What we discussed: Her book and assignments I’ve designed.

Her new project based on a gardener she wanted to have in the book, but he was no longer living (Jewish).  She took me into her work room, where the wall was plastered with photos, immigrant manifests from their trip to America at the turn of the century, the greenhouses in Brooklyn? Bronx.   She had written about this Jewish couple in the proposed draft of The Earth Knows My Name, but had to cut them out.  He was the only gardener who was no longer living.  The family gave her access to the postcard collection of the family and she scanned the photos and made a beautiful book for them, showing both sides of the cards.  She feels she knows more about the family than the family  members know.  For some reason I thought she was fictionalizing this content, but no, she is writing a biography of this couple, especially this Jewish gardener, who seems to have risen to the top of the florist trade, supplying New York with flowers in the 20s(?)

http://www.writersvoice.net/2009/05/sustainable-gardening/

The following books, journal articles, and films represent a small collection of materials that can potentially support instructors in a variety of disciplines  who want to integrate agriculture, farming or the garden into the curriculum. The general focus is on food production and farming, but because everything is connected to food and the land, consumer and economic issues are addressed by many of these texts.  A mix of fiction and non-fiction follows.  I especially recommend William Conlogue’s Working the Garden:  American Writers and the Industrialization of Agriculture as a starting point for your own research.

Berry, Wendell.  The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1977.  In this now classic text, Berry addresses social and economic aspects of agriculture.  Our environmental crisis is a crisis of character, states Berry.  In his 1986 reprint he wrote that the crisis has only worsened since he first wrote this book.  Indeed, even in 2010, this book is current.   Berry describes how we lost, and are continuing to lose many small farms in the U.S.  For our students, this book can remind them that this is not a new problem, rather it is an ongoing and dangerous process.

—.  The Art of the Commonplace:  The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2002.  Forward by Norman Wirzba.  The introduction argues for agrarianism, as Berry sees it, as a corrective to our current destructive industrial culture. The non-fiction collection is drawn from a wide range of books by Berry and organized into five sections.

—.  Bringing It to the Table: On Food and Farming.  Introduction by Michael Pollan. Berkeley, California: Counterpoint, 2009.  Another, and more current, collection that reminds us that much of the current conversation on the “food revolution” began in the early 70s with the work of Berry who was inspired by Sir Albert Howard, the British agronomist. Berry uses the farm rather than the wilderness as his subject, as did H.D. Thoreau.  He brought wildness close to home, into the garden.  “Eating,” says Berry, “is an agricultural act.”  This one statement may be the germ of the food revolution.  The book includes several parts: essays by Berry on farming, farms, and farmers.  In the final, highly recommended section on food, the excerpts are from  Berry’s fiction.  Through these selections, chosen by Berry, we learn of the food preparation, eating, and appreciation of food by farm families.

— and Paul Merchant.  Wendell Berry (American Author Series). Lewiston, Idaho:  Confluence, 1991. This unusual volume includes new poetry, and a new short story by Berry, an interview with him, several letters, and a few essays of criticism and appreciation.  Photographs of Berry range from 1960 to 1990, age 26 to 56.

The Climate Friendly Gardener:  A Guide to Combating Global Warming from the Ground Up. This is a .pdf  published by the Union of Concerned Scientists

Conlogue, William.  Working the Garden:  American Writers and the Industrialization of Agriculture. This author discusses how literary works document the costs to American culture of the denigration of the family farm and direct work with the land.  We are less likely to look for this documentation in the works of Willa Cather, Ruth Comfort Mitchell, John Steinbeck, Luis Valdez, Ernest Gaines, Jane Smiley, Wendell Berry, and others.  Themes addressed include the impact of technology, evolving gender roles, exploitation of agricultural workers, and environmental degradation.  The setting may be the farm, but the effects are wide ranging, affecting all of us.

Crawford, Stanley.  A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm. New York:  Harper Collins, 1992. Crawford is an excellent writer, who teaching about everything while writing about growing garlic.  We learn about the land and farming, about economics, about the culture of the southwest in his small town near Los Alamos. This is one man’s story about his relationship with the earth and with his wonderful garlic.

Fukuoka, Masanobu.  The One-Straw Revolution (1978).  Goa, India: Other India Press, 1992.  In inspiring book about organic farming practices but also about life and returning to a rich heritage of working closely and simply with the land. Photographs.  Previously an agricultural scientist, the author has had a profound effect on farming practices which require less labor and less destruction of the soil.

Howard, Sir Albert.  The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture (1947). University Press of Kentucky, 2007. A classic of the organic food movement. The introduction by Wendell Berry argues that Howard’s one great subject (health, both qualitatively and quantitatively) should be the subject of universities.  It’s worth the price of this book.

Jack, Zachary Michael.  Black Earth and Ivory Tower:  New American Essays from Farm and Classroom. University of S. Carolina Press, 2005.  A fascinating collection of pieces by academics with one foot in the farm and one in the academy.  Academics on the farm and the farms of academics are written about with a sense of history, culture, and an eye for the American farm as a source of knowledge.

Lappe. Francis Moore.  Diet for a Small Planet. Twentieth anniversary edition, 1985.  For Lappe, food is still the best way to understand world politics.  As a historical marker, this book can remind students that food is always a “hot” issue.  Food writing reflects the historical period.

