Garden Club: School Year in Review

We are in the last month of school before summer break and this time around I’m not making the cliché statement: “Where did the year go?” We’ve done A LOT, and I’m grateful, so proud of the kids and, personally, a little bit exhausted.

Here’s the run down:
· We completely renovated a deserted area and transformed it into our own garden oasis. We removed ugly chain link fences, painted, planted flowers, potted herbs and set up tables and colorful umbrellas for the kids to relax in the shade, eat a snack and even do a little homework after school.
· We cleaned and cleared a greenhouse that was used as a catch all/junk yard and transformed it into a functioning mini growing ground.
· We created a self-sustaining Friday Farm Stand where we sold school grown flower bouquets, herbs, bundles of greens such as chard and kale and an abundance of citrus donated by school families from their neighborhood trees.
· We re-instituted a compost program.
· We brought back the worm bin.
· We made new alliances and strengthened existing ones with other local school gardens and urban farms (such as The Learning Garden at Venice High School, Cal Poly Pomona and Wynbrandt Farms).
· We grew peas, artichokes, red chard, lactino kale, green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, carrots, radishes, strawberries, oregano, lemon verbena, borage, basil, sunflowers, rosemary, marigolds, tomatoes, raspberries, plums, peaches, cucumbers, yellow squash, pumpkins, parsley, jasmine, cilantro, chives, grapes, tomatillos and two types of mint.
· We finally planted our much anticipated passion fruit vine along a chain link fence and its very first flower is now blooming!

We did all of this, along with purchasing new supplies, lots of soil (which is expensive!) and some organic lemonade for the kids, all for well under $1000 for the entire school year.

Yes, we’ve had a busy, productive year. The kids and I have had a blast watering, weeding, planting, digging, paying with the worms and harvesting our school-grown delicacies.

Next year I’m asking (read: insisting) on more help. I can’t do this alone, as I have for the past two years. We strong and proud Leos (yes, that’s an astrological reference) like to project that we’ve always got it under control and can handle any challenge, no matter how great. But there’s just no need for that, and it also goes against the entire point of a community type-garden which is, of course, to involve the community.

Perhaps people who don’t have ‘green thumbs’ are intimidated by getting in there. But all it takes is a willingness to fill up the watering cans or to help a kid dig a hole and pop in a seed. I have more clarity on how to improve things and get more involvement for the next school year, and I’m excited to see that come to fruition. Gardens, like us, are always evolving, and it’s wonderful to enjoy what we’ve already created, while anticipating more joy, learning and deliciousness to come.

Happy planting!

Special Delivery

The garden is booming these days and gifts are pouring in both in and out of our little schoolyard oasis. We planted our summer tomatoes a couple of weeks ago – little seedlings gifted to us by The Learning Garden at Venice High School. I love that one school garden is helping another.

Similarly, I received not one but two garden gifts this week. First, a package arrived from northern California full of organic seeds for our garden! An elementary school friend of mine (who is super busy with work and family) took the time to hand select the most wonderful assortment of organic seeds for our kids. I am so touched by this beautiful gesture!

Also, this week I was invited to tea by a school parent to discuss the spring garden party we are planning for early May. She lavished me with Persian Rose Tea, homemade bread, hand-cracked walnuts and sweet and juicy citrus – my favorite! She even sent me home with a jar of rose water and a few goodies for my kitchen as a thank you for the ‘work’ I’m doing in the garden.

I feel very blessed these days. The garden is full of love, and so is my blooming heart.

Greens, Ganesha and the Schoolyard Garden

The schoolyard garden is such an immense source of amusement, joy, learning and contemplation that I barely notice I’ve created a part time job for myself for which I receive no payment.

And yet it’s full of riches.

Not to be cliché or corny, but, seriously, the hours I spend as the ‘Garden Lady’ at my kid’s school are some of the best of my entire week. This is my third year running the Garden Club, where we weed, water, grow food and play in the dirt after school. Starting a few weeks ago, we’ve added a ‘Farmer’s Market’ to the Friday mix, and now, on the verge of spring, we are very much in the flow of all this happy garden activity.

By Wednesday, the kids are asking me what we are selling for the Friday market, and I awoke yesterday excited to bake muffins and purchase some glassware from the thrift store around the corner to use as vases for our little garden bouquets. Two different families brought in huge bags of lemons from their trees for us to sell. You should have seen the kids beaming as they walked the brown paper bags full of fruit to our farm table, met by all the other kids oohing and aahing over the little gems. They quickly got to work arranging the fruit in pretty baskets and crates. These ten year olds run the entire stand by themselves for over an hour. Yesterday’s total: $33. Not shabby for some muffins, lemons and a few flower bouquets. I’m going to use the money to purchase plants today from a local high school plant sale – keeping the garden manna flowing.

