CNN Visits Oakhurst Garden

Two international news agencies recently highlighted the Oakhurst Community Garden Project.

A video on CNN carries the headline "Are bees coming to backyard near you? Apiculture as a hobby is generating buzz. Here's a look at a class for new beekeepers."

Garden beekeeper Cassandra Lawson leads the class and starts by saying that beekeeping used to be a fringe activity.

"When I started beekeeping a while back it wasn't a very popular thing to do," she says. "Quite honestly, it was a little eccentric."

But the students don't think so. They tell why they were motivated to take the class.

The Inter Press Service story has the headlne "Urban Chicken-Keeping Movement Spreads Its Wings" and uses the garden's Chicks in the City symposium as an example of the growing backyard poultry movement.

The article concludes with this quote by Andrea Zoppo, program coordinator for the garden:

"Our (large-scale agriculture) system's not really working. There's a lot of food scares and recalls. People get eggs and they don't really have a flavour. When you have chickens that you keep, they eat bugs and things they're supposed to eat, they (the eggs) have flavour," Zoppo said.

"We particularly support people being in urban areas and growing food and having chickens. While being in the comfort of an urban society, you can do both. Chickens don't take up too much space."