Lappe, Anna.  Diet for a Hot Planet. Intro. Bill McKibben.  Anna addresses the major role industrial agriculture plays in today’s climate crisis. Responsibly researched and cogently articulated, this far-reaching investigation entails questioning scientists; attending UN, governmental, corporate, and grassroots agriculture conferences; plowing through daunting reports and studies, and, most pleasurably, visiting organic farms around the world. She gathers facts proving that global industrial agriculture—specifically the use of hazardous chemicals, concentrated animal feeding operations, biotech crops, and processed foods—is impoverishing the land, destroying rain forests, polluting waterways, and emitting nearly a third of the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. In contrast, well-designed organic-farming techniques reduce carbon emissions and toxic waste while nurturing soil and biodiversity. Convinced that eating wisely is one way to influence the marketplace and, ultimately, help combat world hunger and climate change, Lappé decodes food labeling, dissects Big Ag’s “greenwashing” tactics, and offers “seven principles of a climate-friendly diet” in an impeccable, informative, and inspiring contribution to the quest for environmental reform. –Donna Seaman (Booklist).  A trailer featuring Anna Lappe is available at www. Amazon.com.

Marquart, Debra. The Horizontal World. Marquart writes of her life growing up on a North Dakota farm, the youngest of four siblings.  She has a love-hate relationship with the farm, like many children raised on the farm, and her essay from this book, “Chores” was published in Orion magazine.

Harrison, Robert Pogue. Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition. Chicago, Chicago UP, 2008.  Harrison discusses the garden in literature from numerous perspectives.  He discusses ancient philosophers and many modern writers, beginning with the garden as the site of the first earthly paradise.  Example from the chapter “The Human Gardener”: Karel Čapek in The Gardener’s Year (1929) sees gardening not as a subset of life, but life as a subset of gardening.  Harrison writes, “Gardening is an opening of worlds—of worlds within worlds—beginning with the world at one’s feet.  To become conscious of what one is treading on requires that one delve into the ground’s organic underworld, so as to appreciate, in an engaged way, the soil’s potential for fostering life” (31).

Kingsolver, Barbara.  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Harper Collins, 2007.  This book is part memoir, part journalistic investigation.  It tells the story of how Kingsolver’s family changed by one year of deliberately eating food produced in the place where they live.  Barbara wrote the narrative, her husband (Stephen L Hopp) wrote about food production science and industry, and Camille (a first year students in college) wrote about the local food project and nutrition.

–-.  Prodigal Summer. HarperCollins, 2000.  “Kingsolver continues to take on timely issues, here focusing on the ecological damage caused by herbicides, ethical questions about raising tobacco, and the endangered condition of subsistence farming. A corner of southern Appalachia serves as the setting for the stories of three intertwined lives, and alternating chapters with recurring names signal which of the three protagonists is taking center stage. Each character suffers because his or her way of looking at the world seems incompatible with that of loved ones. In the chapters called “Predator,” forest ranger Deanna Wolfe is a 40-plus wildlife biologist and staunch defender of coyotes, which have recently extended their range into Appalachia. Wyoming rancher Eddie Bondo also invades her territory, on a bounty hunt to kill the same nest of coyotes that Deanna is protecting. Their passionate but seemingly ill-fated affair takes place in summertime and mirrors “the eroticism of fecund woods” and “the season of extravagant procreation.” Meanwhile, in the chapters called “Moth Love,” newly married entomologist Lusa Maluf Landowski is left a widow on her husband’s farm with five envious sisters-in-law, crushing debts and a desperate and brilliant idea.  Crusty old farmer Garnett Walker (“Old Chestnuts”) learns to respect his archenemy, who crusades for organic farming and opposes Garnett’s use of pesticides.” (Publisher’s Weekly, Nov. 2000).

Klindienst, Patricia.  The Earth Knows My Name: Food Culture and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans. Boston: Beacon, 2006. I have used this book in English 21A/B at SMC.  In multiple chapters, Klindienst focuses on gardeners of diverse ethnicities.  The “Prologue” which focuses on what motivated her to write the book, is available online from Beacon Press.  One approach to teaching with this book is to assign and discuss the Prologue as a full class, followed by having students in small group read, discuss, and present the information about each chapter with a “potluck” celebration to conclude the unit.

Mann, Charles C. “Our Good Earth: The Future Rests on Soil.  Can we Protect it?”  Photographs by Jim Richardson.  National Geographic. September, 2008.  Four striking photos compare soil cuts:  Virgin Prairie in Kansas, Rice Terrace in China, a reclaimed field in Niger, and Dry Land in Syria.

Masumoto, David Mas.  Wisdom of the Last Farmer (2009). His most recent book discusses bringing his father back to farming following his stroke to teach him to farm again.  At www.avantgarden.org , my web site,  I have written about discussions I had with him regarding writing and motivating our students to think about farming and writing about the farm/garden.

—.  Heirlooms:  Letters from a Peach Farmer (2007).

—.  Harvest Son:  Planting Roots in American Soil (1998). This engaging memoir frequently appears in high school classes that integrate agriculture.

—.  Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm (1995).

Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature. Special issue:  “THE GARDEN.”  Vol. 38:4, Dec. 2005.    Of particular note:  Ladrica Menson-Furr’s “Booker T. Washington, August Wilson, and the Shadows in the Garden.” (175-190).

