draw inspiration from, I was the lucky one. I really was lucky to have been accepted amongst the many other strong-willed and dynamic people in Los Angeles doing great work. I am so grateful to be a part of the MG family.

Michelle and I, my seat neighbor and newly-minted fellow MG. Photo by Cook.

I have made some wonderful friends, whom are so incredible to me, who care about the same things. Who care about preserving the natural world and living true, honest, self-reliant lives. Gardeners are such dynamic, and well-rounded people in my eyes. All the gardeners I have met come from so many walks-of-life. They are artists, architects, teachers, mothers, fathers, social innovators, creators, creative-thinkers, problem-solvers, veterans, nurturers, protectors of our precious world. Even aside from their garden projects and labels as gardeners, they are good people. All the "gardeners" I have met are the most mindful, kind, generous and gracious people I have ever encountered. Being a gardener says a lot. Someone who cultivates earth, cultivates community, cultivates their heart, and in the end, a better world. It's infections. It can't be helped. You can't step into a garden, garden with people, and not feel a sense of belonging, a sense of connection, pride and protection for the garden which you are a part of, even if just for that morning. Try it. I dare you.

So far I have learned that Master Gardeners are near and far. The closest being right in my new neighborhood of Silverlake. The world is really a small place. Leonardo is a Master Gardener who came during one our our classes to talk about urban bee keeping. After moving to my new home in Silverlake, with a community and school garden right down the corner of our street (I knew this was a good sign), I was excited to explore the new garden. And, as all meaningful discoveries in life, it found me.

My co-worker and yoga-teacher friend Sara randomly subbed for a class that she usually did not sub for at her studio. That evening she met James, who worked the front desk. James had invited her to come to one of his empathy language classes, but she said that on Tuesday nights she is not free. Her unavailability Tuesday night sparked him to invite her to the garden potluck on Thursday nights. When she asked which garden, he told her "Micheltorena School and Community Garden," and she immediately knew that that was the garden near my house! So, she invited Jessica and I to the garden for the potluck that Thursday.

Setting the table for weekly community garden potluck.

Not a bad spread of wholesome, fresh food. 

Charlie's "magic" black pot. 

Another "it's-a-small-world" factor to highlight is that James actually works at the same campus which Sara and I work at! He works for Hollygrove, the social services-organization-used-to-be-orphanage where Marilyn Monroe lived as a young rising star, which are our landlords for Larchmont Charter Elementary School. I had never seen him before, until the potluck. So far, these potlucks have been so fun and novel for me. At the potluck I met Charlie, who I learned is my neighbor and a filmmaker who teaches garden classes to the students of Micheltorena Elementary, as well as a caregiver and spearheader of the garden. He's so cool. He can make a bomb polenta out of left-over lentil soup in his prized, black-ceramic pot. It's his magic pot, and it seems like he can make anything with it.

Then, it gets better. At the potluck comes Leonardo, whom I recognized as a speaker for our MG class. He is so kind, humble, an Argentinian architect who moved to LA many moons ago, and now fellow MG. I am amazed at how we are all interconnected in this web of life. Sometimes, it is so easy to forget. When we are sitting in our cars, cramped in our seats, stuck on Western Blvd in Korea town during 5:00pm traffic, or simply bored, or vice versa, too busy, we forget how really interconnected we are. And why we all matter.

Stop @Gorda, on my way to Berkeley to the Edible Schoolyard Academy.

So, I digress. Back to the Edible Schoolyard Berkeley and Edible Education. I drove up north last Saturday morning, and got to Berkeley 8 hours later. I took the scenic route Pacific Coast Highway 1. It was breathtaking. It reminded me of how much I love my state of California and how grateful and proud I am to be a Californian. As I passed wine country Santa Barbara and through the windy road through Morro Bay, Cambria, Monterey, the seals, Hearst Castle, and then through the grand red woods of Big Sur, I couldn't help but roll down my windows and breathe in the salty, fresh and pure air. This, I thought, is why I need to drive up to northern CA every once in a while. It can feel isolating to be in the city, so cramped, in the LA culture plagued with anxiety and material matter. What a breath of fresh air just driving away and remembering all of what it means to be Californian.

Here is an excerpt from my journal I wrote of that morning:

11:38am
@Gorda stop. Break for a nice cold coke and a breathtakingly beautiful view. How I have missed the ocean, and how powerfully healing it is for my spirit, even without being in it!

I feel so grateful for this very moment in time: the salty fresh sea breeze, Ca coast, and warm sun makes for a gorgeous day and moment to be remembered forever. 

Today I am 25 with all the world's possibilities ahead of me on Pacific Coast Highway 1.

This was my Air bnb house while in Berkeley. 

The little garden in the backyard of my Air bnb home. 

Back to Berkeley. What a beautiful place. Little gardens in front of every little cottage house! I fell quickly, deeply and madly in love with this place. I felt so at home, without being home. The food culture, the mindfulness of waste (separate recycle and trash divisions on side-street trash bins), the high-quality, local and tastefulness of food. The Monterey Market was an exquisite bountiful array of California's finest produce. It is just one facet and testament to this city's determination to eat locally and freshly.

Telegraph Ave.

Monterey Market

   
My favorite part of the Edible Schoolyard Academy experience (a part from the incredible meals) was meeting so many gardeners and educators from all across the country and all-across the world! I met people from Bhutan, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, Korea, Japan, all seeking better tools, fresh ideas and new resources to create or improve on school gardens and edible education programs. I also met people within the U.S.: Alabama, Arizona, Washington, Montana, Texas, Maryland, to name a few, and within different parts of our Golden State.

