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I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of all the crummy fruit being put forth by the grocery stores these days. And it costs more than ever! Is it time for Monrovia to get a community garden?

Lovely photo by Artcatcher.

With our warm climate in Monrovia, it seems natural to grow lots of tasty things here, which I am doing more and more of. I’m taking out grass and planting fruits and vegetables. Click on the image above to watch an inspiring video about urban homesteaders in Pasadena. I’ve recently found a great website for getting “low chill” varieties of things that nomally don’t do well here, such as raspberries and blackberries. Visit Sperling Nursery to get started. Monrovia has an average of 380 chill hours per year, which means that when you are looking for varieties of fruits that require chilling to produce well (like apple trees), it’s esssential to purchase a variety that requires fewer than 400 chill hours.

I don’t know about you, but the supermakets just aren’t cutting it with fruit anymore. The last several times I’ve purchased pears and peaches and watermelon, they rotted before getting ripe!

I just watched Al Gore’s latest climate talk on Ted.com and it prompted me to check to see if Monrovia has signed the pledge to be included in the list of cities in favor of the U.S. agreeing to the Kyoto Procotol, which mandates global reduction in greenhouses gases.

I see that Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard has signed. If you want to do something good for the environment, encourage Monrovia Mayor Rob Hammond to do the same. After all, the United States if the only country that has not signed on to the Kyoto Protocol.

See Al Gore’s talk here. View the list of U.S. City Mayors who have signed U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement here.

Can you tell the grass is fake?

Originally uploaded by Living in Monrovia
I stopped by the future retail area in the middle of Colorado Commons and thought the grass looked a little too perfect…I suppose this is a good solution where you want to save water….but, oh, it just doesn’t feel the same…