Want to get YOUR HANDS DIRTY and help convert a front lawn and parkway into an edible landscape?

We like to think of LA Green Grounds as a way of life.  Our mission is to empower South LA's communities and beyond, one garden at a time. 

Our Spring Dig-In is scheduled for a front yard at a Compton home. You must register to participate. The address will be provided once you register. 

Please be prompt. Check-in at 9:00 a.m.

Wear comfortable clothes, sturdy shoes, long pants, long sleeves if the days is hot day. We suggest a sunhat also. Wear sunscreen. Bring gloves, if you have them. Bring a refillable water bottle. 

The garden recipient/host will be providing lunch. We strive for zero waste, so bring your own plate and fork. (If you forget, we can supply.)

Click below to sign up.  After you register, you will be taken to our Release Forms page. Please complete the DIG-IN ANY OTHER LOCATION waiver release form and either email completed form to [email protected] or bring the completed form with you.  If volunteer is a minor, a parent/guardian must sign it.

Space is limited to the first 25 people who sign up. If you see that registration has been closed, but you'd like to be added to the wait list in the case someone cancels, please send an email to [email protected] stating you'd like to be added to the waitlist, and provide your name, email, and best phone # to reach you. If we reach out to you to fill an opening, you will receive a call from a phone # you probably don't recognize since LA Green Grounds is all volunteer run. If we do not receive a confirmation from you quickly, we will go to the next person on the wait list to ensure we have enough volunteers for the Dig-In.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR!

Due to forecasted rain for LA Green Grounds' Spring Dig-In, we are rescheduling it for 4/21 so we won't be joining Good Earth Community Garden's Earth Day celebration.

We definitely encourage YOU to do so - they have a lot of great activities planned - see flyer linked below.

And while you are there, feel free to wander through LAGG's Nishida Teaching Garden located at the east end of Good Earth (it's the unfenced garden.)  You can check out what we have growing and view our beautiful new berm base and the stone wall/bench - all materials from earth- that our LAGG volunteers designed and built.

Happy Earth Day and love Mother Earth!

Good Earth Community Garden Earth Day Flyer

Have questions about your LA vegetable garden?

This delicious dessert was a huge hit at the 8th Teaching Garden Anniversary party!  Marika generously shared her recipe!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 lb. glutenous rice flour (aka sweet rice flour/mochiko)
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cans coconut milk (13.5 fluid oz each)
• 4 oz butter, melted

LA Green Grounds' co-founder Florence Nishida article was published in the September/October 2023 issue of The American Gardener.

In the article, Florence shares who LA Green Grounds' Teaching Garden brings the world together in south Los Angeles and educates through example.

Grow Your Own Food

You may apply to be a LAGG Dig-In garden recipient below if your intended edible garden location is in SOUTH LOS ANGELES and will be visible to the general public.

To date, LAGG has installed over 40 edible gardens.

Please fill out the survey below. A Dig-in coordinator will contact you to discuss your property and application. A site visit will be scheduled for qualifying applicants. We then select from applicants based on need, suitability, likelihood of success, and scheduling availability. You must have a suitable location and commit your time and resources to maintaining the garden. You must also volunteer at the LAGG Teaching Garden and/or another Dig-In to contribute sweat equity and gain knowledge needed to maintain your own garden.

Once selected, an LAGG coordinator will guide you through every step of the planning process of what we call a "Dig-in", or in other words, a garden party. With you, we'll select a Dig-In date. We discuss how LAGG will help you grow vegetables, culinary herbs and native plants in your own front yard. You invite your family, friends and neighbors to help. We bring the tools and additional volunteers and spend approximately 5 hours on the scheduled Dig-In date (typically a Saturday), converting your front lawn into an edible garden.

Our program is a fine example of building intentional communities, reimagining neighborhoods and encouraging sustainable living practices and so much more. Garden recipients participate in LAGG's harvest exchange, sustainable living workshops, and other gardening projects. And, as a recipient of our program, LAGG offers continuing gardening support and education to help you keep your garden thriving season after season.

Keeping it local, healthy and affordable.

Enter word(s) you want to search for below (to the left of "SEARCH").

LA Green Grounds would not exist without our many volunteers and donors! In fact, we are 100% volunteer-run.  We send a SHOUT OUT in particular to the following amazing supporters!

