Gardening Workshop At the LA Eco Village

Last weekend I attended at gardening workshop at the LA Eco Village off Bimini Place and First St. I'd been wondering about this community since meeting a lovely herbalist named Michelle who lives there last year on a Fallen Fruit Walk. I also met a guy named Joe a couple of years ago who lived there and worked with the FOLAR. I thought I heard from him that people at the Eco Village don't own cars. I pictured the place differently then it was. I thought the LAEV would be a series of newly constructed buildings with solar panels, organized, literally, like a village with a circle of "green" huts around a huge patch of land designated for growing vegetables and fruit, a space for making bio fuel and in general that my mind would be blown at the efficiency and conviction of the people I encountered there. I was picturing it like the old Dome Village downtown but full of environmentalists. From what I saw though, the LEV is more like a vintage co-op in Berkeley. It's two old apartment buildings that share a courtyard. Each apartment is a single and the Village has community meals twice a week and host workshops. Not as experimental as I had imagined but I don't know everything about it yet. http://www.laecovillage.org/

There was some tea and oranges from VONs waiting for us. Brad our teacher talked about the importance of the soil for organic gardening, most of all the importance of worm castings (worm shit). He was emotional about gardening. Plants are like children according to Brad. First we walked around the small garden in the courtyard and Brad pointed out edible weeds--nettles, amaranth and lambs quarters. Then we checked out the proper way to start seedlings and Brad pulled out some rock dust which I never saw before. We contemplated a fig tree and broke for lunch. I thought things were moving pretty slow and I wasn't sure if Brad had really planned out the lesson but the workshop still was helpful in making me feel confident about starting a garden. If I follow Brad's advice all that matters is worm castings anyway, how bad could I mess up?

Gaby got a migraine so we had to leave before the second half. Though I'm a bit disappointed that the LAEV is not as radical as I thought (at least I still have Arco Santi left on list) I'm glad I saw it and spent Saturday morning outside with Gaby.