Posts By Anne Meyer Byler
Ontario Community Garden Offers Hope and Health to Neighborhood in Need
May 24, 2016 | Anne Meyer Byler
Photo Courtesy of Huerta del Valle Community Garden.
Huerta del Valle Community Garden is a thriving community garden that offers hope and a source of fresh, healthy produce to residents of an Ontario neighborhood struggling with high concentrations of poverty, obesity and food access.
The garden took shape in 2010 when former Pitzer student Morgan Bennett organized local community members to create a garden on the site of a former elementary school. Today, 62 area families have plots in the garden and often sell the wide variety produce that they grow to community members.
Arthur Levine, who currently works as farm manager at Huerta del Valle Community Garden, would like to see the community garden model that has been established here replicated.
“Our interest would be to see that the whole city has gardens like this one,” says Levine. “We want to see one garden every mile. Each garden would be part of everyone’s life in some way.” Read More
On Land Once Owned by University of California, Riverside, UCR Student Launches Avocado and Citrus Venture
May 19, 2016 | Anne Meyer Byler
MIchael Johnson of Coronet Corner Grove in Riverside, CA with avocados and citrus that he grows and sells at the local farmers market, to the Riverside Food Co-op and through other local outlets. (Photo courtesy of Michael Johnson).
On agricultural land once used by the University of California, Riverside (UCR) for the development of the hybrid Gwen Avocado, Michael Johnson, a student who coincidentally happens to be attending UCR, has launched a burgeoning local food and farming venture.
Johnson has since rechristened the two acre plot of land, which his father purchased from UCR in 1995 as ‘Coronet Corner Grove.’
As a kid, he grew up working and playing on the farm land to which his father added oranges, grapefruits, lemons, limes, kumquats and loquats to complement the avocados already growing there.
The farm slowly became a part of him and in 2012, when he was just 18, Johnson saw an opportunity to take advantage of the growing demand for local produce and create an economically viable farming enterprise. So, he launched ‘Coronet Corner Grove’ and began handing out business cards and selling his produce at the Riverside Certified Farmers’ Market. Read More
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