Carmel Partners - generous financial support

Elon Schoenholz - filmed and edit the Dig-In in 4 Minutes video

Landlease - generous financial support

Whole Foods SOMA - generous financial support

Sam Bresenden - installation of drip irrigation system

Help LA Green Grounds Celebrate Mother Earth and Her Day - Saturday, April 22, 2023. 

We'll be celebrating in the LA Green Grounds Teaching Garden, located in the Good Earth Community Garden near Carmona Ave. & Boden Street in Los Angeles 90016. 

Let us know what would be the most interest to you and if you're up to help!

PLEASE INDICATE IF YOU BE INTERESTED EACH BELOW BY SELECTING "YES" OR "NO"  

Kevin picked and shared some of his fabulous mustard greens this week.  I sautéed a bit of bacon and them added some of what I had on hand: mushrooms, squash, and garlic.  I tossed in the greens. Yum! Super delicious. The greens were incredibly delicious. 

- Florence Nishida, Master Gardener and LAGG Founder

1. First, I cut up the kuri and saved the seeds for planting next spring.
2. Then I sautéed the kuri until lightly brown and removed from pan.
3. In same pan, I sautéed the chicken that I had cut into bite-sized pieces.
4. I then tossed the kuri back into the pan, added 1 T miso, small bits of small julienned ginger, leftover green beans (you can also use or chard or spinach), dash of soy sauce, add enoki (or any kind of) mushrooms.
5. Heat and stir all.
6. Serve with rice and a green vegetable.

LA Green Grounds is so proud that MG Monthly featured our own Kevin Ridley in the September 2021 newsletter!

Hi all good gardeners, cooks, and enthusiastic eaters of fresh produce.

Here's a simple, tasty, EASY stir fry to make. 

I had some pretty old (in fridge over a week) parts of a chicory plant and didn't want to waste it.  And a bit of broccoli (not my favorite brassica).  So starting with sliced or chopped onions, a minced garlic, and oil, I flavored the pan, and then threw in the greens and about 1/4 cup water to steam.  The crowning touch is the mushroom - you can get those at most Asian markets. They're called "shimeji" or "beech" mushrooms. Put them in at the last 2 minutes, so they're nice and chewy. Flavor with oyster sauce, a bit of soy sauce, maybe ginger, and red pepper - mix into your stirred up greens.

ALL greens taste best when freshly harvested or purchased, but if they ended up at the back of your refrigerator, this is a good way to not waste.

- Florence Nishida, Master Gardener

A new item has sprouted up at L.A. Green Grounds. It grows on the inside, needs no water, and with luck will never fail. It’s a library.

The library can be found in a wooden box painted yellow and blue, at the junction of Carmona and Boden avenues. Next time you are near the garden, take a look at what’s on the shelves and take a book that appeals to you. Or, if you have books you’ve read and want to pass on, please leave them in the little library for others.

LAGG has the library thanks to the efforts of Veronica, one of the garden volunteers. She contacted the Downtown L.A. Rotary Club; one of its members had built a library in her neighborhood. Ronnie of the Inglewood Rotary Club donated the free library to L.A. Green Grounds; the chapter built and installed it on Sept. 14.

Since then, many books for all ages have been donated and borrowed.

One of the goals of the service organization is to increase literacy, so the libraries fit right in.

Plants of the LA Green Grounds teaching garden located at Boden St & Carmona Ave, Los Angeles 90016

Inventory Date: 7/3/2021

TREES

Apple (“Fuji”, “Red delicious x Virginia Rails Janet) Malus pumila
Banana (“dwarf Cavendish”) Musa acuminata
Fig (green) Ficus carica
Guava (Mexican) Psidium guajava
Guava (red Indian) Psidium guajava
Guava (pineapple) Feijoa sellowiana
Ice Cream Bean tree Inga edulis
Jujube Ziziphus jujube
Lemon (“Meyer”) Citrus x meyeri
Loquat Eriobotrya japonica
Mandarin Citrus reticulata
Pomegranate (“Wonderful”) Punica granatum
Sapote (White)
Casimiroa edulis
Sour Sop Annona muricata

VEGETABLES

Sunflower family:
Artichokes (“Globe”, “Italian purple”)
Chrysanthemum, edible “shungiku”
Cardoon
Letuuce “Simpson black seeded”, romaine
Sunchokes
Sun flowers

