Vets’ Garden Supplies Eateries : Vegetables: Started by the VA as work therapy for Vietnam veterans, the 15-acre farm produces information as well as crops.
The produce you get in your arugula-with-goat-cheese salad at the trendiest restaurants always seems so much fresher than anything you can find in a supermarket. Where do the chefs get this stuff?
Many of the chic eateries--including City Restaurant and the Border Grill--find just what they need at the Veterans’ Garden, a 15-acre organic farm two minutes from the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and the San Diego Freeway in West Los Angeles.
You can visit Mondays from noon to 1 p.m.; fresh produce in season and bedding plants are for sale--at prices substantially below retail, in most cases.
For more of a treat, call first and ask for a tour. The farm is a delight for urban gardeners who long for the feel of furrowed fields underfoot.
The Veterans Administration started the farm in 1966 to provide work therapy for veterans returning from Vietnam.
The program’s coordinator, Ida Cousino, was there at the very beginning. “We had nothing but weeds,” she says. Nothing but weeds and a couple of dozen developmentally disabled veterans, all eager for work and a return to normal life.
Cousino is emphatic: The project is run as a farm , the farm isn’t run as a project. If its produce doesn’t meet the standards required of every other specialty farm, the food won’t get purchased. But the Vets’ Garden makes enough money that, unlike many government programs, it doesn’t take a big subsidy to keep it running.
“The Veterans Administration has paid only our salaries for the last two years,” Cousino says. “We’ve earned enough for everything else.”
Even the most casual of herb and vegetable gardeners can learn a great deal from a visit to the cheerful, immaculate farm. One of the first things you’ll notice is the widespread use of raised beds, which make it easier to work the soil and to control weeds.
Frames for the raised beds are simple to build: just construct a bottomless box of 1-by-6 boards in whatever size your yard can accommodate. Don’t get fancy--no mitered corners are necessary, and no shop teacher is going to grade your work. Hammer the boards together on their edges to form a rectangle. You can screw braces on the corners for strength if you’re feeling particularly energetic.
Some gardeners set their boxes on a thin layer of gravel to help improve drainage; others just put them right down on the yard. Pick the hottest, sunniest spot you can find--most vegetables and herbs do their best with plenty of light and warmth.
Fill the beds with compost and you’re ready to plant.
You can buy excellent compost at any nursery, or you can make your own. Having a steady supply handy for use around the yard is a real luxury for any gardener--every time you replant a bed or repot a fern you’ll be glad you have it.
The Veterans’ Garden has its own special recipe for compost.
“We use only horse manure, because its salt content is just 3% and it degrades in four weeks,” says foreman Roger Humes. Use one part manure to five parts of shredded leaves and grass and turn the compost pile every five days. Spray the pile with water occasionally.
You don’t need a fancy composter from high-priced catalogues. You can build a basic frame of 2-by-4s and staple chicken wire around the outside. Leave a flap open at the bottom on one side so you can shovel out the finished compost.
And here’s a good trick--put your compost pile behind a trellis planted with Hall’s honeysuckle (which is very drought resistant once established) or jasmine. Compost doesn’t smell nearly as bad as many people think, but you can completely disguise any odors with a fragrant plant.
The farm starts most of its plants from seeds, grown in table-top trays in a tidy lath house that allows for filtered sun while the plants are small. For the home gardener, it is probably easier to buy seedlings at a nursery--or during your visit to the Veterans’ Garden. Buy small. Plants tend to acclimate better if they’re put in when tiny; although they do take somewhat longer to get started.
For many people in Southern California, one of the most daunting aspects of trying to garden organically are pests. If the white flies don’t get your veggies, the aphids will. Try spraying your plants gently with the hose to wash aphids away; also, just pick off the bugs with your hands.
Or take a tip from the Vets’ Garden, where you’ll see strips hanging around the greenhouse that are virtually covered with dead white flies. You can order these nontoxic strips from Sea Bright Labs of Emoryville for $24.50 for a box of 100 (there are volume discounts, and the company takes credit cards). The strips are “Kodak yellow,” to which the flies are apparently drawn. The company has a free catalogue of other products for gardeners.
More tips from the Veterans’ Garden:
* You may be surprised at how long many vegetables and herbs can go without water. It’s a mistake to water frequently and lightly; much better to water irregularly and quite deeply. The Vets’ Garden waters its tomatoes only twice a week but totally floods the basins around the plants when it does.
* Purslane, a staple herb in French cooking, is allowed to grow as a ground cover around the tomatoes; it helps prevent evaporation. You should also be mulching heavily--up to five or six inches deep if you’re using material as permeable as straw.
* A fertilizer called Gro-Power, which is 95% organic and 5% nitrogen, may be used on an organic garden. The Vets’ Garden swear by it.
* Having trouble with ground squirrels eating your plants but hate to hurt the animals? You can catch the destructive critters with a “Have a Heart” trap for squirrels and release them in the country. You can find these traps in some well-equipped nurseries or in organic gardening catalogues.
The garden is located at 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. Make reservations for a tour by calling (213) 824-6771.
