By Jan D. Wellik
One of the great “green” minds behind organic farming and college gardens in San Diego is Paul Maschka, a longtime resident of Ocean Beach.
Maschka’s hands-on ability to grow healthy soil plays a crucial role in the development of the San Diego City College Urban Farm this last summer, as well as Mesa College’s new Organic Culinary Garden.
His areas of expertise include biointensive gardening, sustainable landscaping, beekeeping and permaculture, which he will be teaching about in the next few months for the San Diego Natural History Museum.
Maschka was excited about working on the City College farm because funding was built into the program.
“I’ve been working on school gardens for years, but without funding they slowly fade,” he said.
The college pays for part-time farm helpers and student interns who manage the farm.
The college garden is located in a high-traffic zone on campus where lush rose bushes once grew.
“Jaws drop,” he said. “This is a farm in the middle of skyscrapers.”
By transforming the heavily watered rose bush landscape, the school now uses less than an eighth of the water it used before, he said.
The farm is not a monoculture crop of rows of corn, like many think of when they hear the word “farm.” Rather, the farm is an example of polyculture with meandering pathways of different shapes and sizes of plant beds growing both edible and ornate plants. The large patch of amaranth, in its bold swath of purplish red, is often the big color draw of passersby.
“I wanted to have them (students and faculty) walk by and stop them in their tracks,” he said of the farm design. The creative design has been a success, and yields a bounty of vegetables each season. Currently growing are: broccoli, Asian greens, rutabagas, baby greens and “a tapestry of colors and textures,” according to Maschka.
Luckily, Southern California has basically two seasons — warm and cool— so harvesting produce is possible year-round, he said. In the summer, the farm grows much of the standard fare, including tomatoes, squash, corn and cucumbers.
During the school year, the college recently started a weekly farmers market on campus that sells the farm’s produce to mostly faculty and students, with long lines forming for the fresh, organic produce.
Maschka is passionate about healthy soil and growing organically. He is a prominent member of the San Diego Food Not Lawns organization and president of the Mycological Society (study of mushrooms).
“We’re not told how our food is produced, and if most people knew how our food is factory farmed, they would be horrified,” he said.
He works to educate students and adults about the need to grow food organically rather than use the high levels of petroleum-based fertilizers used in conventional agriculture.
As a San Diego native who grew up in Escondido, Maschka was raised on his family’s farm in an area that was once rural and full of dairy farms. Not anymore, he said.
“They have slowly disappeared by strip malls,” he said.
Although he grew up gardening with his parents, he hated it, he said, until later in life. Now he can’t get enough of digging in the soil, planting and enjoying the seeds of his labor.
After owning a landscaping business for 15 years that he turned organic and working in horticulture at the Wild Animal Park and San Diego Zoo, he learned that he enjoyed educating people about alternative methods.
He teaches about organic being good for more than food — even flowers. Synthetic fertilizers made of petroleum kill the soil, which, in turn, pollutes the watershed and our ocean, he says.
“We’re stuck on a huge treadmill. We’re so addicted to the use of petroleum products,” he said.
He said he is taking a stand against this vicious cycle and wants to show people how to help their environment through healthy agriculture instead of hurting it.
“We need to breathe life back into the soil,” he said.
Union Tribune: Donated Fruit Trees Take root
Saturday, December 20, 2008
By Jennifer Vigil
When San Diego City College established the Seeds at City urban farm six months ago, no one expected to have a full-blown orchard. Not so soon.
“It wouldn't have been in the budget,” said Paul Maschka, a former gardener for the San Diego Zoo who works at the farm.
That changed this week, when a San Diego foundation donated nearly 100 trees and other plants to the downtown college and two schools, Crawford High near Rolando and Pacific Beach Middle.
“It's totally engaging,” said Jennifer Sims, coordinator of Pacific Beach Middle's International Baccalaureate program. “You can sit in a classroom and read about life science, but getting out and actually having the chance to get your hands dirty, that's invaluable.”
The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation made the donation with Stretch Island Fruit Co., an Allyn, Wash., firm that produces healthful fruit snacks.
The program, called Fruit Tree 101, includes campus consultations with an arborist and nutritionist.
Supplying the trees fulfills several goals, from luring students outdoors and improving the environment to teaching them to grow their own food and bolster their nutrition, said Cem Akin, the foundation's executive director.
“Orchards provide all those opportunities,” he said.
In the past year, the six-year-old San Diego-based foundation has offered trees to 30 schools in cities across the country, including Phoenix, Chicago, Baltimore and New York. It also has programs in Kenya and India, with plans to expand to Brazil and Costa Rica.