Sarver, Stephanie L.  Uneven Land:  Nature and Agriculture in American Writing. Lincoln, Nebraska: U of Nebraska Press, 1999.  Focused on the late 19^th and early 20^th century, this collection of essays includes Emerson, Harland Garland, Frank Norris, Wm. Ellsworth Smithe, and Liberty Hyde Bailey.  The author addresses various views about agriculture.  She is interested in the relationship between nature and agriculture including aspects of the spiritual, material, economic and social.  Do farmers enjoy a privileged relationship to nature?  Emerson says, yes, they do,  but Garland and Bailey’s work shows that this relationship is compromised by farmers’ reliance on commerce.  In contrast, for Norris and Smythe, the land is a stage on which human dramas are enacted.

Smiley, Jane.  A Thousand Acres. This novel, which can be taught along with Shakespeare’s King Lear, is set in rural Iowa.

Smith, Jane S.  The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants. Penguin, 2009.  Early 20^th century America and the history of the celebrated plant breeder.  He was the most famous gardener in the world.  Smith is a cultural historian and she explores how events in his life reveal larger trends that he creates and reveals.  The early years of bioengineering are explored.

Steinbeck, John.  The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Centennial edition.  A classic novel about the depression era and the effects of industrial farming.

Winne, Mark.  Food Rebels, Guerilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin’ Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture. Beacon, 2010.  To be released on October 12, this book reports on communities and individuals who are working to replace the industrial food system with a food democracy.  We learn about urban farming in Cleveland, buffalo restoration on Native American reservations food-education classes in diabetes and obesity-prone neighborhoods.  Winn is also the author of Closing the Food Gap.

Recommended films:

Chefs a’ Field:  Culinary Adventures that Begin on the Farm, 2009. (Two Disc Set).This KCTS series, distributed by PBS offers culinary adventures from throughout the country and from Yucatan.  Great chefs, local farmers, and fishermen help us learn about eco-friendly foods.  Each episode also includes simplified cooking demonstrations.

Nourish: Food + Community. 30 min. Hosted and narrated by Cameron Diaz.  DVD produced by the Center for Ecoliteracy and Worldlink:  www.worldlink.org, 2010.  I introduced this film to SMC on opening day, fall 2010 in the Broad Theater.   Several two minutes films with Michael Pollan, Jamie Oliver, and others, make this a valuable addition to the classroom.  Trailer is available at the worldlink web site.

King Corn.  [i]denpedent lens trailer for King Corn.  Dir. Aaron Wolf.  New Video Group, 2008.  The story of Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, recent college graduates, who travel cross-country to find out what it really means to be corn fed.  They look at how corn has come to dominate the food industry as a sweetener, and also look at the sad state of farming in the U.S.  I recommend this film for it potential to motivate students to do research about something that can make a difference.  They use humor and creative filmmaking to keep their audience interested.

Food, Inc. (2008) Dir. Robert Kenner explores the subject from all angles, talking to authors, advocates, farmers, and CEOs, like co-producer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms), and Barbara Kowalcyk, who’s been lobbying for more rigorous standards since E. coli claimed the life of her two-year-old son.  The connection to between farming practices and the food industry will need to be discussed with students if this film is shown in the classroom.

The Future of Food (2005).  Actors: Exequiel Ezcurra and Sara Maamouri.  Dir. Deborah Koons Gardia. Virgil Films and Entertainment (DVD), 2007. This is an informative documentary about our food supply. Includes information about the Genetically Modified food industry and farmers who try to resist GMO and get sued by corporations.  I recommend watching “The Future of Food” first, and then “How to Save the World”, about what is happening in India, for a incredible real world solution. Both films are entertaining and can educate you on what is really happening to food and farmers in the USA and other countries!

The Garden (2008). Director and Writer Scott Hamilton Kennedy.  Synopsis: The 14 acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles was the largest of its kind in the United States. It was started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992. Since that time, the South Central Farmers have created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. But now bulldozers threaten their oasis. The Garden is an unflinching look at the struggle between these urban farmers and the City of Los Angeles and a powerful developer who want to evict them and build warehouses.  Comments: This is a painful reminder of how undervalued farming and growing food is in this city.  The results of the eviction, acreage in Bakersfield and a very active CSA throughout Los Angeles run by South Central Farmers shows what can happen when people ban together for such an important cause.  So, though the land was lost, other opportunities were found.  The story is a lesson for our time about food and priorities and politics and the peoples of Los Angeles.

MEDIA SOURCES:

The History of Gardens:
Archives of American Gardens, Smithsonian: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/siasc/american_gardens.htm

Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes (Journal): http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=1460-1176&linktype=7

Web sites, Blogs, and Garden Groups:

Kitchen Gardeners International: A Global Community Cultivating Change.  Roger Doiron, (Maine) who was instrumental in getting a garden established on the white house lawn, is the creative force behind this  community of gardeners from over 100 countries.  Their mission is to empower individuals, families, and communities to achieve greater levels of food self-reliance through the promotion of kitchen gardening, home-cooking, and sustainable local food systems. In doing so, KGI seeks to connect, serve, and expand the global community of people who grow some of their own food.

Larner Seeds California Natives http://larnerseeds.com Two books by Judith Larner Lowry (Bolinas, CA since 1977) are highly recommended: Gardening with a Wild Heart, and Restoring California’s Native Landscape at Home.

