Monday, February 25, 2013

Suport LA's Local Breweries: Yes Beer is Agriculture!!!!!

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to have gone on a FREE, yes FREE docent led walk through the murals of LA's Art District. This was sponsored by the Craft and Folk Art Museum and led by the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles.  If you ever get the chance to go on one of these tours---do it!

Here's a couple of photos of some murals I saw on Saturday:




While I was on the tour I noticed so many new and fun places to eat and drink in the Arts District, including my favorite brewery Angel City Brewery, while it might not be new, it was new to me to see the building they have settled in on Alameda and 2nd, and they had a tour starting so I took the tour and sampled a couple of brews I hadn't tried.

Here's Angel City's own little mural:




And, the address/front of the building is 216 S. Alameda


Beer!


Now, you might be thinking, it sounds like you had a great day, lots of fun but what does your outing have to do with agriculture? Well, beer is made from barley and hops and craft beer making is not just a new/old home hobby coming back, but craft breweries throughout LA have popped up and they were one of the oldest farm related businesses in Los Angeles.

So, I wrote my Care2 post this week about local "craft" breweries. Like local produce, local breweries provide the community with many beneifts, read it here.

And, watch this blog for a future post about how Angel City Brewery has come full circle, ending up in the Arts District, near where LA's original breweries were and Wine Country was along the Los Angeles River.


Monday, February 11, 2013

Seed Library of LA Meeting This Saturday



Join the Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA) on Saturday, February 16th, from 2:30-4:00 pm for their monthly meeting, presentation and library hours.

This month, SLOLA Chair David King presents "Sex in the City: Lessons from Urban Pollination"

Description from their site: "All the published work on seed saving supposes we are saving seeds out in the country side with miles and miles of horizon. This is not exactly what we deal with and therefore their conclusions are not necessarily applicable to our work. From practical experience, David King will explain how most modern research on plant pollination deviates from our reality and how we can use this data, adapting it to our specific situation to save seed without making ourselves crazy."

All SLOLA meetings are free and open anyone. HOWEVER, a lifetime membership costs only $10 and you can check out heirloom and non-GMO seeds from the library with your membership.

They just received a huge donation from Baker Creek this December.

Meetings are held at: The Learning Garden at Venice High School (13000 Venice Blvd, enter on Walgrove).

If you aren't sure what a seed library is, read a bit about them and also about seed swapping in my Healthy and Green Living posts on Care2.