Infusing nutrition education into an LA County vegetable garden initiative

Two weeks ago, my colleague wrote about LA County Cooperative Extension’s popular “Grow LA Victory Garden” initiative – Resources for beginning vegetable gardeners develop from LA initiative. This exciting initiative has achieved great success in LA County over the past two years by teaching more than 1,100 beginner gardeners how to grow their own vegetables at home through Master Gardener-led classes.     

These classes impart an array of useful skills onto beginner gardeners, potentially translating into positive outcomes, such as improved diet and savings on groceries. 

What to do with all of that home-grown produce?

Teaching novices how to grown their own food at home is one thing, but what are they going to actually do with all of that produce once it is harvested? Often a dilemma for beginner and experienced gardeners alike! This is where Fresh from the Garden comes into play.

With funding from the UC Agriculture Sustainability Institute - Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, we were able to incorporate nutrition lessons and cooking demonstrations into the 4-week garden series by training Master Gardener volunteers to deliver Fresh from the Garden lessons into low-income community gardens. This is a resource that was designed to increase gardeners' knowledge of healthful eating habits, while emphasizing the health benefits associated with a vegetable-rich diet. Each Fresh from the Garden lesson features preparation and tasting of a healthy fresh vegetable recipe. Through these lessons, the beginner gardeners learned how to store, prepare and cook a wide variety of home-grown vegetables alongside the gardening instruction.

Reaping the benefits of vegetable gardening

We found that combined gardening, nutrition and cooking instruction encouraged novice gardeners to make important changes in their diets. By the end of the 4-week series, the participants said they were eating more servings of fruits and vegetables each day. What’s more, they were much more confident in their skills to prepare and cook home-grown vegetables. By the end of the 4-week series, 90 percent of participants surveyed said they could prepare and cook home-grown vegetables. This group was also very interested in trying different types of vegetables and all said they were willing to serve them to their families.

Through this project we have demonstrated promising results with the combination of gardening, cooking and nutrition instruction. We plan to continue the delivery of Fresh from the Garden in the coming year through the UC CalFresh Nutrition Education Program in coordination with the Master Gardener Program. CalFresh (formerly Food Stamp) participants are allowed to use their benefits to purchase seeds and plants for household consumption, which opens the door for exciting possibilities for this program!