LLA (Life Learning Academy) San Francisco, CA  At a high school on Treasure Island, this SFUSD Charter School has developed an inspiring curriculum. Of special interest here is their 6.5 EarthCurriculum, Organic Opportunites for a Gardening and Entrepreneurship Program.

National Gardening Association (NGA)  1100 Dorset Street, S. Burlington, VT  05403

Roots of Change www.rocnetwork.org Roots of Change (ROC) works to develop and support a collaborative network of leaders and institutions in California with interest in establishing a sustainable food system in our state by the year 2030. This network involves food producers, businesses, nonprofits, communities, government agencies, and foundations that share a commitment to changing our food thinking, food markets, and food policies. The resulting system will provide healthy and affordable food, benefits and wealth to workers and farmers, and will help restore the soil, water, species diversity, and climate upon which food production depends.

Slow Food, U.S.A.  www.slowfoodusa.org

During my sabbatical I visited  many types of gardens from the first community garden in Santa Monica on Main Street (guided by Russ Ackerman), established in the 1970s, to school gardens throughout the city.  Samohi and Olympic H.S. gardens were visited and I was able to talk to the students who work in these gardens.  As part of the American Horticultural Society National Children and Youth Garden Symposium in Pasadena, I was able to visit several other school gardens, including 24^th Street School near USC, which was designed by Nancy Powers.  One thing led to another, and I met with people from Cornell, the Huntington, and South Coast Botanical Gardens.  One of the most beneficial unexpected events was going up to the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens on the day when Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson was speaking on “Great Botanical Gardens of the World” (March 14).

I also visited gardens in Dutchess County, New York; Shelburne Farms in Vermont; and Nuestras Raices in South Holyoke, Massachusetts.  On this exciting journey, I’ve come to see that thinking like a gardener (or farmer) is of enormous value to us as humans.  To be human is to nurture, to care for the world, and to enrich the world in some way.  There is no question why gardening metaphors, such as “planting seeds” of thought and “putting down roots” are so common.  The world culture is part of the word, cultivate.  As a gardener, I may say to you, “Come see me,” and what I really mean is “Come see my garden.”   And if you do, you will probably find me on my knees, and you will leave with a gift of a plant, or seeds, or at least the desire to make things grow.  It’s natural to us to want to cultivate, to green the earth.

The benefits from my sabbatical to the college are many, as we are currently planning the SMC Organic Garden design with architects from Meléndrez Construction, Greg Brown, and students from Club Grow.  Beyond the objectives listed on the first page of my sabbatical, I’ve especially learned patience, a quality we can all agree is important to us as educators.  Because of my sabbatical, I feel more equipped to be patience as this garden comes into being, and to know it will change and grow over time.   I’ve also learned that the garden teaches numerous skills and values that we should not dismiss for our students’ lives, including long-term thinking, planning for future generations of students.  Some additional life skills, such as how to grow food, and prepare it, is knowledge we once took for granted, but this is knowledge my students tell me they want.  Watching as seeds we have planted with our own hands  grow into delicious foods that end up on our dinner table, and observing the cycle of life season after season is invaluable.  I’ve written about what a garden is in “Our Garden: An Essay” at Avantgarden.org, and it is at my web site, where observations during my sabbatical have been posted.

Though I have completed the objectives listed in my proposal written over a year ago, I have learned much more than I expected.  The value of professional development in this area was a dream come true for me, and it’s difficult to express my gratitude.  As I continue to teach at SMC, I will continue to develop my understanding of how the garden can be integrated into the curriculum through continued practice and conversations with colleagues in various disciplines.   This work is ongoing, never finished – as is gardening.  I’ve learned that the garden can be an amazing site for community to develop through observing community gardens, the work of David King at Venice H.S., and in South Holyoke.  When people work together in a garden, sharing knowledge and food, they change in remarkable ways.

My knowledge of organic gardening practices and garden writing has grown through reading, talking to other gardeners, and applying what I have learned in my own backyard garden.  One major lesson that I will continue to apply in my classes and encourage other to undertake is seeing a garden (or farm) as a site of cross-cultural understanding.  I’ve seen this demonstrated  in the community gardens I’ve visited.  For example, at the Nuestas Raices farm, La Finca, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Puerto Rican farmers developed a connection to an Indian family as a result of the small, tasty eggplants grown.  At first, the Puerto Rican growers couldn’t understand why anyone would want to grow such small eggplants, but then they tasted them and began growing them also.  Just observing what another grower does in the field often creates a conversation and a friendship develops.  Food, of course, is culture.  Many community gardeners share seeds and recipes, as well as growing practices, building strong relationships through common human activities.

In an effort to integrate the garden within my own discipline,  English, I’ve seen the effectiveness of adding readings and writing activities about gardeners of diverse ethnicities through use of Patricia Klindienst’s book, The Earth Knows My Name:  Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans (Beacon, 2006). I’ve written more about using Klindienst’s book on my web site, AvantGarden.org in the sections titled “A Window into Culture” (8/20) and “The Earth Knows My Name: Making an Argument for this Book” (8/14).

