Barbara Wartman

By: Barbara

Mar 03 2010

Tags: Agriculture, Artichokes, California, Farm and Food Lab, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Master Gardener, Onion Flower, Orange County, Photography, Sweet Peas, UCCE Master Gardener

Category: California, Flowers, Garden, Vegetables

2 Comments

This year has been an interesting mix of good and bad. I won’t delve into the bad part except to say — no job and no paycheck in too long a time. Damn, stinking economy! But, because I have the time, I decided to resurrect a few things that I had to put aside while I was working 70 hours a week at the advertising agency.

Photography was one of them and I’ve been hard at work polishing my shooting skills. Another enduring interest of mine is gardening. At some point last year (Hello?! Anybody there?), I realized that I had the time to do something I’d been wanting to do for a very long time — become a Master Gardener.

To my delight, I was accepted into the University of California Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardner’s program here in Orange County. The 16-week course is halfway done and every learning-intensive minute has been a complete joy.

Volunteering is an integral part of the program and this has led me to discover the agricultural roots and underpinnings of this seemingly “urban” county. One of the really special places is the Farm and Food Lab at the Great Park in Irvine. This is a demonstration garden and education lab. It will be expanded soon to include a community garden, a farmers market and a working 80-acre farm.

I took these pictures in the raised beds there.