LEGUMES

(“Blue Lake” beans, pole;
Fava beans
Yard long beans; bush beans;
Hyacinth beans
Scarlet runner beans
Pigeon peas (black eyed beans)
Sugar snap peas

CABBAGE (brassica) family:

Arugula, wild
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts, purple
Cabbage “Violacea di Verona”
Cauliflower “sprouting cauliflower”, yellow Romanesco cauliflower
Chinese cabbage (bok choy, napa, loose leaf)
Collard greens: “Southern Georgia”, “Green Glaze”
Kale: dinosaur/black kale, frilly blue kale, Portuguese kale
Mizuna (Chinese mustard)
Mustard greens, Chinese mustard greens, Japanese purple mustard
Radish- red, breakfast, cylindrical, daikon

AMARANTHACEAE family 

Amaranthus
Beets: golden beets, Chioggia, Detroit red, cylindrical
Chard: rainbow chard

SOLANUMS (potato-tomato) family:
Eggplant, Japanese
Peppers: “shishito”, “serrano”, “poblano”, “padron”, red
Potato: white, butter ball, red-skinned
Tomato, “Juliet”, “Paul Robeson”, berry, “sungold”, “Better boy”

MELON (cucurbits) family

Bitter melon
Cucumber: “suyo”, “Jibai shimshirazu”, pickling
Luffah
Squash, summer: zucchini, yellow crooked neck, delicata
Squash, winter: “Kuri,” “Kabocha”
Watermelon, “Baby doll”

ONION family

Egyptian walking onions
Japanese bunching onions
Leeks
Chives
Garlic

SHRUBS

Toyon, aka California ‘holly’ (Heteromeles arbutifolia), CA native
Lemonade berry (Rhus integrifolia), CA native
Desert Mountain Turpentine Brush (Ericameria laricifolia) CA native
Mule fat (Baccheris salicifolia), CA native
Sagebrush (Artemisia pycnocephala), CA native
Desert bush sunflower (Encelia farinose), CA native
Red sage bush (Salvia ‘greggii’), Texas cultivar
English lavender
California poppy (Escholzia californica), CA native

HERBS

Sage (Salvia officinalis)
Marjoram (Oreganum majoranum)
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis)
Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)
Shiso, (Perilla frutescens var. crispa)
Shungiku (Chrysanthemum coronilla)
Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum)

1. CLICK ON LINK TO MONTHLY CALENDAR BELOW.
2. You may be prompted to log into your Google account. 
3. Then on DATE to ADD/REMOVE YOURSELF for volunteer day at the LAGG's Teaching Garden. 

SHIFTS: Tuesdays or Saturdays 10am - 2pm.

Maximum: 6 persons at a time.

2021 SEPTEMBER

2021 OCTOBER

2021 NOVEMBER

2021 DECEMBER

Be sure you have a signed, completed Release on file with Florence.

Volunteers in the garden need to be vaccinated, wear a mask except for eating and drinking, and maintain at least 3 feet distance at all times.

SHISO FURIKAKE

LAGG Founder and Master Gardener Florence Nishida shares how shiso, a Japanese herb (perilla in English) can be dried and then crumpled and used to make furikake. Furikake (furi means scatter and kake means put on in Japanese) is a condiment commonly used on top of rice and cold tofu. Florence made hers with the shiso, salt, sesame seeds, cayenne pepper and a little dash of sugar. Seaweed is a commonly included ingredient. Florence shows the rice balls she made, topped with a sprinkle of the furikake. 

COOKING KURI

Florence also shared kuri and how she cooked it. Kuri is an orange-fleshed, meaty squash. It can be used in any dish that other squash and potatoes are used.

TO PREPARE:

The most difficult part in preparing kuri is cutting it open. The skin is very hard, but once cooked it is soft and edible.

1. Cut the kuri into chunks.
2. Saute in sesame oil until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.
3. Make 2 cups dashi (a fish and seawood stock) broth: boil water and add a package of dashi and mix. 
4. Add broth to kuri, along with 1 Tbs. of soy sauce, a little mirin, and 1 tsp of sugar.
5. Cover pot with lid and simmer over low heat for about 10-15 minutes.

Video credit: Chad Cole