I have learned so many interesting ‘little things’ along the way in this garden. There is an overzealous oregano plant in one of the raised beds that produces more potent little leaves than I’ve ever seen. During my garden tours I always have the kids pick a leaf and rub it between their fingers, explaining that this is the herb that’s used in Italian tomato sauce. It sounds so basic, but you can really see the lights go off in their heads as they make this tiny connection: “Oh, yes, this stuff grows in the ground, it doesn’t just magically appear in a can on a supermarket shelf.”

We have a very international school, and in the two years since I’ve planted that tiny oregano, a teacher from Romania explained to me that Romanians adore oregano and use it more than salt in their cuisine. Yesterday a mom from India asked to purchase an herb bundle with just oregano (I had mixed herb bouquets on the table). As I cut her a big bunch of just oregano, I asked what she was going to do with it. She explained that in India, you don’t cook with it, but that oregano is a sacred herb that’s used as an offering to the gods. This fascinates me! We had a little chat about Ganesha (she was shocked that not only do I know about this deity – the remover of obstacles, but have a little crystal statue of him by my bed – but that’s getting a little off topic for this garden post.)

This magic is always offset by the ‘practical parents’ who have to buzz kill all the delight going on before their very eyes. Yes, it takes all kinds, and becomes a practice of acceptance (at least that’s what I tell myself). Yesterday it was a parent grad student who visited the garden for the first time. After an hour of about 40 kids and parents digging, weeding, watering, harvesting, selling and (imagine that) relaxing, she came up to me and said: “So, Jill, what’s your ‘grand plan’ you know, your ‘vision’ for the garden club?”

I stood there sort of dumfounded and ever amazed at how the ‘smart’ grown-ups over think, over analyze and kill all that naturally wants to grow, and what is so obvious to the kids. We ARE LIVING our vision, this is it, I thought to myself. This is an elementary school garden in the middle of the city not a grad school botany class!

I collected myself, paused and smiled: “Our master plan is to grow food and have fun doing it.”

Never a dull moment.

Happy planting.

Inner Garden Oasis

I don’t know if it’s the heady scent of the newly planted Jasmine, or the fumes coming off the recently painted benches, but something takes hold the moment I enter the little secret schoolyard garden. We’ve transformed something. We’ve taken love, hard work, a few free seeds and some donated soil, and have created a little oasis for ourselves.

It’s absolutely delightful. And it’s more than the sum of its parts.

There is a magic to it that’s hard to pin down. And I’d never want to. Quite the opposite – rather than limiting it with words or some logical explanation, I want it to just keep growing and growing.

And it does. And it is.

It’s the email I got two days ago from an elementary school friend I knew 30 years ago who’d read on my blog about my work at the school garden. She asked for my mailing address just so she could send some seeds from Northern California as a donation to our garden efforts. In a small but very sweet way, she wanted to be a part of what we’re doing. It’s the mom who approached me yesterday asking when our spring garden party is going to be because she wants to make homemade baklava (how could she know baklava is my all-time favorite dessert?). It’s the fact that I’ve been looking for a garden table for months, and just yesterday discovered one sitting behind a school bungalow that’s been there all along. And it’s the dad who helped me move it into the garden yesterday who, as it turns out, doesn’t even have a kid at that school, but was just passing by to look at the garden.

Something is happening. And it’s not just in the garden. The right people are coming in at the right time. I’m sensing things. And I’m fully trusting it more and more.

Last night I uncharacteristically called a friend at 10pm, who, as it turns out was in the middle of writing me an email because she wanted to talk to me but didn’t want to call too late. We spoke for two hours. It’s the feeling last week that I needed a break from cooking weekly dinners for my parents, only to get a text ten minutes later from my mom: “I made you a three course dinner so you don’t have to cook, can Dad and I bring it over tonight?”

There is practice to this. And trust. The practice of asserting less and allowing more. This goes against what we are taught: to destroy and conquer. To pursue. To overpower. I’m realizing that when you get in alignment with what you want and where you are going, you can just relax into just be-ing and enjoy what comes up.

There is patience and a willingness to sit with some discomfort of not knowing. Also being willing to be with an energy that has a Presence, but hasn’t yet taken a physical form. But it’s well worth it. And in ways, it’s even more enjoyable, because there is no limit to it. It’s union with the Divine.

