Come And Celebrate "30 Years of Farmers' Markets in Los Angeles"

Just a quick post to let you all know about a great event coming up this Thursday, September 3. It's,"30 Years and Growing," a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Los Angeles’ first farmers’ market.

Many people aren't aware that the Gardena Farmers' Market, which opened June 23, 1979, was the first market in Southern California. This anniversary is going to be celebrated at LA City Hall and will include Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Evan Kleiman of KCRW's Good Food, Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner Kurt Floren, Jonathan Gold the LA Weekly's Pulitzer-Prize winning food critic, and many organizers and farmers from the original Gardena Farmers' Market.

There will also be a salsa contest, several urban farmers from around LA , a "Taste The Harvest" Booth, more than 40 local farmers, prepared foods and fresh food vendors as well as local artisans, and of course, birthday cake!

When: September 3, 2009, 10am – 2pm
Where: Lawn of City Hall, 1st and Spring St. Downtown Los Angeles

For more info, check out their site http://locallygrownla.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/hello-world/

This wonderful even is being sponsored by some great organizations and groups including Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles (SEE-LA) and the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College.

Today (August 26) is Women's Equality Day

I just wanted to remind everyone that today is Women's Equality Day, a celebration of the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 that acknowledged the right of women to vote! This photo shows only a small part of how long it took and how hard it was for us to "get" the vote. We should never forget that.

This interesting piece on HuffPo today by Luis R. Burgos First Deputy Commissioner, New York Division of Human Rights points out, we still have work to do: "Gender discrimination still exists, most notably in the work place. Women are paid 78 cents on average for every dollar earned by men." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luis-r-burgos-jr/womens-equality-day-some_b_268782.html

And this quiz from the National Women's History Project is a great way to get the discussion going and to remind us it took 72 years for women to "get" the votehttp://www.nwhp.org/resourcecenter/equalityday_quiz.html

LA Farm Girl Quoted in LA Times

I normally don't do "bragging" posts but this one is not really about me, but about James Hatano, the last farmer left on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. I have talked to him many times and included him in my book and was interviewed about farming on the Peninsula by the Times' reporter, Jeff Gottlieb who did the story that's in today's paper and he included a quote I gave him about the importance of our farms and farmers. It's called, "The Palos Verdes Peninsula's last farmer"

Here's the link:http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lastfarmer21-2009aug21,0,5303873.story

Here's a photo of Hatano Farm from my book.

LA Farm Girl's City Farm is Growing

These are some photos I took of my garden over the past week or so. It's really growing and I have had some great zucchini, beans, tomatoes and basil.

My green beans are coming in great now and they are yummy!

And, the avocado tree seems to be coming back after the severe "trimming" it got!

The zinnias are not only providing great color from my office window, but they are doing their job, attracting bees and other "good" guys!