Growing food and recycling trash into garden tools
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More people are interested in growing their own food, said Yvonne Savio, manager of the University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Program.
‘There is so much more interest in gardening now because of the economy and issues with obesity and diabetes,’ she said.
But gardening, Savio noted, is also about being creative and imaginative in reusing what you have. So on Sunday, Savio will discuss how throwaway items can be reused as tools in the garden. In the photo above, a window screen provides light shade for tomatoes in the hot, midday sun.
Savio’s presentation is part of the Milagro Allegro Comunity Garden’s Organic Sundays, basic horticulture classes held on the third Sunday of every month. ‘The demand is very high for organic gardening education,’ Milagro Allegro master gardener Milli Macen-Moore said. ‘Our social consciousness has shifted as far as people eating healthier. A lot of people want to change the way they eat.’
The next class will be at 2 p.m. Sunday at the garden, 115 S. Ave. 56 in the Highland Park neighborhood of northeast L.A. The suggested donation is $10, but Macen-Moore said no one will be turned away. Bring a plastic gallon jug and an egg carton, and Macen-Moore will demonstrate how to start seeds.
To see how some Los Angeles community gardens have used household junk in the garden, keep reading ...
This compost bin was made with old bed springs.
A claw-foot tub was turned into an ornamental shade garden.
Aluminum roasting pans were recycled into seed-starting trays.
In a sloped garden space, two plastic containers create a double ring around a tomato plant, which was started indoors and transplanted. The ring channels the water straight down, encouraging the roots to move into the native soil.
-- Lisa Boone
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