During those 5 days I felt so full, in spirit, belly, and heart. The passion, solidarity, and joy, was palpable. We learned about how the Edible Schoolyard runs, basically how the garden and kitchen work together to incorporate core curriculum and educational standards into fun and valuable life skills. Being an affiliate of the Edible Schoolyard at Larchmont Charter, I feel so empowered with so many new ideas and ways to teach. I am so excited for the upcoming school year and putting some of these ideas in action. Julie, my co-cooking teacher has been in the past, and Jessie, my roommate went last year. I am so grateful that school sent me to go.

A typical delicious lunch.

The dining hall where family style meals are had. 

Check-in during first Orientation Day of ESY.

 In the garden, I garnered new methods to approach teaching garden skills. I learned the art of how to keep things simple, and for me, that can be the hardest challenge. Geoff, Ashlee and Tanya are the garden teachers, and they are awesome. The garden was simple, spacious, with various veggies all planted into the ground. The Ramada is the meeting space, a circle of straw bales where classes begin and end. Geoff said it is the symbol of a door to a new world for students. The word "Ramada" itself means a place where women worked together to weave baskets. My favorite part was learning about how they connected different ancient technologies such as stone tools to the garden, which was a way to connect classroom social studies to the garden space. I got to grind grain on a bicycle and used a mortar-pestle-like tool to make flour. It was awesome to see the barley in its wheat form, and to be grinding it, transforming it into a new form. I made a new connection, and I am sure students do as well.

Everything was planned out for us. 

Garden teacher Ashlee tells us about "Compost Row".

Good morning to the popular ESY chickens. 

"Leek" group members round up in the Ramada for workshop.

Grinding Grain on a bike! Photo by: Jennifer Crisp

The concept of making things by hand, including the labor and time it used to take for ancient civilizations to make food, is also celebrated in the kitchen. There, Esther, Nick and Monica, ESY cooking teachers, explained how many things are handmade so that students find that glimmer of understanding that back then, growing and preparing food took the majority of people's lives. Using a mortar and pestle to grind food (or a bike) introduces students to that idea of mindfulness, patience and care into preparing food. This is a lesson, I think everyone should partake in.


We made a veggie friend rice and learned about ancient technologies in the rice paddies that allowed for surplus rice in China. It was nice two work together as a team, chopping up kale and bok choy, and best of all, sharing in a meal together. There is a strong emphasis on aesthetics, on the importance of beauty at the Edible Schoolyard. Alice Waters says beauty is the language of care. I believe this to be true. Making something beautiful takes thought and care. Students respond to that. People in general, I believe respond to that. In the kitchen, Esther, a most beautiful and graceful being, showed us some of the carefully drawn and hand-written recipes she creates for her students. So simple, yet impactful.

Esther and Armani (former King student).

Esther's beautiful hand-rendered recipe. 

The freshest ingredients for our meal. 

Setting the table is part of the lesson. 

Alice Waters embodies the importance of beauty in her restaurant at Chez Panisse, which I had the honor of dining at with wonderful company from the Academy and an inside look through the eyes of Clare, who was an Academy student with us and Chez Panisse intern from London. Almost everything is made by hand, mortar-and-pestle style, if you will. She gave us a tour of the "kitchen," which were actually little spaces of individual kitchens that look like they come from someone's home. It is unlike any other commercial kitchen. The food was just as beautiful.

Outside of Chez Panisse.

Dinner at Chez Panisse with Academy friends. 

It was an extraordinary experience. On the closing ceremony day, Alice Waters came to speak, as well as students from King Middle School who went through the program. I was fighting back tears. The speeches from these students about what the program has meant to them were so powerful, so real, an echo of the many students, and the community, both locally, and globally. I had the honor of meeting Alice again and she stayed with us during the closing circle ceremony where we all stood in two connecting circles, passed around a spool of food thread, as a symbol of our interconnectedness. Then we each said a word of how we were feeling: inspired, grateful, etc. My word was empowered. I could feel the goosebumps rising all over me, a sense of presence, happiness, and peace, enveloping me. Ashlee, one of the garden teachers, who is leaving ESY to teach at a school in Oakland, cut the pieces of thread between people and we tied them on to our neighbor and vice versa. I am still wearing the thread, and plan on doing so until it falls off on its own.

Alice Waters and I on the last day!

I've gained so much perspective about teaching Edible Education, but also about life. I've made friends with so many great people during my Academy experience. Jennifer Crisp being one of them. She is a chef and garden teacher who Jessie made friends with last year and said I had to meet. She's great. Energetic, fearless, a doer. Her garden story and the obstacles she has to overcome in Baltimore, with violence and other social challenges in her community, and the healing garden she created for her students who passed away because of violence, made me feel so humbled, that there are good people trying to make a difference with a whole world of thinking against them. She has to convince so many people in her school community to understand the importance of a school garden. I am so fortunate that I don't have those hurdles. I have so much support from my school community. I am so grateful.

The whole Academy in and of itself, with it's impeccable organization, transparency and substance was remarkable. It is wonderful to know that there are still organizations out there that want to connect with real people and want to do good things, just because. As an Academy participant, I felt so taken care of, so honored with the binder of information and the warm welcome. I felt appreciated for my work and recognized for it.

My dear friend Constanze. 

Last goodbyes with Jennifer and Kim. 

I am also so grateful to have met Constanze. Constanze lives in Solana beach. We had an instant connection of kindred-spirits. She is a landscape designer, and we were in the same "Leek" group. She had this unique gentleness about her, and a world of garden knowledge beneath her fingernails.We all went to the Monterey Market together. It was so nice. I hope to reuinte with Constanze and Jennifer one of these days, on another journey, in another garden perhaps.





*photos by Tiffanie Ma