This week finds Joe and Nathan in Richmond, CA for a behind the scenes visit with Annie Hayes of world-renowned Annie’s Annuals and Perennials. From humble beginnings in her own back yard to two and a half acres of prime San Francisco real estate and a tremendous following, Annie now offers some 3,000 varieties of hard to find and rare heirloom annual and perennial plants preserving them for generations to come.
Annie explains that plants are given away once they have outgrown their 4″ pots
Each and every plant in Annie’s inventory is grown organically from seed exposed to the elements, not protected in a greenhouse environment. Her philosophy, and she has the successful plants to prove it, is that plants perform better in the garden if they are not forced into blooming early as with the typical nursery trade. Because her focus is on developing a strong root system rather than flowers or fruit, her plants are therefore healthier and establish more quickly.
One of the more unusual aspects of her business is that they only sell plants in 4” pots. So, Joe wants to know what happens to them when they’ve outgrown that space. Annie donates the plants to local community organizations, local schools and Urban Tilth.
Urban Tilth’s gardens are open to the community for harvesting
Urban Tilth is an organization dedicated to teaching children the skills they can use to grow their own food. They have agriculture programs for youth from kindergarten to twelfth grade and offer free workshops to the community on gardening and sustainability. Located along a bike path nearby these gardens are tended by the children but the harvest is open to anyone in the community.
This part of their Mission Statement says it all “Urban Tilth has a deep commitment to West Contra Costa County. We believe that environmental restoration is inextricably connected to economic and social restoration. As a result we are committed to training and employing local people, working collaboratively within community, establishing cross sector coalitions, engaging in local policy decisions and growing our food (and ourselves), locally and organically using the principles of permaculture to take into consideration waste reduction as well as water and soil conservation, preservation and restoration”.
Also in this episode, our plant propagation specialist, Brie Arthur shares some of the tips the professionals use to make sure their seeds get off to the best start possible. Later, Joe Lamp’l offers some good ideas for how to make sure the plants you’re buying at the nursery come home without the risk of bringing pests or diseases with it.
And finally, chef Nathan whips up a delicious summertime treat using one of his favorites…tomatoes. Enjoy the show!
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Growing A Greener World is a national gardening series on Public Television that features organic gardening, green living and farm to table cooking. Each episode focuses on compelling and inspirational people making a difference through gardening. This gardening series covers everything from edible gardening and sustainable agriculture to seasonal cooking and preserving the harvest.
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This seriously sound so good! I have only had gazpacho once when I made it as a part of a cuisine class in the Basque Country. This version with the watermelon sounds particularly delicious. I am thinking about how a yellow gazpacho would be. Yellow peppers, yellow tomatoes, yellow watermelon, lemon cucumber, white onion, with specks of green from the cilantro. I feel like that you be a great twist on this recipe. Besides Yellow Gem watermelon and Lemon cucumber, there are various choices for the other yellow fruits to choose from here, http://sustainableseedco.com/Organic-Seed/ and I would love to see if I could pull this off! I was looking at yellow and orange varieties anyway, so it won’t be too hard to get the ingredients once I plant the seed! Great recipe, thanks!