Many types of writing can use the garden as a subject and a focus.  Besides writing about the garden, students can write for the garden in practical, real-world documents that have the power to change our culture.  The multi-page Garden Proposal submitted to SMC Human Resources during the summer is an example of such a document.  Including multiple modes of writing, a strong purpose statement, argument, instructions, and suggested management of the garden for maximizing student involvement,  this document, inspired by the Harvard Garden Guide was supervised by me, and includes the collaborative work of several SMC students, including Samia Bano (introduction) and Natasha Gorodnitski who helped edit the document.  It includes a two-year plan as requested by the college as well as suggestions for how the garden can be constructed, planted, and managed.

In meetings with my core interview subjects, David Mas Masumoto, Patricia Klindienst, Antonio Solario and Marsha Guerro, director of the Chez Panisse Foundations’s Edible Schooyard, I collected ideas about projects to integrate the garden into the curriculum.  Masumoto has visited numerous schools, including Santa Monica High School last spring.   Some highlights of their suggestions follow:

• Masumoto suggests sensory writing in the garden to help students learn to slow down and listen, as well as time-lapse photography projects of plants growing.  His book, Harvest Son, is an excellent memoir of his experiences as a young man on the family farm near Fresno.  In it he returns to Japan to visit his relatives.  This book is often included in garden-based learning courses.
• Klindienst suggests writing about earliest memories of gardening, oral history projects (interview a gardener/farmer), memories of celebrations involving food, and a class cookbook with essays about food and cultures.
• Solorio suggests having everyone plant seeds to experience new life, the potential in something so seeming insignificant.   Simple and stunning, making a choice to nurture life and experience its potential might be the most important metaphor of all.
• Marsha Guerrero, Director of the Edible Schoolyard, helps guide schools who want to establish a sustainable garden/kitchen program.  The Edible Schoolyard, now in its 15^th year, sets a high standard for bringing the garden into the schoolyard.  Each 6-8^th grader learns to grow and prepare food with classes in the garden and the kitchen.  The curriculum for these classes has been developed by staff of the Foundation inspired by  Alice Water’s goal to teach these students life-long lessons in nutrition.

Garden Projects suggested by the Edible Schoolyard:

§  Writing and drawing in Garden Journals,

§  Collecting insects, identifying them and researching what role they play in the garden (science),

§  Saving seeds, designing seed packets to store them in, and calculating germination rates (botany, art, math)

§  Creating a solar oven out of pizza boxes

§  Creating healthy snacks from garden produce to replace fast food snacks (nutrition)

§  Field Trips to the local farmer’s market

§  Field trip to local grocery stores:  SAFEWAY—a supermarket giant, Whole Foods, and a small family-owned market that specializes in local, organic produce (in Berkeley, Monterey Market).  Prior to the market visits, students are asked to name food products used regularly in their households.  With a list of the most commonly used items, students divide into 3 groups to visit one of the stores.  Students record prices, nutritional information, and product origin, and compare costs between organic and conventional products,  Then they regroup with staff to share their information and observations. Students compare the data they gather, and make recommendations for purchasing groceries.

§  Planting the three sisters: corn, beans, and squash.  The three sisters form a symbiotic relationship in which each plant plays an important role in the health of the other plants.   At MLK Middle School, these plants will be harvested by incoming 6^th graders—the new students on campus. Begin with 6” corn seedlings, bean seeds, and squash seeds.  Corn is planted in a circle of four, each about one foot in diameter.  Between the newly-planted corn, place bean seeds in shallow holes where they will fix nitrogen and climb the stalks of the corn.  Finally, plant winter squash seeds in open spaces between the circles.  Over time the vining plants cover the open soil, preventing weeds and retaining moisture.

I was able to visit several school gardens, as I stated previously.  One of the most fruitful unplanned visits was part of the workshop I completed at the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley.  We spent all day Friday at the John Muir Elementary School in Oakland.  Their garden was built 30 years ago around a amphitheater and boasts a beautiful redwood tree.  Participants cooked strawberry jam and experienced the differences of taste in strawberry varieties.   We wrote poetry about strawberries and making jam, worked in the garden, and transplanted strawberries into pots.  At the stage level of the amphitheater an outdoor classroom was the focus of garden instruction.  The design of the space at this school was inspiring, lush with a variety of flowers, vegetables, berries, and other fruits, and four chickens (June 23-25).

My sabbatical has ended, but I feel that my work is just beginning.  As I continue to speak for the garden, encouraging faculty and students to commit to this important project, my motives for beginning this project are confirmed and I see that this garden has the potential to bring together SMC goals related to global citizenship and sustainability.  I was able to make a brief presentation about the garden on September 7, 2010, at Bill Selby’s Introduction to Environmental Studies class.   I talked about the history and progress we’ve made with the garden and introduced the Club Grow president, Johnny Torres, who is also a student in that class, as is Justine Rembac, the A.S Director of Sustainability.

Having the time to focus my attention on gardening and “the garden” during spring semester was a priceless professional gift; however, the announcement by Bob Isomoto that the college would finance the garden as part of the bond issue was the key event of my whole year.  That has changed everything, so that we now have confidence that this garden will be institutionalized and constructed as a permanent part of the campus.  We know there is much more to do as we help guide this project to engage as much of the college community as possible.  By working with Club Grow members and Associated Students for the last four years, I’ve gotten to know some very passionate students who believe in this garden as a very special place to learn to grow our own food, a place for hands-on learning outside of the four walls of the classroom.  My life was changed because of two inspiring young women, Melody Overstreet and Natasha Vokhshoori, who asked me four years ago to be the faculty leader for the garden.  Inspired by the potential of their vision,  I had no idea of how all encompassing that vision would become for me.  It has become central, and I’ve come to see that a garden, our garden, has the potential to change everyone who gets involved.