And you end up cultivating and living within an inner garden that is even more beautiful than the heart achingly gorgeous flowers and plants that greet each day, sun shining inside and out.

Garden Gems

There’s a real love affair going on in the schoolyard garden, and I can tell I’m not the only one. I don’t know if it’s spring, or our new flower garden, or our new ‘farmer’s market’ but what was once a Friday afternoon gig is now an everyday affair.

I can’t keep them away.

Which is fine with me, because in a garden, polyamory is permitted. In fact, the more the merrier!

Okay, okay, I don’t mean to sexualize the schoolyard garden. At all. Cross pollination and the bees take care of that. But the garden herself does magnetize all of us to her. The kids, the parents, the overworked and underpaid nannies who come to sit next to a pot of blooming rosemary.

In the garden, we seem to have developed different ‘departments.’ I have not organized any of this. At all. They’ve self divided and pollinated (Mendel would be proud) and seem to run their own show. There are the girls who only like to sell at the farm stand, the kids who love to package the wares to sell, the girls who like to pick posies and tie them into each other’s hair (and mine – which I love), the boys who like to pummel an old dead tree branch with garden tools as though their life depended on it (I let them do this when the other teachers aren’t looking), the ones who like to water, the worm researches, the harvesters, the eaters and this awesome kid named Alex who is pretty much one of the coolest kids ever because his favorite thing to do is clean up and organize all the old crap that I leave till ‘tomorrow’. Thanks Alex!

I cannot begin to express the joy that this entire little operation brings. And it runs itself. That’s the amazing thing to observe. With so much emphasis placed by adults on ‘real world’ rules, regulations, management, marketing, sales and production, I say come on down for an hour and just observe these kids. They are natural organizers, business people, stewards of the land.

I am not teaching this. I just open the space for it to happen.

They have a natural curiosity for caretaking and an inherent understanding of the basic business principals of barter and exchange. This is the farm stand’s third week in ‘production’ and we have made over a hundred dollars…selling lettuce leaves and lemons, people. With that money I purchased a new plum tree, paint for the benches and jasmine bushes (three) to cover the hideous chain link fence. And I still have a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket.

A couple of weeks ago a dad in a business suit came by to check things out. He offered his ‘suggestion’ to divide the garden crew kids into teams to ‘inspire them to work harder.’ I had to work hard not to drop an expletive on him. Are you kidding? They have divided themselves and are as inspired, hard working and productive a group as I’ve ever seen…naturally. This, by the way was the same guy who took oranges and herbs from our little farm table, but didn’t have any money on him. Really? I used it as an opportunity to teach the kids about the ‘honor system.’ It took him two weeks to pay me back the $3 he owed the kids, and yesterday, when he sheepishly took a $5 bill from his wallet, I took it from him and thanked him very much for his $2 donation to the garden.

Yes, it takes all kinds. That’s what makes life, and the garden such an interesting place.

Nowhere else I’d rather be.

The-Little-Garden-That-Could

The schoolyard garden, along with my place in it, grows, develops and reveals itself over time. I am grateful for this beautiful blessing and unfolding.

It’s a lovely process to experience. Both outside in the sun amongst the plants, and inside amongst myself. The little-garden-that-could stands proud, tucked away beside a mass of concrete and freestanding bungalows. It’s home to raised vegetable beds, citrus trees, orange gladiolas, a new flower garden and more magic than I care to express out loud.

I don’t need to…it speaks for itself.

The garden, and my role in it, has grown in the three years since I started there as “The Garden Lady.” And I like it that way. Not knowing or forcing invites an alchemy and anticipation of something extra special. And it always comes.

Last week we started our Friday Farmers’ Market. The night before the big unveiling I borrowed a folding table, picked out my brightest table cloth and painted a sign with my son. That morning we harvested bundles of greens and tied them with twine; made ‘edible bouquets’ and placed them in re-purposed mason jars; packaged baby lettuce greens and edible flowers; grabbed a few oranges and lemons from my tree and bagged up dried organic bananas that I’d run through my dehydrator. We then set up our wares after school, hoping to offer a little competition to the Friday ice cream stand that was just around the corner.

You cannot believe the attention we got from the parents and teachers. The kids naturally took on the role of garden ambassadors, explaining what we’d grown (from seeds, thank you very much), offering garden tours, asking people to purchase our wares, answering questions about what we do in garden club, and coming up with ideas for what to sell next week (strawberry lemonade with garden mint was at the top of the list).

I stood back, filled with a sense of awe and delight that’s hard to express.

