Agriculture at Mendocino College

by Rose Bell

I have been visiting the gardens at Mendocino College since the late 1980s, when my mother, an avid backyard gardener, decided to take classes in horticulture. I remember watching her string twine along fence lines to create trellises for delicate snap peas and morning glories. When I began working at the college over a decade ago, having just lost my mother to cancer, I would take my lunch to the gardens and sit beneath the trellises, remembering her and feeling her spirit in the vines shading my lunchtime hideaway. Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit her incredible green thumb, but all these years later I still return to the college gardens to remember her and purchase my plants for the coming season, fascinated with what our rural community college has managed to grow these past few decades.

My mother was just one of the thousands of students who passed through the garden gates at Mendocino College. And tens of thousands have carried home seedlings from the plant sale with anticipation for the beauty, fruit, and life they will bring to our home gardens.

It was under the tutelage of Jim Xerogeanes, now retired, that the Agriculture Department at Mendocino College grew from classes on flower arranging to a half dozen degrees and certificates for agriculture, horticulture, viticulture, nursery management, landscaping, and sustainable small farm management. This robust offering is Xerogeanes’ legacy and also the incredible foundation on which Kurt Voigt, the new full-time faculty member in the department, has dreams to continue growing.

“The program has always been closely connected with the community,” Kurt tells me. “We lost enrollment during COVID because so many of our classes are hands-on, but we are hoping to harness the passion for gardening that so many people discovered during the pandemic to continue growing the department.” With a keen awareness of the needs of our community, Voigt is planning new classes to be offered at the centers to share a taste of what the program provides.

The program attracts a diverse student group, from home gardeners looking to learn more about soils or vegetable growing, to students passionate about a career in agriculture. “Recently I have had more students from the cannabis industry looking to pivot their skills. They tend to be some of my best students, curious about the science behind everything and asking really astute questions,” Voigt tells me. “We’ve also had a number of high school students tour the gardens and decide to stay on rather than going to other schools.” By considering the needs of the community, including how to grow careers for our students and support the needs of lifelong learners (my mother being one of them!), as well as collaborative opportunities, the program is constantly finding new ways to grow.

“We are offering a mushroom identification class this spring in Fort Bragg, Willits, and Lakeport, which will emphasize the identification of the more common edible and toxic species fruiting in the spring on the north coast, as well as delve into mushrooms for food medicine and their role in forest management,” says Kurt. “Likewise, with community interest in grape growing practices, we are excited to be reviving the viticulture program.” The first in a series, “Introduction to Viticulture,” will be taught by local expert Chris Chen and will offer students a deeper knowledge of grape growing, its history, distribution, biology, anatomy, propagation, and cultural vineyard practices.

The organic gardens create a lot of produce. Some of it goes to the Culinary Arts Department teaching aspiring chefs how to work with foods grown just yards from the kitchens, while the majority goes to the Caring Kitchen Project, a program of North Coast Opportunities (NCO) and the Cancer Resource Center, which provides meals to cancer patients. “I have witnessed the difference this makes to those who have a family member undergoing chemotherapy,” says Jim Xerogeanes, retired agriculture professor. “It is one less stress that the family doesn’t have to worry about.” Having witnessed the hardships of late stage cancer first-hand, I know the gift these meals provide, and I can’t help but feel my mom would be heartened to know such a program is working intimately with the college gardens.

The Mendocino College agriculture program and gardens are an incredible resource for our community. Whether a lifelong learner or looking to advance your skills for the workforce, there are dozens of classes offered throughout the year, as well as a horticulture club that is open to all. The gardens are an impressive home for the Agriculture Department, including vegetable and demonstration landscaping gardens, a demonstration vineyard and orchard, as well as a nursery with two shade houses, a large greenhouse, and an upper mist house for propagation. The gates are open Monday-Friday 9am-4pm during the semester, and the community is always welcome to visit and purchase plants.

If you are looking to grow your knowledge, your harvest, and your community, consider taking a class with Mendocino College Agriculture Department. And I’m sure I’ll see you, along with nearly 10,000 of our neighbors, at the semi-annual plant sale this spring!

Anyone interested in taking classes, joining the horticulture club, or attending the plant sale can visit www.mendocino.edu/AGR.

Photo credits: Header image and students in the field by Pacific Sky. Images of demonstration vineyard and building the greenhouse by Tony Novelli.

Rose Bell lives in Ukiah with her son Dash, daydreams of travel, and is still trying to learn how to garden like her mother.