Garden workshop with authors Jimmy Williams and Susan Heeger. 

The Garden Conservancy and the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden are pleased to present Jimmy Williams and Susan Heeger, authors of the new book From Seed to Skillet: A Guide to Growing, Tending, Harvesting, and Cooking Up Fresh Healthy Food to Share with People You Love.

Jimmy learned all about vegetable gardening at the knee of his grandmother, a South Carolina native from a traditional Gullah community. Susan, a garden writer and editor, has been growing vegetables at home for more than ten years. The two have created a personal, beautifully illustrated garden manual aimed at helping all gardeners, from beginners to experts, grow edibles more successfully.

As food and garden writer Michael Pollan says, “As Americans head back to the kitchen garden in record numbers, they soon find themselves in need of a guiding hand and a trusted coach. Jimmy Williams and Susan Heeger are as fine a coaching team as a vegetable gardener could wish for.” Jimmy and Susan will share some of the secrets to garden planning, creating healthy soil, raising strong, productive plants, saving seeds, and enjoying the harvest with family and friends.

Saturday, February 26
11:30 a.m. Illustrated talk
12:30 p.m. Book sale and signing
12:45 p.m. Lunch (optional; additional fee)  Lunch is now SOLD OUT.

Lunch
Acclaimed caterer Kitchen for Exploring Foods will prepare a special boxed lunch from the Williams family's recipes featured in From Seed to Skillet: Hoppin' John, Sweet Potato Biscuit, Sweet-Pepper Dip and Crudites. A blondie and drink are also included. Tables will be set up in the Arboretum's beautiful Celebration Garden.

Participants are encouraged to explore the Arboretum after lunch. 

Admission
Talk and book signing:
$25 general admission
$20 members of the Garden Conservancy and Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden
Lunch is an additional $20. Lunch is now SOLD OUT.

Admission to the Arboretum is included.

Online registration has been closed to allow for processing. Further tickets will be available at the door. If you have any questions, please e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Location
The Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden
301 North Baldwin Avenue
Arcadia, CA 91007
Click here for directions.

Jimmy Williams is an urban farmer and landscape designer. He oversees his growing grounds, plants edible gardens for clients, and dispenses cultivation and cooking tips, plus vegetable, herb, and fruit seedlings, at three Los Angeles farmers’ markets. He grows and sells heirloom tomato seedlings from seeds that have been passed down from his great-great-grandmother.

Susan Heeger, home vegetable gardener, Los Angeles editor-at-large for Coastal Living and contributing editor for Martha Stewart Living, is a long-time magazine and newspaper feature writer with a specialty in garden, design, home, lifestyle, and food stories.

This photo by Eric Staudenmaier shows tree collard greens that Jimmy Williams particularly favors, since they are descendants of the very heirloom plants his parents used to grow on Long Island and which he brought to Los Angeles as cuttings from their garden. Similar tree collard greens (including one purple variety Jimmy also grows) are a familiar sight in many African American neighborhoods around the country. Our colleague Betsy Flack had some collards from Jimmy's recipe for lunch on Feb. 1 and can't wait for more. Here's her report: "Fifty garden enthusiasts had the fun of listening to garden writer Susan Heeger interview her coauthor, food grower Jimmy Williams, at Mrs. Dalloway’s bookstore in Berkeley on January 22. In a lovely casual fashion Susan drew out the stories of Jimmy’s African American and Native American grandmothers’ gardens and kitchens. His own half-acre garden in Los Angeles is teeming with lots to eat and with sustainable, common sense gardening practices, understood over a life-time. I was wiggling in my seat to (yes, we talked about worms!) to ask him how to cook collard greens. Jimmy started on the recipe and my mouth literally began to water. Honestly, as a good Texas girl, I’ve had lots of collards but I’ve never understood what made them so good when others cooked them and mine were just blah. I rushed into Trader Joe’s the next day—they were out, no Southern greens in the bag. Two days later—and I’m glad I waited—I found an absolutely perfect bunch of organic collards in a market in Sonoma County. Jimmy makes the point of learning to cook (and garden) by the feel and the taste of it. Get the general hang of a recipe and then go for it. My collards were so delicious, both my husband and I were absolutely amazed! Jimmy says it’s the burnt onions and the olive oil and the perfect collards, the white wine, and cooking until tender (p152), and patience. I have the last few bites in my lunch box today and I can hardly wait!" Betsy Flack, West Coast Program Coordinator, The Garden Conservancy, San Francisco

Whet your appetite further by reading a November 20th "Garden Rant" by Susan Heeger about urban farmer Jimmy Williams and their new book, From Seed to Skillet.

Best of 2010 Award: From Seed to Skillet is one of Amazon.com's "Best Books of 2010" in the Home & Garden category.