We did this, I thought to myself.

Not me, US. The kids, the parents, the plants, the community. The little-garden-that-could.

Like mixing the most beautiful perfume or recipe or swirl of paint, we anointed ourselves with the aroma, feasted on the magic and painted ourselves into a beautiful life. We made something out of nothing and came together to nurture, procure and offer something that we as humans have been doing for thousands of years: feeding ourselves and each other.

In terms of nuts and bolts, in the first week we made fifty-two dollars. That might not sound like much, but when you consider that our entire annual budget is five hundred dollars, making over ten percent your first week is nothing to balk at. To boot, on Monday, back in the garden, as I watered before the bell rang, one mom stopped by with packages of seeds as a gift to the garden and another handed me two oranges she’d picked from her tree to sell this Friday.

These tiny gifts are priceless jewels, gestures of possibility, and affirmations of understanding for what we are really doing here. It’s not the seeds or oranges or fifty bucks that I’m going to use to buy more plants. It’s a community and a life and a lifestyle we are building.

We are truly feeding people: a bundle of greens, a slice of citrus and a moment of simplicity. Manna in a life that’s already bursting with sweetness and abundance.

Happy planting.

Fruits & Flowers

There is something so heart achingly gorgeous to waking before sunrise and seeing the miracle of another cycle of life take place right before your eyes. As I make coffee or tea – or both – I watch the ebony sky turn sapphire and then turquoise and then swirl itself with streaks of coral and mother of pearl. The birds are chirping (sometimes I swear I hear owls), and the budding light starts to dance on the celadon and moss green-colored plants, trees and vines that vie for my attention.

All of this is the backdrop to an overflowing table of abundant beauty that is my ‘canvas’ as I begin my day. To this writer/gardener/poet/cook there is simply nothing like a still life of fruits and flowers. As steam dances from my teacup, I contemplate the rainbow of colors and textures laid out before me. I think of the farmers who patiently planted; the pickers who took the fruit from the tree; the sun and rain that went into it; and the fact that I not only get to visually enjoy all of this beauty, but I get to feed my body with it as well.

Life overflowing.

I’ve been romancing myself a lot lately. I don’t mean like that. I mean taking the time with myself to do the little things that I’m realizing make a big difference. Slowing down. Writing long-hand in my journal twice, not just once a day. Getting lots of rest. Hiking. Savoring beauty. Setting out bowls of fruit on the table like paint on a palette. Not just cramming them into the back of the fridge.

None of these things cost any money. The price is simply valuing oneself and making the time to do that which pleases you. Not waiting for anyone to give you that which you can only give yourself. When it sit in my dining room in the early morning I’m transported to some magical old world in Paris or Tuscany…maybe even Casablanca or on an island somewhere that nobody has heard of.

It’s ecstasy, and each day is a new opportunity to travel somewhere new, letting my heart guide me on this gorgeous journey.

Where are you travelling to today?

Borage Boys

You cannot spend even a little amount of time in a garden and not be transformed. Even the most cynical people seem to soften amongst the plants.

Gardens teach us that transformation, growth, evolution and (especially) composting what has come before is all a normal part of being alive on this earth. Not just normal – necessary.

But we forget these things as we stay transfixed by technology – glued (slaves) to our ‘smart’ phones, facebook, texting and twitter as a means to stay connected and inform us about ‘reality.’

Puh-leeze.

There is no deeper connection than to Nature Herself. The silent beauty of witnessing a seed break open to become a sprout and then reach for the sun to realize its fullest glory is beyond description.

And this is us.

Internally, externally, every day, if we choose, we are doing this work. The work of planting, watering, waiting, breaking open and sharing our deepest most beautiful (and sometimes darkest) parts. It’s messy, real, raw and the rewards are endless, if you are open to it.

Of course, I don’t discuss ‘these types of things’ in the schoolyard garden. I’m just the garden lady with the plastic badge and sun hat, passing out shovels and seeds.

But I sit back and watch. And I see everything.

Lately, I see the eight year old boys who, outside of the garden, talk endlessly about the video game “Plants vs. Zombies” and who have a special affection for bathroom humor, spending more and more time in the garden. And what, exactly, are they doing?

They are obsessed with eating the edible flowers.

Yes. They can’t seem to get enough of them. Marigolds, violas, broccoli flowers, borage. These dirty wild animals (I mean students) become filled with grace and wonder as they step through the garden gate and discuss which petals taste better and fight over who gets the yellow or purple pansy.

