Mount Washington's MicroFarmers: From Seed to Skillet

When your book has been named one of Amazon's “Best Books of 2010”, what do you do next?   If you’re Susan Heeger , you go to Mount Washington.

Heeger co-authored From Seed to Skillet with urban gardener and landscape designer Jimmy Williams. As Heeger sits on a tree-shaded patio with the core members of the Mount Washington Micro-Farms Project, the meeting place of gardening and community comes up again and again.

Heeger and Williams are particularly interested in neighborhood gardening groups like the (whose members  are growing vegetables in raised, wooden beds wherever they can find yard space.)  The group’s homegrown philosophy  dovetails perfectly with that of Williams and Heeger, whose acclaimed and popular book is a self-described “Guide to Growing, Tending, Harvesting, and Cooking Up Fresh, Healthful Food to Share with People You Love."

As the title implies, Williams and Heeger take readers through the process of creating a garden from scratch and then cooking with its bounty.  In the final chapter, Williams shares luscious family-recipes-for-all seasons that include Green Bean and Asparagus Casserole, Indian Summer Succotash, Sweet Potato Biscuits, and Burnt-Onion Collard Greens.

Heeger tells the core group of committed gardeners and Micro-Farmers that the focus of her second possible book with Williams will be a natural extension of the first; Williams and Heeger hope to expand the healthy gardens, healthy food concept beyond the family plot to “creating…the sort of good-neighbor gardens” that the Micro-Farms Project exemplifies.  Heeger and Williams believe the possibilities are endless, from swapping recipes with neighbors , to sharing vegetables and fruit with fellow gardeners, to donating surplus produce to local food banks.

Anna Carpenter was instrumental in getting the Micro-Farms Project off the ground a year ago in her role of Vice-President of Action for the Mount Washington Association, which has sponsored free seed and seedling giveaways and seminars on subjects such worm bins and beekeeping; they’ve also donated  money for Micro-Farm Project signs to adorn front lawns to inspire and educate people.  Carpenter tells Heeger that members  of the Micro-Farms Project have already committed to donating 20% of their produce to the Los Angeles Food Bank.  Carpenter’s fellow board member Natalie Seaman, Vice-President of Programs, adds that the Northeast  Mental Health Clinic is also a beneficiary.

Heeger tells the group that one of the things she and Williams are “passionate about doing in a second book is helping people stay with what they’ve started and make the changes part of [their] lives.”   Connie Rohman, Mount Washington Association Historian and Vice President of Arts, acknowledges the challenge of following through on good intention when she confesses that part of the reason she volunteered her  front yard for the Micro-Farm Project’s model site was to help herself stay motivated to keep the garden looking good.  Neighbor Pamela Welden’s motivation is more straightforward.  “As soon as you taste fresh grown tomatoes,” reminisces Welden, “supermarket  produce just doesn’t taste the same.”

Linda Padilla tells the group that she always makes paste and sauce from her surplus of summer tomatoes.   Padilla’s casual comments prompt several  confessions of botulism anxiety and “fear of canning," which are dismissed by the farm-raised members of the group who offer to hold informal canning seminars.

Seaman tells the group that her 60-hour work week makes tending the garden a challenge.  She doesn’t really need a full-time gardener, though, and wonders about joining with other gardeners to hire neighborhood kids to help with the Micro-Farms.  The group discussed the feasibility of hiring junior gardeners and the number of time-challenged gardeners that might be interested in hiring  a teen work force.

Of course, when two or more avid gardeners get together, the conversation invariably turns to pests, soil, and supplements.

In From Seed to Skillet, Heeger and Williams advocate using “really good potting soil.”  Carpenter, whom Rohman refers to as the group’s “garden guru,” tells Heeger about the “lasagna method," which originated in Australia and has been enthusiastically embraced by the Mount Washington Micro-Farmers.  With this technique, layers of bone meal and blood meal, newspaper, hay, straw, and compost – the original, Australian recipe also uses goat fur -- are built up into “no-dig” piles, which can be contained by boxes or not.  Seeds and seedlings are planted in the top layer. 

When the group inspects Rohman’s green and growing garden, Carpenter expresses the opinion that the lasagna method is responsible for the high quality of the model site’s lettuce , which tends to be difficult to grow in the Southern California climate.

Micro-Farmers continued to share.

Conor Fitzpatrick of Mini-Farms Inc., who built many of the Micro-Farmers’ raised beds, says he amended the “recipe,” using more layers of compost on the bottom. 

Gardener and neighbor Norma Hunt talks about her success with worms in building healthy soil.  She tells the group about her worm bins, which she feeds with kitchen scraps , and offers to  share some worms.   Carpenter introduces the subject of group planting schedules.  The model site took almost a year to get going.  Carpenter hopes to get more gardens up and growing by fall, in just six months.

As coffee is finished and the meeting  winds to a close, the  Mount Washington Micro-Farmers drift off in twos and threes, talking animatedly about optimum raised bed placement , compost tea versus chicken manure tea as a pest deterrent, and a mojito party using limes from Linda and Bennie Padilla’s bountiful tree.

In an earlier e-mail, Heeger told the Micro-Farmers that  one of the things she and Williams are “passionate about doing…  is getting people really excited about where they can take their vegetable gardening – how they can stick with the commitment of it and then use it to expand their world, their communities, their connections with neighbors and friends.”

Mission accomplished, Ms. Heeger.  Mission accomplished.