I visited with Antonio Solorio last week, and on Friday.  He is the Youth Program Coordinator with the National Park Service.  I first met Antonio when he spoke at the Environmental Studies class taught by Bill Selby at SMC a few years ago.  The title of his talk,  “The Ethnobotany of Urban Home Gardens in East Los Angeles” was intriguing.  His presentation was accompanied by interesting pictures of the gardens of his interviewees, and I the arrangement of their plants was unfamiliar to me.  I was struck that they seemed to take a “plant anything anywhere” approach in their yards.  I don’t recall seeing any linear beds of crops in neat rows.  I liked what I saw, and realized that I could do the same at my house, planting beans and tomatoes or squash in the narrow space on the south side of my house, between my house and my neighbor.  The focus of his research, his master’s thesis at Cal State Northridge, was analysis of the plants (foods, medicinal, and ornamental) growing in East LA.  His gardeners were mostly middle-aged Mexican Americans as I recall.

I had wanted to talk to Antonio for a long time, so I included him on my Sabbatical list of interviewees. Because he works with high school students and motivates them to enjoy working outdoors, and perhaps for the Park Service in the future, I saw him as someone who could give me ideas about motivating college students (and faculty) about working with plants in our garden and integrating it into their courses.

The key, according to Antonio, is in the magic of the seed.  He described seeing people young and old getting excited when they see seeds come to life.  It’s something small but it has a very big effect.  He suggested having students plant seeds.  So simple.  Maybe a planting party for everyone on campus can help reluctant people to see the potential of a college garden.

We had agreed to meet at his previous address in Culver City, so he could show me the results of his “guerrilla gardening” while he had lived there for about 5 years.  I was impressed by the variety of fruit trees and native plants he has established, truly long term gifts to his old neighborhood:  orange, apple, nopales, guava, and others.

If you’re interested in Antonio and his work, he was interviewed by youth radio, a couple years ago. The interview is available: http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00035&segmentID=4

This assignment demonstrates how Klindienst’s book can be used in the college classroom.

Essay Prompt: In reaction to having read Klindienst’s Prologue, imagine that the author has just knocked on your door to interview you. First, to earn your trust, she tells you her story. Now, you will tell her yours. You may choose to focus on either a family photo, a family recipe, or a personal sanctuary of your own (like Vanzetti’s Garden), or any combination of these topics. No matter which you choose, include both  NARRATION (storytelling) and DESCRIPTION (use of sensory detail) to create an essay that acts as a window into your family history and works to preserve cultural memory through language  (by Jolia Allan).

The Earth Knows My Name:  Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans by Patricia Klindienst.

Prologue:  Vanzetti’s Garden http://www.beacon.org/client/pdfs/8562_prol.pdf

Study Questions for Prologue:

1. Describe the Klindienst family history.  Include their language history, occupational history, and immigration history.
2. Describe your own family history, including the same elements, language, occupation, and immigration.  If necessary, ask questions of your family.
3. How familiar was the author with her family history at the time of her father’s death?
4. How familiar are you with your own family history?  Have you inherited your family language?  Is there a family anecdote, such as the story the author tells about her grandfather and his crust of bread, that you have heard over and over?  What is it?
5. On page xiv, the author uses the adjective “difficult” to modify the “process of becoming Americans.”  Do you agree with her sentiment?  Why or why not?
6. Klindienst uses words to help the reader picture the photograph: what specific details help you to “see” the photograph she describes?
7. Who are Sacco and Vanzetti? Why are they famous?  (Do some research online!)  Why does Klindienst bring them into this chapter?  What do they symbolize for her and for us?
8. The author writes, “For so long, all I knew of my Italian heritage was the memory of food.”  What specific food items does she mention?  What food items do you most associate with your own heritage?  Include details; be specific.
9. What is symbolic about the gardens of ethnic Americans?  What metaphors does Vanzetti use in his description of his garden?
10. Why might we find the answer to our environmental crisis in the practices of ethnic gardeners?
11. What is the most important gift the gardeners interviewed in this book have to offer us?  (according to Klindienst)

The objectives of the workshop included

• deepening our understanding of ecological principles and systems thinking
• exploring ways to inspire our faculty and school community
• learning how to forge links between teaching and learning, greening the campus, improving school food, and expanding community relationships
• designing projects to cultivate the knowledge, skills, and values that underlie sustainable living

The first day began at 8:30 a.m. with introductions and a screening of the film, Nourish. After lunch we were introduced to the Nourish curriculum; though the curriculum was not complete, copies of the introduction to the film and Activity 2 (Seasonal, Local Food) were provided.  During the workshop we “tested” this Activity, which asks students to research what produce grows in their area in what season and learn about the advantages and disadvantages of eating locally grown food.  We created a seasonal circle.  Students in our classes could also create a resource booklet for obtaining local produce to share with their families.    The key question for this activity is “How does eating locally grown and seasonal food benefit the health of people and the environment?”

The following material is from the Nourish PBS Film Viewing Guide.  For more information you should contact the Center for Ecoliteracy or PBS.