It’s delightful, adorable, humorous and yet another example of how Nature is truly our greatest teacher, and giver of gifts. Especially the unexpected ones. Like the boys eating borage as I sit back, mind my business, and stick yet another seed in the soil.

Happy planting.

Field Report

Yes, it’s mid-January, and well into winter and actually quite cold for southern California, but the schoolyard garden is booming.

Broccoli, Borage, Artichokes, Parsley, Red Chard, Curly Kale, Chives, Oregano, Lemon Verbena, Radishes, Carrots, Snap Peas, Spinach and a few confused Strawberries.

Even gardeners like to gloat…just a little bit.

‘Officially’ I run the afterschool Garden Club Friday afternoons, but we’ve been having so much fun that I pretty much open the gate every day of the week.

If you open it, they will come!

The kids arrive in droves and I must say, I melt a little each time they squeal: “Miss Jill, being in the garden is my favorite part of coming to school!” The truth is, I love doing it. It’s not work for me. It’s a true pleasure to be a part of that school garden every day: weeding, planting, handing out shovels, yelling at kids to stop throwing dirt at each other faces, sitting on a bench watching them take turns watering and harvesting peas pulled right off the vine. The best is when they ask to take ‘one extra’ for their mom or brother. I love that.

Though I’m writing about the experience on ‘my’ blog, I really don’t take much credit for this. The reason I’m sharing, I suppose is to say that something which may seem inconsequential to us adults has a HUGE impact on the kids. I’ve been gardening my whole life. Honestly, it’s no big deal for me. I love it, and I’ll find a way to do it one way or another.

But I can’t tell you how many parents, teachers and school administrators have gone out of their way to pull me aside and tell me that what I’m doing has a big impact. Why am I sharing this? Again, not so much to take credit, but perhaps to inspire anyone reading this to say that I think we underestimate ourselves and our impact. We think we don’t matter. We tone ourselves down. We diminish our own importance.

Don’t underestimate yourself.

I personally see the impact of small acts of kindness and tiny seeds planted day after day in the garden, both in the kids’ faces and in the happy plants smiling back at me.

Oranges & Oaks are My Sweet Spot

Solstice, Citrus, Seeds and Spontaneity…..

Well, we made it. December 21, 2012. The shift has been happening for all of us for quite some time, but this year in particular was quite an odyssey.

I am so grateful to be here.

This morning, as near-blinding light streams through the windows of my home, and I sit with warm coffee and a cozy sweater, my heart feels happy and alive. I’m still glowing from a spontaneous visit to Santa Barbara a couple of days ago where we visited a sweet friend’s home, picked citrus from her grove and collected acorns from her 300+ year old oak trees.

Oranges and Oaks are my sweet spot.

My son and I woke up Wednesday and spontaneously decided to visit a u-pick farm in Somis, CA. We drove all the way out to find that nothing was ready except for a few hungry goats nudging us for carrots!

Not a problem. We blew out of Somis and headed north to my friend’s house where her trees were very ready. The drive on the 118 from Somis up to Santa Barbara is pretty much heaven. Farms, old houses, mountains, citrus, clear blue sky. It’s the Old California that is timeless and so heart achingly gorgeous. Postcard country.

I don’t know what it is about orange trees, but they seem to have some magical power over me. The vibrant colors, the heady scent of the blossoms, the sound of the bees hovering, the delicious juice…even the tang of the bittersweet peel that you can turn into marmalade!

And then the oaks…don’t even get me started. Majestic, regal, powerful. My son, friend and I collected hundreds of acorns. I thought of the Native Americans who used those seeds for nourishment. I wondered what the land looked like hundreds of years ago before it was a ‘city’ when the tribes lived there and honored and respected all of nature’s power, beauty and abundance. Not unlike we did that afternoon.

My friend sent us off with overflowing bags full of fruit and acorns, and happy hearts. The Native Americans did not embrace the concept of ‘ownership’ of the land. We inherit it from our parents and borrow it from our children. We are its keepers. Imagine if we thought of the entire earth – and each other – in this way.

So, rather than ‘wishing’ my friend’s home was my home, I simply opened to and filled up with the beauty of the experience, the moment. When you seek the ‘essence’ of what you want, you don’t need ownership…it just comes. Let it come to you!

For me that was a gorgeous California day spent with people I love – and who love me – inspired and nurtured by nature’s never-ending gifts and abundance.

Back in L.A., my home is brimming with bowls of acorns and a citrus centerpiece. To this garden lady, they look like treasure chests filled with jewels. Beauty is cultivated on the inside, but being surrounded by gifts from the garden is a treasure indeed!