How to Grow More Vegetables : And Fruits, Nuts ... - Shroomery

xxii AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
An Historical
Introduction
In September 1971, Larry White, Director of the Nature and
Science Department for the City of Palo Alto, invited
Stephen Kafka, Senior Apprentice at the University of California
Santa Cruz Student Garden, to give a 4-hour class on the
biodynamic/French intensive method of gardening. Two years
before, the city had made land available to the public for
gardening, and residents appeared eager to hear more about
this method. Alan Chadwick had brought the method to Santa
Cruz 5 years earlier, and with love, vision, and apparent magic,
the master horticulturist had converted a barren slope into a
Garden of Eden. Vegetables, flowers, and herbs flourished
everywhere. The method’s techniques were primarily available
through training in a 2-year apprentice program at Santa Cruz
and through periodic classes given by Alan Chadwick or
Stephen Kafka. However, neither detailed public classes nor
vegetable yield research were being conducted regularly at
Santa Cruz or in Palo Alto.
In January 1972, Ecology Action’s board of directors
approved a Biointensive research and education project. The
purposes of the Ecology Action project were to:
• teach regular classes;
• collect data on the reportedly fourfold yields produced by
the environmentally sound horticultural method;
• make land available for gardening to additional midpeninsula
residents;
• publish information on the method’s techniques.
In May, after a 5-month search for land, the Syntex Corporation
offered 3 3 ⁄ 4 acres of their grounds in the Stanford Industrial
Park with all the water needed for the project at no cost. Frank
Koch, Syntex Public Affairs Director, told Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni
of the Alza Corporation about the project, and Dr. Zaffaroni
subsequently contributed the first money to the project, $5,000,