Posts Tagged: Our Garden

Rachel Surls has cultivated a healthier LA County through gardens

UC Cooperative Extension advisor who promotes school gardens, urban agriculture to retire after 35-year career

A stroll through a leafy, green garden can give one temporary relief from life's harshness. During her career, Rachel Surls has used gardens to cultivate healthier communities, whether they are growing nutritious food or providing science lessons for students.

Over the past 35 years, Surls, University of California Cooperative Extension sustainable food systems advisor in Los Angeles County, has witnessed many changes – such as promoting public events on Instagram rather than typing and mailing press releases. A comforting and consistent presence has been the UC Master Gardener Program, part of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. 

“As I look back, the UC Master Gardener Program has been a constant in my work. It helps so many people,” said Surls, who joined UCCE as a school and community garden coordinator in 1988.

“My new job with UCCE-LA was my dream job. I organized community gardens around the county and supported teachers who wanted to start school gardens,” recalled the Michigan native, who plans to retire at the end of the year. “I had a bachelor's degree in agronomy and was freshly out of a stint with the U.S. Peace Corps in rural Honduras. My work there inspired me to pursue community development work related to gardening.”

Louisa R. Cardenas, trustee of Los Angeles County Natural History Museums, was a UC Master Gardener volunteer for 25 years.

“Among Rachel's many skills and assets are her willingness to listen to and consider ideas from Master Gardeners that eventually reach and empower Los Angeles County residents to grow food that supplements their nutritional needs,” Cardenas said. 

To complement the nascent UC Master Gardener Program in Los Angeles County, Surls organized “Gardening Angels,” a cadre of volunteers to work with teachers and students to develop school gardens. She edited a guide for teachers, parents and volunteers to build gardens for children.

“I met Rachel in 1992 and was so blessed to come up through the ranks with her,” said Rose Hayden-Smith, UCCE emeritus advisor in digital communications in food systems and extension education. “We were in neighboring counties, and had many similar programmatic interests, including school gardens. Her research informed my work and was so helpful to me.”

Advancing food security, community nutrition

In 1994, after earning her master's degree from Cal Poly Pomona in agricultural science with a focus on agricultural education, Surls accepted a newly created position: UC Cooperative Extension urban horticulture advisor.

To retain Los Angeles County funding in 1992, the UCCE staff had become part of the county's Housing Authority/Community Development Commission. As the UCCE urban horticulture advisor, Surls was tasked with developing gardens at five public housing sites. At one of these locations, Carmelitos Housing Development in Long Beach, she worked with community partners to select landscape trees, hire a greenhouse contractor and design a horticulture job training program for public housing residents. This site became known as the Growing Experience Urban Farm.

“I'm pleased that 29 years later, the Growing Experience is still an active community farm where UC Master Gardeners offer workshops for the community,” Surls said. 

In 1997, when George Rendell retired as director of UCCE in Los Angeles County, Surls applied for the job. For the next 14 years, she oversaw more than 70 employees and local programs, including the 4-H youth development program, which launched afterschool, hands-on learning for children. 

Surls, who participated in 4-H herself as a child, worked closely with 4-H funders. She helped secure grants, contracts and gifts for 4-H as well as the UC Master Gardener Program and UCCE nutrition programs for projects that encouraged Angelenos to eat more fruits and vegetables.

“Rachel was incredibly creative and innovative as a leader,” said Hayden-Smith, who served as director of UCCE in Ventura County. “Rachel models a kind of quiet leadership that invites people into the process, honors the group and moves work forward in important ways.” 

While working, Surls earned her Ph.D. in higher education administration at Claremont Graduate University in 2008, with an eye on pursuing other leadership roles. Instead, the global financial crisis inspired her return to working directly with Los Angeles County residents on urban gardening to reduce food insecurity.

To focus on outreach, the UCCE sustainable food systems advisor handed her UCCE director duties to Keith Nathaniel, UCCE 4-H advisor, at the end of 2011.

