Santa Monica Main Street Community Gardens Highlighted

The LA Times shines a spotlight on Santa Monica's Main Street Community Gardens on their blog. Well-done, as I think the reporter's feel for the gardens is authentic and true to the spirit of the place. 

Main Street welcomes the public to see the results as long as a community gardener is working inside. Tourists stroll through regularly, taking a break from window shopping. And despite the remaining fences, gardeners have grown to support one another in tough financial times, in sickness, in ways that go beyond watering a neighbor’s plot during a heat wave.

"One thing I’ve learned," McCorry said, "is that gardening makes you generous."

Successful Santa Monica garden sharing

Glad to see the Los Angeles Times blogging about Santa Monica's efforts to increase garden sharing, a mutal program setting up homeowners who are willing to open up their garden to someone who is interested in gardening.  This is critical especially since community garden spots are becoming rarer than hail in Santa Monica. I know this well since I was on the community garden list for a plot for over 10 years.

Ellu Nasser, a farmer's daughter from Oregon, moved here five years ago and has been on a waiting list to get into Santa Monica's Main Street Community Garden since then. About a year ago, she signed up for the Santa Monica Garden Share program instead, which matches willing homeowner with landless gardener -- an arrangement that has worked well in Britain, where the idea originated, and in the Pacific Northwest

You can get more information directly about Santa Monica's program on garden sharing.

A spotlight on Southern California community gardening

Woohoo! The LA Times will be covering the community gardening scene in Southern California, devoting a weekly column on their newsite and paper. Here is the first piece.

More than 70 community gardens dot Los Angeles County alone, some dating back more than 30 years. Even the L.A. Community Garden Council isn’t sure about the total because some gardens are growing under the radar.

In the months to come, I’ll be blogging here on Southern California’s community gardens -- the people, the plantings, the gardening conundrums, the expert solutions. Bookmark L.A. at Home and look for my new posts every Wednesday as I bounce from community to community, meeting gardeners such as Milli Macen-Moore at the Milagro Allegro community garden in the northeast L.A. neighborhood of Highland Park.

If you are interested in the community garden scene, please be sure to check it out.