Young gardeners face uprooting

Budget woes imperil program

AL SEIB/LOS ANGELES TIMESIn an effort to raise funds to keep their school gardening program from folding, Ivette Becerra, 17, and Fernanda Zepeda, 14, are selling some of the plants they have cultivated. (AL SEIB/LOS ANGELES TIMES)

LOS ANGELES - The seeds of a thousand lessons are sown in 5 acres of North Hollywood dirt, tended by a man named Mud.

Mud Baron and urban teenagers with a heretofore unknown penchant for rare flowers toil under a blazing sun to raise lemon verbena, tomatoes, lettuce, and other greenery that hundreds of Los Angeles schools will use to jump-start their gardens this fall. They also cultivate exotic jungle plants, including exuberantly colored dahlias the size of dinner plates, to sell at farmers markets.

Baron, known among administrators as Los Angeles Unified School District's "Johnny Appleseed," and his close-knit crew of North Hollywood High students are scrambling not only to help the district's fledgling gardening program grow, but also to save it from joining other new programs in the compost heap.

"We're very ephemeral; we don't have roots," said Baron, whose mutt, Pig, regularly riles up the dozen or so hens who live at the garden by stealing their eggs and burying them.

District money is running out. Mud distributes "Razzmatazz" dahlias like cigars at events around town in hopes of garnering donations to fund the program - and his job. It's a tough proposition: Administrators face a $460 million deficit and the prospect of increasing class sizes and reducing programs.

District officials are not optimistic.

"I don't see us at this moment picking up that program," said Ramon C. Cortines, a senior deputy superintendent. "I will, if he talks to me, try to help him get some philanthropy dollars, or other dollars to continue the program."

But Mud and his crew aren't deterred. With their colorful bouquets in hand, they try to teach administrators and politicians the value of outdoor education. In the past few weeks, the teenagers have raised $830 hawking sunflowers, roses, herb bowls, and other freshly cut plants at the downtown farmers market.

Tilling the soil at the district's largest garden at North Hollywood High this summer, Baron and his students are unearthing lessons not possible with pencil and paper. Elvis Ardon, a 17-year-old with a passion for thrash bands, found he prefers running away from hornets to running with the wrong crowd, and he would rather prune sweet-smelling modern English roses than street crops.

Jesse Sanders - a recent graduate who supervises his peers and sports a Mohawk, lip and ear piercings, and black clothes - recounts how learning to make colorful floral arrangements from plants he raised himself kept him from getting kicked out of school.

"When I first saw a flower, I just saw a flower. Now I see so much more," Sanders said, plunging his gloveless hands into the dirt. "I don't think I would have graduated without this class senior year."

Mud and the school's veteran agriculture instructor, Rose Krueger, took an interest in Sanders and enrolled him in floral arranging and agriculture classes.

For several years, Mud volunteered for Krueger before administrators used a $1.7 million state grant to hire him and several other gardening experts last fall to help teachers revive gardens at schools throughout the district.

"I've learned what city kids can do if given a chance to grow in the garden," said Mud, 38, the son of a Mercedes dealer who has semiretired as a cabinetmaker. "I'm much happier than I was building kitchens."