Developing, sharing resources for urban farming and gardens

In 2012, she organized colleagues within UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and community partners to study the needs of urban farmers and begin offering workshops for them. She led the development of an urban agriculture website, with resources covering business management, food safety, marketing and regulations. She served on the leadership board of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council and began advising cities on policies that would make it easier for residents to grow food.

“These have been my favorite and most productive years of my career,” Surls said.

Drawing on skills she began honing as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech as a news writer for the Virginia Extension Service, Surls co-authored a book about the history of agriculture in Los Angeles County, called “From Cows to Concrete: The Rise and Fall of Farming in Los Angeles.” She is currently working on a second book about urban farming in the U.S.

The Grow LA Gardens Initiative – which helps aspiring gardeners start their own gardens quickly – is one source of pride for Surls. Hundreds of people have taken the four-week course and, after participating, nearly 70% planted gardens. 

In 2018, Surls was honored with the Bradford-Rominger award by the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis for her work promoting community gardens, school gardens and urban agriculture.

With community gardens and school gardens now commonplace, Surls chuckles as she recalls veteran UCCE colleagues advising her to choose a more “serious” academic focus early in her career.

“It's gratifying to see so many people in academia working on farming in cities, school gardens and community gardens,” Surls said.

Advocating for equity

In 2022, while Surls was on sabbatical, she and Cardenas – the longtime UC Master Gardener volunteer – requested and received $100,000 from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to hire an equity, diversity and inclusion coordinator and to fund outreach. This UC Master Gardener project championed by Supervisor Sheila Kuehl specifically reaches underserved populations within the county. “Such a significant achievement would not have been possible without Rachel's encouragement and support,” Cardenas said.

After she retires, Surls plans to volunteer her expertise for online training of UC Master Gardener volunteers statewide. To support their program efforts including outreach to the Spanish-speaking community and scholarships for underserved communities, Surls has pledged to give $5,000 as a matching gift to donations to the UC Master Gardener Program in Los Angeles between Giving Tuesday, Nov. 28, and Dec. 31 at https://ucanr.edu/LAmastergardener.

Youth-run garden provides 10,000 pounds of produce for San Diego families

UC SAREP's Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems grant helps support Second Chance garden

Fifteen-year-old Xavier knows the anger within him will never leave. “I can't ever get rid of it,” he said.

“I've always wanted to just fight for no reason; I just had an anger issue, losing my temper quick with people,” added Xavier, a ninth-grader in San Diego County. “I have high expectations of myself.”

Xavier is working to keep his emotions under control, and he has found a sense of calm through his volunteer work. He was an intern – and then a peer supervisor – in the youth-run garden of Second Chance, a San Diego-based organization that works to break the cycles of poverty and incarceration by providing housing and job training to adults and young people.

Operating their garden as a small farm business, youth in the program, ages 14 to 21, offer produce to the community through their farm stand and a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) model.

“The project incorporates a ‘farm to fork' approach in which youth not only experience how to grow food, but how to cook and eat healthfully,” said Gail Feenstra, director of the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, which has a grant program that funds research and education projects – such as the youth garden – supporting sustainable food systems.

“Second Chance works primarily with youth in communities of color, providing them with training and also helping them develop confidence in themselves,” Feenstra said.

Filling a critical need for fresh produce

Caelli Wright, program manager of the Second Chance youth garden, said that grant funds from SAREP – a program of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources – have been used to purchase the supplies needed to sustain the program. The garden has filled a critical need for produce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“After the pandemic hit, we recognized the increased need for fresh food in our neighborhoods,” Wright said. “That need was already there – southeast San Diego is considered a ‘food swamp' or ‘food apartheid', if you will – and with the onset of COVID, that need just escalated with unemployment and complications in our food production systems.”

Through a partnership with UC San Diego Center for Community Health and Encanto Elementary School (located down the block from the garden), donations enabled the program to give its CSA shares to about 25 families at Encanto. Over the course of the pandemic, the youth have grown 10,000 pounds of produce to donate.