PREPARATION:

• Bring in two different food items, one that is in season, and one that is not in season and has traveled a long distance to your local market.
• Prepare samples of local food, such as fresh strawberries or carrots;  for each sample, find out from the Internet or a farmer how it is grow, whether it is grow locally or elsewhere, and when it is in season.
• Get a state map that encompasses and area at least 150 miles in all directions from our school.  Make copies of the map for the students, including the legend or mileage scale.
• Make a copy of the two Seasonal Circles pages for students, and several copies of the Local Food resources Student page for each team.

ACTIVITY:

• Ask student to define what it means when we say a food is “in season.”  Discuss the foods brought in, where and how they grow and the time of year that they are in season,  when is it at its peak.  What is the difference between in-season and out-of-season produce.
• Taste the food, and compile a lengthy list of adjectives to describe the taste and texture.
• Referring to the film, discuss Café 150.  As what might grown within 150 miles of our campus.  Give students the map and have them draw a circle around Santa Monica College.  Use the map to discuss what we mean by “Local.”
  • Explain the concept of a foodshed.  Is 150 miles a good definition?  Why or why not?
  • What towns, agricultural areas, waterways, or other landmarks are included within the 150 mile circle?
  • What factors might influence what and when things grow there?
  • What would be the benefits and challenges of eating locally grown food?
  • Students will prepare two different resources to help them and their families find local, season food in their community.  One is a seasonal circle and the other is a resource book that describes the importance of eating locally grown, seasonal foods and lists community resources for local food.
  • For the seasonal circle, have students find out what crops and other farm products, like honey, milk, eggs, grow locally and when they are in season.  They might start with Field to Plate (www.fieldtoplate.com) or Eat Local (www.nrdc.org/health/foodmiles/) websites.  Both link to seasonal calendars by state.  For each crop or product they find, have students draw and label it on the circle in the months or seasons it is available.  They may also cut out the 150-mile map and glue it onto the back of the bottom circle.  Assemble the circles.
  • For the local food resources booklet, ask students to think of general categories of places where people could get local, seasonal food (like farmer’s markets, community gardens, CSAs, stores, restaurants).  Divide the class into teams, with each team researching places in one of the categories.  Teams may want to check out the Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org) or Eat Well Guide (www.eatwellguide.org) websites which include tools for finding locally grown  food.
    • Give teams copies of the Local Food Resources page to list the best resources they find.  This page has 4 templates with room to write in the NAME, CATEGORY, DESCRIPTION, ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER, WEBSITE, and NOTES
    • Students write 2-3 paragraphs on the important of eating local and seasonal foods  Assemble the completed pages into one booklet.  Either compile a class webpage or create stapled booklets for each student to keep.

ASSESSMENT:

Assessment depends on the course.  In my writing courses, I’m looking for engagement with the subject, the ability to covey that engagement through writing and speaking.  English, Depending on the course, this research project can have various purposes.  This project could be used in geography, nutrition, English, social science, political science, botany, etc.

EXTENSIONS:

• Students can find a recipe that appeals to them using a local, seasonal food.  They can prepare the food at home or at school and then share their experiences and a tasting with classmates.
• Students can prepare a 150-mile meal like Café 150 in the film.  Or they can create a lunch menu using one or more locally available foods.
• Challenge students to draw a garden plan using plants suitable for the current season.  They would research the growing requirements of different vegetables and fruits, and then use this information to sketch a map of the garden area, showing the location of each plant.
• Use Google Earth or Google Maps to see how much land in your area is developed, underdeveloped, and farmed.
• Visit a local farm or farmer’s market to talk to growers about how local foods travel from farm to customer.

Using Nourish: Food and Community in my college preparatory English Classes.

This year SMC has selected FOOD as a theme.  The book chosen for the community to read is Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, and I plan to show Nourish in my classes.  The students may also read the “Prologue: Vanzetti’s Garden” in Patricia Klindienst’s book, The Earth Knows my Name. She explains how she became interested in writing about ethnic gardeners and undertaking numerous interviews throughout the country.  This class is primarily focused on teaching students to write summaries and responses to texts (essays).  However, it is also valuable for students to experience field research, web research, and interviewing as a way to gather information.   Writing about their experiences with food, especially cultural foods has been very successful in the past.  One possible project involves writing a class cookbook that uses local, season food.  The Local Cookbook could include an introduction: why local and season is important, neighborhood guides to local food resources, and essays by students about food important to their cultures.

The film, Nourish: Food + Community and the Film Viewing Guides provided by PBS have inspired me to try something new with my students.   Information about the film is available at http:/www.nourishlife.org

David Mas Masumoto

The most surprising part of Tour #3 offered by the ninth annual Cooking for Solutions event (Monterey Bay  Aquarium) was that we didn’t get on a bus like the other tours.  The group of us, about 20, walked to the patio of the new Intercontinental Hotel next door.  There we met with David Mas Masumoto, the famous Fresno writer and peach farmer.  He is the author of several books, including Harvest Son: Planting Roots in American Soil (1998), Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons on my Family Farm (1995), and most recently Wisdom of the Last Farmer: Harvesting Legacies from the Land (2009).  And he was a most gracious and friendly host.  Each of us was welcomed by him personally, and my daughter and I were able to have his full attention as we waited in the lobby of the Intercontinental: The Clement Monterey for the event to begin.  We told him about our desire to adopt a peach tree this year, and how a family wedding on July 31 interfered.   “The peaches will be about two weeks late this year, probably the first and second weekends in August,” he told us.

