Huntington Ranch digs roots into urban garden concept

The salad factory at Huntington Ranch.

The Huntington Library’s 15-acre project, featuring vegetable gardens and orchards, is part of a larger endeavor focused on the best way to grow food in a city setting.

By Mary MacVean,
Los Angeles Times
November 20, 2010

Excerpt:

Today’s enthusiasm for urban agriculture — or to put it more romantically, kitchen gardens — would seem more than familiar to millions of Americans who lived during the world wars.

“We’re just going back and claiming our heritage,” Rose Hayden-Smith, a historian and victory garden expert, said at an urban agriculture conference marking the opening this month of the Huntington Ranch, a 15-acre project at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.

She noted that rooftop gardens have been around since ancient Rome and that urban agriculture in this country once meant growing food in Boston Common. School gardens are nothing new, and formerly empty urban spaces have been used to grow food in this country for more than a century.

The Huntington Ranch was designed to tackle the subject for a new generation. The vegetable gardens, fruit orchards and experimental plots northwest of the botanical center won’t be open for daily visitors but will be a site for programs and classes.

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