At the same time, the program helps the young participants grow. For Xavier, being outdoors with peers empowered him to develop positive relationships. Previously, as a student in a charter school program, he was not accustomed to interacting with people and groups. Volunteering in the youth garden has given him a fresh perspective and understanding of others.

“Learning to be patient with people and [to] accept sometimes that if I don't know something, I need to ask about it, because I used to be so in my ego that I thought I knew everything,” Xavier explained. “But I don't know everything – I just learned to accept some things…that's just being part of life. And that's something that the garden has helped me with, personally.”

Opportunities for personal, social growth

Developing – and redeveloping – social skills are especially important for students, as they return from the disconnections associated with remote learning.

“Right now, with a lot of students facing the aftermath of COVID and being restricted to learning at home and not getting as much social interaction in their daily lives, it's led to a lot of challenges, mental health-wise, and social and emotional learning-wise,” Wright said. “The garden program provides that opportunity that some youth have been missing out on.”

In southeast San Diego, such crucial opportunities for personal growth and career exploration are harder to come by, and Second Chance started the garden in 2012 to give youth a unique work experience and valuable skills. About 400 young people have participated in the program.

“The youth that we serve are coming from low-income neighborhoods that are underserved with resources,” Wright said. “They just are not exposed to the same opportunities [as those in higher-income areas] to build skills or be ready for the workforce or to reach higher education – so that's where our program comes in and helps deliver those needed services.”

Xavier, who originally came to the garden because he heard that landscaping could be a lucrative career, recently finished his second stint as a peer supervisor in the youth garden. With his new skills, he and his cousin are looking to start a business of their own, cutting grass and doing yardwork in their community.

And, late last month, Xavier transferred to a more traditional high school environment.

“Being in a charter school after two, three years,” he said, “I've realized I miss being around more people.”

UC ANR, local nonprofit grow community health in Inland Empire garden

A volunteer recovering from a drug addiction gives time regularly to help stay sober. An older person uses outdoor spaces to stay active, physically and socially, despite mobility issues. And a mother of four strives to teach her children what carrots look like before they become capsules in plastic bags.

While these San Bernardino County residents enjoy their hours within their community garden, the lessons and inspiration they derive travel much farther – forming the branches and roots of a stronger, healthier community.

Hence the name of this unique place in Ontario, the Seeds of Joy Community Garden.

“The goal is to not just grow in the garden, but to grow the community outside the gates as well,” said UC Master Gardener Elizabeth McSwain, whose nonprofit, Caramel Connections Foundation, has nurtured this project from its beginnings in 2018 as a small plot within the Huerta del Valle Garden.

The programs and classes were so well-received that McSwain and her partners and volunteers opened in April 2021 a much larger, 1-acre space within Anthony Muñoz Hall of Fame Park.

As a self-described “green heart with a brown thumb,” McSwain said the success of the garden would not be possible without the support of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) staff and volunteers.

McSwain, a restaurant owner, founded Caramel Connections Foundation in 2016 to offer culinary and healthy eating classes at the local Boys & Girls Club. During her first-ever visit to a community garden to attend a “herbs as medicine” class taught by UC Master Gardener Valerie Dobesh, McSwain had a life-changing conversation at an information table.

Maggie O'Neill, the UC Master Gardener program coordinator for UCCE in San Bernardino County, patiently answered McSwain's many questions about the program, which trains volunteers to spread research-based knowledge on home horticulture, pest management and sustainable landscape practices. 

“In regards to planting the seed in my heart, I can never say enough about Maggie,” McSwain said, “because Maggie's passion and her knowledge about gardening made me feel like…even though I didn't have the skill set, she made me feel as if I would be a good candidate for the Master Gardener program.”

McSwain graduated from the program in March 2021, equipped with the expertise to better support the volunteers and participants in an ever-blossoming variety of programs that serve a broad swath of the community.

