07.19.09
The Learning Garden
This year’s gardening endeavors have not gone as well as planned. We did get some string beans and squash, but between the water rationing and some animal that’ve taken residence in our backyard, our yield has been very modest. Instead, my attention has focused on mostly potted herbs. Today I was pleased to see that our potted herbs are thriving. I was especially glad to see that the cuttings and sprigs we obtained from the Venice Learning Garden have pretty much all taken root except one.
The Learning Garden is run completely on donations and volunteer time. The cool thing about this place is that they have a nice variety of plants from decorative plants to edible plants to medicinal plants, and even fruit trees.
Here’s a shot of their greenhouse.
And a view of one angle of their grounds.
The garden is a bit larger than what is shown here. Off to the left of this picture was the section for the cacti and succulents. I had to take a pic of this as it reminded me of a crab, heheh.
They had a variety of ornamental flowers. This is one tiny patch.
They had a nice variety of veggies like eggplant, tomatoes, squash, etc. Here’s a pic of some onions. I took this because I’m an onion lover and I’ve never grown these before so had no idea they looked like this as they grew.
For all I knew they grew like carrots, but these look like they’re clustered and half way out of the ground. I remember watching the movie “The Onion Field” years ago, and maybe this is what that field looked like.
They also had a section that grew herbs for teas.
I believe that plant that’s just behind the sign and the pole is white sage. When we sat in on the Chumash Indian herb meeting in Santa Monica we were told that white sage was the all-around herb for the Chumash. All of their herbal mixes includes white sage. So when we visited the Theodore Payne Foundation last month we picked up a white sage plant for our backyard. We figured it should be good because it’s both a native California plant which should grow well here in our drought-prone climate, and it is also a beneficial herbal.
There was also a section for Chinese medicinal herbs that is being cared for by students at the Emperor’s School of Herbs. Brian loves herbs and so he has a lot of books that speak of so many herbs used by the Chinese, the Indians, etc. so this was a treat to see the actual plants. For instance here’s a pic of the Chinese herb Niu Bang Zi.
While visiting garden we were lucky to have met a nice man and woman who were tending the garden. They were very knowledgeable, and fortunately for us, the woman thinned out some of the plants and allowed us to take some sprigs home! Here’s one that Brian is holding called Chinese Mugwort.
We really got lucky meeting her there because as she thinned out some of the plants, she gave us a nice little variety to take home such as comfrey, mugwort, ashwaganda, etc. We took them home in a cut out plastic water bottle and replanted them when we got home. Here’s what they looked like today.
The one pot on the far left doesn’t look like it’s gonna make it, but the others look pretty good! They’re already going on three weeks, so I think they’ve got a really good chance of surviving. I’m hoping we can get them nice and big like at the Learning Garden. Maybe in another month of so we can safely transplant these into the ground in the back. I really like the idea of growing our own fresh herbs. Aside from these I’ve also been nursing some other kitchen herbs (mint, basil, chives, etc.), some of which have surprised me a bit because they sprung up unexpectedly, ha! Maybe I’ll share that another time. Oh, and lastly, to round out the efficiency of the Learning Garden is their compost section. One can not only learn about gardening various plants, but also learn about vaious methods of composting.
I’m really glad to have visited the Venice Learning Garden. It’s great that there are some really knowledgeable people out there who are willing to share their knowledge and who are actively keeping all sorts of varieties of plants alive. Often we hear about the dangers of various animals going into extinction, but that can also happen to plant varities. So I’m always very happy to know of other gardeners who value the art of gardening. Plants help to clean up our environment, are pleasing to the eye, and important for the health our bodies.
Marlakins