This is a man with a passion for peaches and farming and writing.  He read to us first from Epitaph for a Peach about the heirloom peaches he continues to grow despite the difficulty selling it.

He read from the opening to Epitaph:  “Sun Crest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches.  When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water, your fingertips instinctively search for the gushy side of the fruit.  Your mouth waters in anticipation.  You  lean over the sink to make sure you don’t drip on yourself.  They you sink your teeth into the flesh, and the juices trickles down your cheeks and dangles on your chin.  This is a real bite, a primal act, a magical sensory celebration announcing that summer has arrived. ”

I think I peaked with that paragraph,” he joked.

Masumoto

He led the event by reading from several of his books, and stories of the farm.  His decision to farm organically, he says, brought life back into the farm.   He read: “armies of weeds, I now saw as natural grasses.”  Changing his methods for pest control using pheromone strips–three different strips for each tree–is called “mating disruption” or the “confusion method.”  The insects come looking for a mate that isn’t there.  Not spraying the peaches is an advantage in other ways too.  He emphasized that the farm workers benefit from not using toxic chemicals. It’s healthier for everyone, works and consumers.

Masumoto is concerned not only with marketing his peaches, but also with the farm workers and social justice.  His wife, Marcy, talked about the farm workers and their hands at work; peaches must be judged for ripeness and picked by hand.  When the peaches are walnut sized 2/3 of the fruit must be removed from the trees by hand.  And then when the Sun Crest peaches are ripe, each one must be picked by hand with great care to avoid bruising.  Many hands touch these peaches, with care.  For the dried Sun Crest peaches, which we tasted as part of  our luncheon, each peach was sliced by hand and dried twenty-four hours on screens in the dry heat of Fresno.  Marcy emphasized that when we eat a peach, we should celebrate the many people who worked to bring this peach to us.

Masumoto has a family farm, passed down to him from his father, who passed away in April, six weeks  before this event.  His daughter, Nikiko is now 22, and she wants to keep the farm going.  Also, his son Korio 19, and Marcy, his wife are very involved in the farm.  Loss of parents means a loss of our buffer to mortality.  Mas realizes that he is the last farmer when his father passes.  In Wisdom of the Last Farmer, he writes about his father’s stroke and bringing him back to farming as part of the recovery.

These stories of farming and the seasons of peaches added meaning to the food we were served.  They gave the lunch a different flavor.  “When a farmer holds up a peach and looks at it what does he see?” Masumoto asked us.  “I see summer,” he said, “and the poetry of farming.”  The value of seeing the people who work to bring us the peaches and the trees that  bear the fruit altered our experience of eating.  We were able to understand the farm and thus to understand the fruit and to savor the sweetness more fully.  Yes, stories make the fruit taste sweeter.

Ricotta Gnocci

Mushu Chicken

Peach cake

Three courses were served at our luncheon, each preceded by a cooking demonstration by a different chef.  Unifying the luncheon were Masumoto’s peaches:  Ricotta gnocchi with chardonnay peach sauce, mushu pork with peach hoisin sauce, and a peach cake with Italian butter cream.

When I told Mas I taught English at Santa Monica College, he said he recently gave a reading at Santa Monica High School.  He also offered writing exercises he has used when working with students.   The first involves listening in the garden, a sensory walk to record what we hear.  He has also asked students for suggestions of music to listen to as he works on the farm, weeding, pruning, and driving the tractor.  Lately, he said, he’s having fun working to country music.  Time lapse animation of plants growing has also been a successful project, which students have posted on Youtube.

The following essay is an excellent review of Epitaph for a Peach, written by Andrew Mariani: http://www.crfg.org/pubs/bkrev/EpitaphPeach.html

The July 2010 Martha Stewart Living magazine, has a lengthy article on Masumoto and his farm.  The article is titled Peach’s Progress: Masumoto’s Orchard.  http://www.marthastewart.com/article/peaches-progress-masumotos-orchard#ixzz0wbSUwxWC

Write an essay responding to this question:

Why is The Earth Knows My Name an appropriate choice as a required reading as part of SMC’s global initiative?

Background (what gave rise to this question): To support SMC’s Global Initiative and its mandate to integrate environmental issues more effectively into SMC classes, English faculty are currently discussing the choice of a non-fiction book for all students to read and discuss. This book chosen should help students consider today’s challenging global, environmental, and economic issues. The Earth Knows My Name has made the list of three finalists.  Students who have read chapters in the book are now being asked for input.  Your essay will help the English Dept. committee make the final decision.  Support your thesis with material from the book and from your own experience and/or observations.

Organize your essay so that your introduction provides your readers–who may be unfamiliar with the book–with the context they need to grasp your argument developed in the body of your paper. For example, they may need to know about what motivated the author to write the book or why she wrote it.

The body of your essay should argue for or against a policy for the year 2009-10 that will result in English composition students reading The Earth Knows My Name using information from the book and from your experience.  (Don’t recommend a different book; your task is only to explain why you are for or against choosing this book.)

Conclude your essay by confirming the significance of the global, environmental and/or economic issues facing your generation.