“One of the key founding principles of this garden from the very beginning has been inclusivity and making sure that all community members feel welcome, celebrating many cultures, ethnicities and religions,” O'Neill said. “Elizabeth has made sure that the partners and organizations that are supporting this garden are equally diverse and inclusive so that the community members are able to see themselves represented in the people who are helping to bring this garden together.”

Seeds of Joy now features a Zen garden with succulents to raise drought awareness, a Read in Color Little Free Library emphasizing diverse cultural connections, a composting/vermicomposting bin system to highlight waste diversion (with a small orchard), a story time area for children, an outdoor classroom, a space for yoga classes, and an outdoor community kitchen that helps produce meals for facilities serving individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

“With food insecurity being such a major problem for San Bernardino County in general, even prior to COVID, the current epidemic of poor nutrition in our children is weakening the strength of our community,” McSwain explained. “We hope to play a part in helping to fix that in some way – healthy food and fitness are powerful essentials that are often overlooked.”

Residents of low-income housing units across the street will have priority for reserving plots in the heart of the garden – approximately 30 raised beds for growing fresh, organic produce. Although completion of those beds has been delayed due to COVID impacts, applications have already been coming in.

“Ultimately our goal is to teach Inland Empire families what's involved in maintaining an edible garden,” McSwain said. “We provide them with the basic tools.”

In addition to UC Master Gardener-led classes, other UC ANR programs are contributing to this educational hub within a historically underserved neighborhood. The Master Food Preserver Program volunteers will be offering workshops on how to safely preserve the community garden's harvests, while EFNEP (Expanded Food and Nutrition Program) educators will teach about eating nutritious, delicious food in a budget-conscious way.

“Our programs are a great complement to the garden and to each other because we teach people how to grow their own food, then teach them how to preserve it and how to make lifestyles changes for healthier, happier families,” O'Neill said. “With all of these classes offered free to the community through the UCCE, we are able to add incredible value to an already great project.”

Already, O'Neill has been showing community members how to “companion plant” – maximizing the limited space residents have to work with, by placing ecologically compatible plants next to each other so that they can mutually flourish.

Companion gardening is a fitting analogy for the power of collaboration – with local officials, community and corporate partners, and organizations such as UC ANR – in growing spaces and resources for the benefit of the entire community.

“Partnering with the Master Gardener program and the Master Food Preserver Program and EFNEP is the perfect partnership in that we're all trying to do the same thing,” McSwain said. “We're trying to help people make better choices and to give them the tools so that they can live better lives, and not necessarily have to rely on spending $500 at the grocery store to get organic products, and making a choice between paying your light bills or buying food.”

McSwain welcomes all community members to participate, engage, and visit the Seeds of Joy garden, located at 1240 W. Fourth St. in Ontario.

“I don't want it to be a secret garden,” she said. “We want the community to know that it's there for them, that it's there to enhance their life – to reduce the disparities in our community and to be able to just spark a love of gardening and bring joy.”

In addition to support from UC ANR programs, Seeds of Joy is made possible by the City of Ontario (Mayor Paul Leon, City Council, and former City Manager Al Boling), American Beverage Association, Beola's Southern Cuisine, CalRecycle, Huerta del Valle Garden, Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP), Inland Empire Resource Conservation District, Kellogg Garden Products, Mercy House, San Bernardino County, SLJ Pro Audio Services – among a host of other community partners.

CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE educators and promotoras teach children gardening to encourage healthy eating

When local promotoras - volunteer health workers - team with CalFresh Healthy Living, UC Cooperative Extension educators, magic happens in school gardens. Trained by Ceres Partnership for Healthy Families in Stanislaus County, promotoras encourage children to eat well by growing their own produce in school gardens.

In 2018, twenty promotoras  were trained to implement the Powerful People curriculum designed to engage community leaders. This is a partnership with Cultiva La Salud and Ceres Partnership for Healthy Families with funding support from Stanislaus County Health Services Agency. After the training, the promotoras worked with Ceres Unified School District to create school gardens at five Ceres elementary schools where their children attended afterschool programs that host UC Cooperative Extension CalFresh Healthy Living, UC programs.

