A master gardener transforms a South L.A. food desert into an edible oasis
“I wanted the garden to demonstrate food growing but also natural history — the connections between plants, insects, birds, humans, the soil, mulches,” Nishida says.
By Lisa Boone
Los Angeles Times
Dec. 10, 2020
Excerpt:
When a woman from a nearby apartment hesitantly wanders into the demonstration garden without a face mask, master gardener Florence Nishida immediately grabs one for her and proceeds to show her around the L.A. Green Grounds demonstration garden.
“That is quintessential Florence,” says Rachel Surls, sustainable food systems advisor for University of California Cooperative Extension in Los Angeles County. “She is an amazing mentor and teacher to so many people. She would never send somebody away.”
“Do you like spinach?” Nishida asks. She bends down to tear off a piece of the Malabar variety for the woman: The leaf is crunchy and tastes like lemon and pepper. “It is great cooked with Indian spices,” Nishida says. “Did you know it was discovered by botanist Joseph Banks? He sailed with Captain Cook.”
Teaching comes naturally to Nishida. The 82-year-old worked as a high school English teacher in Lincoln Heights and a librarian for People magazine before becoming a master gardener and urban farming advocate. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of the garden and can connect plants to historical anecdotes as if recalling a card catalog number. (“Green Glaze is the oldest available variety of collard grown in North America,” she says while tearing off samples. “It was probably in Thomas Jefferson’s garden.”) She is a strong supporter of plants that have a long harvest season and offers her patrons suggestions on how to cook them.
