In a phone interview this week, Weeks excitedly described a signature meal featuring her own garden bounty— Swiss chard or kale cooked up with eggs and topped with fresh cilantro. Sometimes, she’ll mix in some chopped tomatoes or salsa.
It’s no surprise that she has a passion for the garden, where even in the front yard, cauliflower, cabbage and eggplant will peek out amongst the other plants— she’s also the chair of the Long Beach Group of the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Even before the Long Beach Water Department bumped up the warnings to conserve water by declaring a Stage 2 Water Supply Shortage last year, Weeks had already torn out the front lawn in favor of a more drought-friendly landscape. She opted to choose more Mediterranean plants.
She acknowledges that some homeowners have opted for a sparser desert landscape for their home, but she prefers a more colorful area that would still look good throughout the year.
“The whole English-cottage garden that we were very enamored with as a society has no place in Southern California either,” she said in a phone interview, explaining that the giant green lawns might be great in England, but not in this region.
“But they don’t belong here any more than Eskimo igloos belong here,” Weeks said. “They’re just from a completely different climate.”
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Screen-Shot-2016-05-05-at-3.59.06-PM.png” align=”left” lightbox=”on” caption=”Swiss chard and cabbage are among the variety of vegetables that Long Beach resident Gabrielle Weeks grows at her home in Bluff Heights.” captionposition=”left”] She’s been able to save H2O by watering her plants with a spray hose, not a sprinkler system, and she’s been able to tend to the plants individually, keeping the plants that need a little more frequent watering closer to the water spigot. She doesn’t have to water every day. During the summer, she might use the hose every other day and then less frequently during the cooler months.
She makes the point that the plants require much less water than grass would need.
Long Beach and other cities already promote drought-friendly landscapes through programs, including the Lawn to Garden program, but there are limits for those who are hoping to live off the land if they want to choose plants on the preferred list of drought-friendly flora from the water department.
There aren’t that many choices for food on that list. Donna Marykwas, founder of Long Beach Grows, an organization that promotes urban agriculture, underscored that concern in a statement sent to the Signal Tribune.
“I believe the City’s Lawn to Garden program does not include food gardens,” she said, “although I had brought up this idea at a community meeting in the past. There is a list of approved plants that one must choose from. It would really be great if the City would allow food gardens in their Lawn to Garden program.”
On May 14, the Long Beach Water Department will host an annual tour of the Lawn to Garden homes that have participated in the program. Kaylee Weatherly, a spokesperson for the water department, acknowledges that no homes featured on the tour have an edible garden. The program offers $2.50 for every square foot of grass that’s replaced by drought-friendly landscaping in the front yard, with a limit of up to 1,000 square feet.
“There are a few houses that used rosemary and thyme,” Weatherly added. “Most edible plants are not drought tolerant, so there are very few edible plants that are allowed in the Lawn to Garden program.”
There are ways to save water and still have a vegetable garden, insists green-thumbed enthusiasts like Christy Wilhelmi, author and founder of gardenerd.com . Wilhelmi has lectured on bio-intensive methods for gardens in small spaces at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. She said that about 70 to 80 percent of the produce she and her husband consume comes from her garden, which covers only about 200 square feet.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Screen-Shot-2016-05-05-at-3.59.11-PM.png” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”The Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific displays this purple sage along with other varieties of vegetation to highlight the diversity of drought-friendly plants available in Southern California. ” captionposition=”right”] Wilhelmi had at first started out planting things in her patio and then practiced on a community garden until she eventually moved into her home with her husband to build a better way to irrigate her yard.
“So I went from super low tech to [the] fancy Cadillac of irrigation,” she added, explaining that at her home in Mar Vista, she relies on a drip-irrigation system and six rain barrels, including four that are dedicated to the vegetable garden. She only turned on the drip-irrigation system last year in June and September. During the other 10 months, she relied only on the rain barrels.
She planned her garden well and built raised beds out of composite lumber and used higher-quality compost and soil blends, but she said that beginners shouldn’t be intimidated by the gardening process. During the hot weather months, beginners can plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, beans, and squash since they can “produce prolifically,” she said.
Wilhelmi is a vegetarian. She said that it’s important for people to grow for themselves, adding that “there’s a connection that we’re missing as human beings to where our food comes from.” She said that was her mission— to help people relearn that skill to provide their own food.
“And it’s so satisfying,” Wilhelmi concluded. “I mean you can pat yourself on the back just about any day of the week when you grow your own lettuce,” she said laughing. “It’s really easy.”
For carnivores, there is one use for a drought-tolerant plant that could be overlooked. Some drought-tolerant plants like the century plant, also known as the agave Americana or maguey, have traditional uses to flavor meat.
Bertha Sanchez, owner of Patricia’s Restaurant, has fond memories of one particular use of the maguey. She remembers how her grandfather used to make barbacoa on his ranch in Jalisco, Mexico.
Back then, he dug a hole in the ground, lit mesquite wood to warm rocks from the river, placed meat (often beef, goat or sheep) wrapped in maguey leaves inside the pit and covered everything with stones then dirt. It wasn’t exactly a campfire, since the meat roasted below ground and was fully covered.
Cooks at Patricia’s Restaurant prepare the dish differently than this traditional method, she said. The restaurant’s barbacoa is flavored with cloves, pepper and garlic and then cooked in a pot.
Sanchez hasn’t eaten the barbacoa cooked the traditional way since her grandfather passed away 15 years ago, she said in a phone interview, and Sanchez also acknowledged that a pit in the ground might be a little impractical for the restaurant.
It is still drought season, and there are already warnings of the risk of wildfires. Adventurous eaters wanting to try a barbacoa pit at home should check first with their local fire department. A spokesperson for the fire marshal’s office at the Long Beach Fire Department said that individuals would need to apply for a ceremonial fire permit.
More information
Long Beach Water Department
LBwater.org
(562) 570-2300
Gardenerd.com