A key initiative CalFresh, Healthy Living, UC (CFHL) offers in counties throughout the state involves growing fresh produce and making it a regular part of family diets. TWIGS: Youth Gardening and Healthy Eating Curriculum is a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources comprehensive curriculum with 16 garden lessons and 15 nutrition lessons available for free download from its website.

CFHL has teamed with promotoras in Stanislaus County since 2018 to ignite local participation in teaching children that participate in garden clubs about plant and nutrition science, from building soil to creating sumptuous salads. Two years ago, a new UCCE community education specialist was assigned to the project, Rosalinda Ruiz. A native Spanish speaker and a mother herself, Ruiz quickly developed close relationships with the promotoras.

“She's not just their teacher. They look to her as a mentor and a friend,” said Jaci Westbrook, CalFresh Healthy Living, UC Community Education Supervisor for Stanislaus and Merced counties.

Ruiz is also a certified UC Master Gardener, having completed rigorous coursework in sustainable food gardening, pest management, irrigation practices and soil health. She realized the TWIGS curriculum would reach more students if she taught the promotoras how to implement the lessons at school sites.

“This empowered the promotoras to gain knowledge and gave them a different purpose,” Westbrook said. “They don't need to rely on others to offer activities. Working in pairs or small groups, they are reaching 100 to 135 elementary school students themselves.”

Ruiz marvels at the many benefits of food gardening.

“Learning about gardening is the best thing families can do to teach their kids about healthy foods,” Ruiz said. “To grow your own food is a way to get fresh, nutritious food in your home. When kids see the fruit and vegetables growing and they're part of it, they are more willing to try it out.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, promotoras instruction continued online using Zoom, which was completely new to them, and with WhatsApp, a familiar platform for promotoras to communicate among themselves.

The students are also getting virtual instruction. Promotoras have become proficient at Zoom and are offering simple garden lessons. Socially distanced in-person gardening lessons are also resuming to give children hands-on experience growing their own food.

UCCE advisor and Victory Garden historian Rose Hayden-Smith retires

UC Cooperative Extension advisor Rose Hayden-Smith has taught schoolchildren at 4-H summer camps about food, inspired Master Gardener volunteers to plant school gardens, led the UC Cooperative Extension office in Ventura County as its first female director, and encouraged fellow University of California scientists to collaborate more on sustainable food systems research as a statewide leader. In recent years, the historian wrote a book about Victory Gardens, created the UC Food Observer, and became a leader in using social media to expand the university's public outreach.

Hayden-Smith, who joined UC Agriculture and Natural Resources in 1992, is reinventing herself again after retiring Jan. 3, 2020. She has been selected to be a Fellow for the eXtension Foundation, to promote adoption of new technology by Cooperative Extension professionals nationwide. She also launched her own consulting business, Shine Communications.

“I've loved the multi-faceted aspect of my UC career, which has enabled me to serve my community and my colleagues in creative and meaningful ways,” Hayden-Smith said.

Lynnette Coverly was a 4-H volunteer when Hayden-Smith joined UCCE Ventura County.

“Rose struck me immediately as a passionate and organized leader who easily motivated everyone she came in contact with,” Coverly said. “She motivated me personally to get more involved as a 4-H volunteer leader.

“For my daughter, Rose continually spoke with her about how to practically apply her education and the skills she learned in 4-H to her collegiate life and later, in dental school.”

Sandy Curwood worked with Hayden-Smith when the UC Cooperative Extension 4-H youth, family and community development advisor in Ventura County and renowned Victory Gardens expert helped connect Ventura Unified School District school gardens to classroom curriculum with the school cafeteria. Curwood was director of Food and Nutrition Services at the Ventura Unified School District.

