Doing good with Long Beach’s food philanthropists

Long Beach sprouted out of an agrarian dream, a pastoral fantasy of bean fields and beaches that sustained entire generations before the onset of the city’s industrial complex. But as happens with the immutable laws of progress, those plots all eventually disappeared, family farms and cultural traditions wiped out by time. With that came not just a divorce from the land, but a fundamental shift in thinking that has left many of our friends and neighbors without access to or understanding of good, fresh food. Long Beach, however, is blessed now with a whole community of food philanthropists: gardeners, cooks, activists and organizations all using their green thumbs for good. They’re reconnecting with the soil, and with Long Beach itself—feeding us, teaching us and reminding us of the simple pleasures (and power) of food. It’s not a new vision, but an eternal one, a return to the time when local, seasonal produce dictated diets and compassion compelled those more fortunate to extend a helping hand.

Jimmy Ng
The Growing Experience

PHOTO by HEATHER X

In a forested corner of North Long Beach, Jimmy Ng treads across the grounds of the Growing Experience. He shares a proud smile as he surveys the land, the crunch of gravel beneath his feet and the dewy drops of almost-autumn in the air.

He scans the garden and singles out a row of drought-tolerant native plants, then points to patches of blueberries and strawberries. A few feet away are end-of-the-season tomatoes (Ng harvested over 30 kinds of heirloom tomatoes and sold about 500 pounds of them this summer) and eggplants so heavy it’s a wonder gravity hasn’t already plucked them from the vine.

Most astounding is a plot that utilizes “no-dig gardening,” a process that begins with a layer of wet newspaper, then a sprinkling of bone meal or blood meal and finally some alfalfa and straw. “We plant right on top of that,” Ng explains. “It grows like crazy.”

There’s an enthusiasm in Ng’s voice now, a percolating pride that wells up at each turn through the garden. You get the feeling, however, that it’s not just for what the Growing Experience is or what he has accomplished as project manager, but for what the garden stands for and what everyone has achieved.

Ng has been a part of the Growing Experience since its inception in 1996, an urban farming project that reclaimed and transformed an empty lot adjacent to the Carmelitos public housing project. Carved out of two separate spaces, the six-acre garden supplies fresh, local and low-cost produce to residents through a biweekly farmers market and also includes 60 individual plots for residents to grow their own vegetables. There is, of course, a waiting list.

Collaboratively run by the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission and the University of California Cooperative Extension, the Growing Experience cultivates not just produce, but passion, too. And not just on behalf of Jimmy Ng—the garden has changed lives.

There’s perhaps no greater story than that of Manuel Cisneros. After his auto-repair shop was destroyed in the 1992 LA Riots, Cisneros, his wife and four children moved to Carmelitos to rebuild their lives between the walls of a one-bedroom apartment. Cisneros eventually enrolled in the Growing Experience’s job-training program, which provides participants both classroom knowledge and soil-level experience. Through the program, Cisneros learned English, as well as invaluable gardening skills that propelled him toward the position of agricultural program coordinator for the Growing Experience.

But Cisneros’ success isn’t unique. That same job-training program also provides job-search and job-placement services, which have helped a number of graduates move out of public housing and even purchase their own homes. The garden also runs a summer youth program, which teaches not only landscaping but also the kind of foundational work ethics that shape entire lives.

All this has helped rehabilitate a community that was, by even the most generous accounts, troubled.

“I’ve seen the neighborhood improve a lot since starting [at the Growing Experience] 13 years ago. When residents come to the garden, they tend to be a lot more relaxed and over time have taken ownership in the community,” Ng says. “I’d like to think that the Growing Experience had a part in achieving the neighborhood improvement, as it draws people together in a non-threatening way with the goal of growing food. What could be more simple and satisfying?”

Ng says the Growing Experience owes much of its success to the dedicated support of Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe and the housing commissioners of the Los Angeles County Housing Authority. And while he’s quick to acknowledge all of the program’s supporters, it’s quite clearly a list too long to detail—one that includes the city of Long Beach, along with state and federal sources.

His feet planted again in the garden’s gravel, Ng seems in awe of the Growing Experience’s own growth. Even as he recounts selling 700 pounds of figs and plots the production of a Growing Experience pesto, Ng says there’s still room for more development. And that’s not even taking into account the fact that the Growing Experience already houses 20 chickens. “We have them for their eggs. They’re free-range; they’re organic. . . . These are the chickens that won the lottery,” Ng jokes.

As the garden has expanded, so, too, has its harvest. It’s so large, in fact, that the Growing Experience now yields more produce than the residents can reasonably consume. So Ng has taken the next step and begun selling surplus produce to restaurants and companies like beachgreens, a local farmers market delivery service. Ng also acknowledges that with the roiling momentum of the green movement, there’s a distinct opportunity to further build the program and replicate its successes at virtually any of the area’s low-income housing communities.

And yet, Ng’s happy where he’s at.

“To me, just being here where we are is the future. Here in the middle of North Long Beach, there wasn’t much access to nature. Kids hadn’t seen vegetables growing. We give them that. To me, that’s exciting every day.” MILES CLEMENTS

To learn more about the Growing Experience, visit lacdc.org.

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Tags: adriana martinez, ANARCHY IN THE GARDEN, carmelitos, cindy goss, days of taste, fallen fruit, food finders, jimmy ng, Long Beach, north long beach, paul buchanan, primal alchemy, socal harvest, the growing experience, wrigley village community garden