To help get some Los Angeles-area kids familiar with fruit and how it grows, San Diego-based Stretch Island Fruit Co. brought their "Fruit Tree 101" program up north earlier this week to help get over 70 fruit trees planted on campuses. more ›

A recent health scare connected to contaminated cantaloupe has reached California, as an outbreak of Listeria has caused 35 people in 11 states, including ours, to become ill. Four deaths have been associated with the illness. more ›

It's June, and while sultry summer weather has yet to make an appearance, we're more than ready for the tastes and treats of the season. Farmers' markets are full of strawberries and stone fruits, gorgeous cucumbers, succulent squash blossoms and bright berries. It's impossible to resist the temptation to overindulge. So what do you do when your larder overflows and these fresh fixings look ready to wilt? You preserve them of course. It's easier than you might expect, and the process is no longer something done out of pure necessity--stocking up for a frigid winter. Instead, preserving has become about the art of simplicity and economy, as well as taking advantage of local options. more ›

Echo Park will be the newest home for community supported agriculture (CSA), in which customers pay a subscription fee for weekly (or every other week) pick-up of locally grown fruits and vegetables. more ›

Access to fresh, healthy food was ostensibly at the core of the plan to open Fresh & Easy grocery stores in the Los Angeles area, and now they are working with local growers to bring more local fruits and vegetables into their stores. more ›

Perhaps this is another reason to go organic at the farmers market. Methyl bromide, a popular fumigant used on Strawberry fields from Ventura and up the California coast, is being phased out because it "depletes the earth's protective ozone layer," according to the Associated Press. In its place, the state's Department of Pesticide Regulation is proposing to allow the use of methyl iodide instead, which some fear is worse. more ›

Today marks a big step for the homegrown revolution. The L.A. City Council unanimously approved a motion that instructs the city attorney to amend an old and ambiguous city ordinance to allow for the on-site use and off-site sale of flowers and fruit grown within city limits. Currently, the simple act of growing them in your backyard with the purpose of selling them is a citable offense. However, vegetables are okay. more ›

Late last month the City Planning Commission approved a proposal to update the language of a decades-old ordinance on the books as pertaining to something called "truck gardening." Dubbed the "Food & Flowers Freedom Act" by movement spearhead Tara Kolla, whose Silver Lake Farms was at the center of the fruit, veggie, and floral controversy. more ›

Naming the movement the "Food & Flowers Freedom Act," urban farming advocates went before the City Planning Commission this morning at a hearing in Van Nuys to put forth a proposed ordinance amending outdated and unclear language on record in Los Angeles since 1946. Following the hearing, the CPC voted unanimously in approval of the proposed amendments. more ›

No, urban farming is not the name of some cool sounding store that will become the next fad like froyo and cupcakes. It's just what it is--farming and gardening for yourself at home at in local gardens for the community. Up in San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom wants community gardens on vacant and underutilized city-owned lots. At the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama has planted a garden on the south lawn. Although the garden on White House Place in Los Angeles is threatened and the South Central farm is now over a hundred miles away in the Central Valley, the urban farming efforts found in Silver Lake, South Pasadena, Altadena and elsewhere seem to be growing in popularity. more ›

There's Erik and Kelley Knuzten with their homegrown revolution in Silver Lake. There's also Silver Lake Farms. Over in Torrance, a woman named Judi Gerber writes the LA Farm Girl blog about urban, local and sustainable farming and gardening, local food, victory and community gardens . Out in South Pasadena, there's the Urban Homestead. And today we learn of another large urban farming operation in Altadena. more ›

Boy, who knew something as simple as a banana was such a big thing? Politics, murder, pop culture, this fruit has it all and the boys from the locally based Fallen Fruit Collective journeyed down to South America to explore the subject and came back with an art exhibit that opened last Tuesday with an event called "Are You Happy to See Me?" more ›

As GOOD is so great to point out, LA is a mecca for homegrown products. (No, not that. Well, yes, that, but that's not what they/we mean!) Fallen Fruit keeps track of where Angelenos can play gatherer on our own city streets. GOOD explains:

FallenFruit.org has neighborhood maps of publicly accessible fruit trees. They also have a great guide to creating your own fruit gathering map. Tips range from the obvious (get out of your car and walk, you’ll find more fruit) to the specific (you should take note of that young fruit tree on private property—it might eventually grow to reach public property.) If more people create maps for other cities, Fallen Fruit could become one of the more delicious free resources on the web.

Author Gayle Greene will discuss her book An Insomniac’s Slant on Sleep with Alice Wexler, research scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Greene weaves memoir and investigation on the science of sleep -- from the perspective of a life-long insomniac. She’ll guide the audience through the “hidden terrain of a devastating and little understood condition.” The free event begins at 7 pm tonight at the Central Library as part of its ALOUD series. Reservations are recommended. more ›

We're in the middle of apple season and all of the sudden, our late night snacking became healthy. What has come of us? more ›

I work on Wilshire in the Miracle Mile area. Every day for the past year or so there's been a guy outside our office selling fruit from a cart filled with ice. more ›

It is one of the simplest, freshest and most delicious snacks for a hot summer night. Straight from the farmers' market (or your neighbor's tree) to the fridge, a chilled orange is more than just nutritious, it's quenching. more ›

Artist and forager Nancy Klehm will be holding the last of her highly unique cooking classes at Echo Park gallery/performance space Machine Project this Monday, March 10th, from 6-9pm. There are still a few spots left (tickets cost $85 for members, $95 for non-members), so head on over to the website to sign up for a lesson on making your own fermented fruits and vinegars. Fruit wine sounds like a fantastic way to take advantage of Southern California's many urban fruit trees! more ›

National Strawberry Day. Go for it. more ›

Unfortunately, the uploaded photos were not tagged, leaving it up the Flickr community to do so. Searching for "California" or "Los Angeles" still has limiting results. As Stephen Shankland says at CNET's Underexposed blog, "it's a safe bet that the Library of Congress photos won't immediately sport a huge range of highly descriptive tags... I can't imagine the government would pay on its own to fund some dedicated tagging effort." more ›

OK, well it isn't exactly the same make and model as the old farmer's market, which recently kicked the bucket -- but it's got heart, which is all that matters. You see, the popular Westwood Farmer's Market of Weyburn Ave was shut down by the LAFD in March 2006 because of safety concerns during construction. There were problems re-establishing the farmer's market on other nearby streets because as everybody knows, Westwood residents and merchants... more ›

Now that I've got your attention, I’ve got a problem with yogurt. My problem isn’t limited to Pinkberry. In fact, it’s more of a yogurt in the market problem. The problem is that when you buy yogurt, you mix in that stuff at the bottom and it’s just too sweet. I don’t want to pretend that my yogurt is some kind of fruit mousse. Somewhere about the time they decided that yogurt was good... more ›

Did you know that the mango is the most popular fruit in the world? I didn't either--I hadn't given it any thought, really--until I got in touch with the newly assembled National Mango Board, who are all about getting you to get to know the mighty mango. I met my first mango many years ago in my grandmother's kitchen. (Unfortunately, if you're looking for an exotic story about my spicy abuelita or a tale... more ›