“At Loma Vista Elementary School, Rose developed an experiential demonstration garden for the fourth-grade classes,” said Curwood, who is currently director of School Nutrition Programs at the Virginia Department of Education. “Crops introduced by the Spanish and native California crops used by the Indians, grown on the grounds of the California Missions to feed the complex, were grown by students in the school garden to replicate this important part of California history and culture.” 

Hayden-Smith worked with Loma Vista Elementary School teachers annually to integrate the school garden with their California history curriculum and persuaded the kitchen staff to add the garden-grown foods to the cafeteria salad bars so the students could taste them.

“Rose also provided professional development to the school nutrition program foodservice staff on the agriculture present in Ventura during WWI and II and the contribution of local Victory Gardens to the war effort. It really brought history to life and amplified their work and community connections from a historical perspective.”

During a sabbatical leave, Hayden-Smith worked with deaf and hard-of-hearing students in garden settings. She teamed with the City of Ventura to pilot-test a curriculum for middle-school age youth about sustainability through fun garden activities.

A career day at the county science fair, agriculture and natural resource journalism academies, and on-farm programs for court-mandated kids were some other learning opportunities offered by Hayden-Smith, who served as a county commissioner for juvenile justice.

“Most recently, I've been working in digital communications in Extension, which has been a wonderful fit for my skills and evolving interests,” Hayden-Smith said. “This work has also brought me back to my early career work in marketing and technology.” 

An early adopter of technology, Hayden-Smith began blogging and using Twitter in 2008 as @VictoryGrower, a handle chosen to reflect her expertise in the war-time Victory Garden movement.

“It's a different ‘victory' now, but many of the goals are the same,” Hayden-Smith said. “Gardens connect people with food and food production. Food is fundamental. It's what everyone shares in common. As we are entering a more challenging era of increased population and pressure on resources, it is vital for people to understand how to cultivate food.”

Over the years, the practicing historian has delivered many presentations, commented for documentaries and podcasts and published articles about gardens. She published a book, “Sowing the Seeds of Victory: American Gardening Programs of World War 1” in 2014. 

While serving as a Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow, beginning in 2008, Hayden-Smith developed a national media and education campaign to promote school, home and community garden efforts and public policies, publishing articles in the Huffington Post and Civil Eats. She served on the USDA People's Garden Advisory Group, visiting the White House garden groundbreaking and again in 2012, when she live-tweeted her experience.

People increasingly took notice of the academic's extraordinary communication skills.

As the social media maven's following grew, she began mentoring and encouraging UC Cooperative Extension colleagues who wanted to use social media for outreach and professional networking. 

In 2011, Hayden-Smith, who had developed a reputation for being upbeat with a knack for cultivating cooperation, was tapped to lead UC ANR's strategic initiative in sustainable food systems. She was honored for her leadership, work ethic and integrity in 2013, when the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis presented her with the Eric Bradford and Charlie Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award.

To support UC's Global Food Initiative, Hayden-Smith was asked to curate a selection of news, reports and thought pieces from a broad range of sources that represent diverse perspectives on food. The intent was not to focus on UC, but to facilitate discussions about food that were occurring across many communication platforms. She launched the UC Food Observer blog in 2015 and complemented it with social media.

“Over the course of my UC career, I've worked with the best people: curious, driven to improve communities and inspiring all around,” Hayden-Smith said. “I've been blessed to work for a world-class institution that has fostered my creativity and need for new challenges. My biggest takeaway? It all goes so fast, the possibilities for learning new things are endless, and work – and the people you work with – are a blessing.”

Prior to working for UC, Hayden-Smith worked in the technology sector as a product manager, and public relations and marketing manager for a number of companies, including Tymshare, Wavefront Technologies and McDonnell Douglas Information System Group. She earned her bachelor's degree in English, master's degrees in education and US. history, and a Ph.D. in U.S. history and public historical studies. She began her UC career in 1989 as a student affairs officer at UCSB advising re-entry students.

 “Transitions are hard, and I'm filled with both sadness and excitement,” Hayden-Smith said.

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