The group's reach impressed Geno Cesena III, 14, one of the Pacific Beach students responsible for maintaining the middle school's new orchard. Until this month, his only experience tending the soil had come on his grandfather's Jamul ranch, where he has planted corn.
Yet Geno was a veteran compared with many of the other 25 students who will help care for the orchard, made up of apple, fig and pomegranate trees. Some of the youngsters had no idea that figs come from trees, Sims said.
Maschka hopes the City College orchard helps urbanities, young and old, become more familiar with fruit trees.
“The main thing people don't know is how to get trees off to a proper start,” Maschka said.
For instance, though the saplings the college received can bear fruit, it's better to keep them pruned back, he said, because the branches aren't strong enough yet.
As a result, it will be a couple of years before students will be able enjoy fruit from the campus farm, which takes up about a third of an acre near C and 14th streets.
Though Geno will miss out on treats from the trees, the eighth-grader has embraced his new responsibilities, which will include watering the orchard two to three times a week.
“The trees look pretty small, but I think that in a couple of months, they'll start looking better,” he said.
sd business journal: Future farmers learn to grow organically at seeds at city
Monday, November 17, 2008
by Connie Lewis
One-third of an acre planted with corn, squash, green beans, broccoli, pumpkins and sunflowers where grass once grew at San Diego City College is an urban farm project that could revolutionize residential landscaping throughout the county, says Karon Klipple, an assistant math professor.
The miniature Seeds at City farm that took root this year and is part of an internship program is the brainchild of Klipple, who also co-chairs the college’s Environmental Stewardship Committee.
Touting the ecological advantages of the urban farm over the traditional lawn, Klipple says the farm uses a third as much water and none of the chemical fertilizers.
“We’re teaching students and community volunteers how to do it,” she said. “There’s a growing demand and people are changing their landscapes to this, which is a real-life answer to a diminishing water supply.”
At present, there are four interns enrolled who each earn a stipend for working four hours a day, three days a week for eight weeks at the Seeds at City farm. But plans are to increase enrollment to 10 students and there is no lack of volunteers interested in the sustainable, organic farming techniques practiced there, says Paul Maschka, an organic farming expert hired to run the program.
“We encountered some young people for whom urban farming is new and foreign and out of their comfort zone,” Maschka said. “Others know a little about it and some know a lot, which blew us away.
“We didn’t expect a sector of young people would be already enlightened, and that’s refreshing.”
Surrounded By Skyscrapers
Located in a highly visible area at the east end of downtown between the college’s Learning Resources Building and a campus theater, the urban farm draws a great deal of attention.
“We purposely designed and planted it in a spot where people walking by couldn’t miss it,” Maschka said. “It’s in your face — a farm in the midst of skyscrapers — and people stop and take notice.”
Maschka, who worked for the San Diego Zoological Society’s Horticulture Department specializing in organic practices, calls himself an urban farmer. He shares responsibility for the urban farm and instruction of the interns with Julia Dashe.
Urban farming is also a way for people to grow their own produce in an era of increased food prices, says Klipple.
Several other lawns on the campus have already been designated as future vegetable plots, Klipple said, adding that the administration is very supportive and anxious to be able to increase water conservation.
While the intent is to practice organic growing methods at Seeds at City, Maschka doubts it could qualify for certification because of its urban setting.
Conveniently, food waste from the college’s cafeteria is used in a composting operation that provides nutrients for the soil.
Coming full circle, plans are to use crops from an expanded farming operation in the college’s cafeteria. Future goals also include setting up a farmers market and selling the produce to local restaurants, and then the profits would be plowed back into the program to hire more interns and possibly some full-time workers.
Natural Insect Control
Varieties of vegetables will be rotated according to the season while perennials will also be planted. However, the diverse plants were selected in accordance with the different types of insects they draw, thus creating the overall effect of a pesticide since the various insects prey on each other, Maschka explained.
The urban farm has two slopes on either side that will soon be planted with dwarf fruit trees, including peach, plum, apricot, cherry and a variety of apple trees. The dwarf trees are more practical than full-sized ones because they don’t require as much water, they produce as much fruit as big trees and are safer since they don’t require people to climb up on ladders to pick the fruit, Maschka said, adding that other lawns around campus have been approved for expanding the urban farm.
“We’ll be planting everything but chocolate,” he said. “The climate we have in Southern California a short way from the ocean is conducive to growing just about anything on the planet.”
News Scene: sd city urban farm
Friday, November 14, 2008