Ella Potts

John Jarnigan, a third year student at Diablo Valley College, discovered the Horticulture Club when he was still trying to find his direction. Now he hopes to get his bachelor’s degree in horticulture and plant sciences.

“I’ve had a lot of time to explore my interests among various classes. Of them all, the horticulture unit has certainly felt the most like home,” Jarnigan said.

“Our entire existence on this planet has been aided by the help of plants, whether medicinally or for nutrition,” he added. “Now, more than ever, we as a society should be utilizing the marvels which already exist and further expand our knowledge.”

The Horticulture Unit
DVC’s horticulture unit may be having something of a public reemergence on campus. The department has put on plant sales since the 1990s, but never have so many plants flown off the shelves as they did at a recent sale on Sept. 27 and 28.

The event marked the latest record-breaking sale of plants at the school, where upcoming sales are also scheduled for Oct. 25 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., and Oct. 26 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

According to Michelle Eyestone, who has been the lab coordinator of the horticulture program’s plant sales for the last seven years, “in the last year literally every plant sale we had was a record breaker.”

Eyestone explained, “We have the plant sale on the same weekends every year, so it’s really easy to do the drawback and look at year by year comparisons.”
Beathalynn Black has been working in various aspects of horticulture for over 50 years, 14 of which she has taught at DVC as the unit lead for horticulture. Black, who holds a degree in ecological agriculture from New College of California, said a lack of horticulture education is weighing on our society.

“In terms of what I think is important in the world, this, I think, is one of the most important: if you stop feeding people, you have complete social chaos,” Black said. For this reason, “it’s extraordinarily important that people learn how to do this.”

Currently, low enrollments are threatening the program. “If we don’t have people signing up, this program will go away,” Black said.

Plant Sales
While meandering through DVC’s plant sale this month, shoppers saw rows upon rows of plants to buy, from perennials and annuals to house plants. Meanwhile, students and professors stood by, eager to answer questions.

“I’ve been in this field 40 years, I have so many facts to share,” said TJ Cape, a horticulture instructor at DVC working at the plant sale.

“The plant sales, held multiple times a semester, draw on student teamwork,” he said, “from the preparation to the actual selling of the plants.”
He added, “Students all participate at the nursery here, which gives them some real world experience, cultivation experience, customer service experience, inventory, and management.”

Eyestone agreed and added that a lot of teamwork takes place beforehand.

“This is a hands-on program,” she said, where “you learn everything about horticulture across the classes, and everybody plays a role.”

“We handle all the plant production,” added Eyestone. “Everything you see at these plant sales was propagated [by] the students.”

The Student Experience
Eyestone said the diversity of participants also defines the program.

“We get the 20-year-olds who are taking this class in order to transfer, [and] those who want to go work in the field,” she said. “We get re-entry people who want to come back and retrain and do something else with their life. We also get retirees that are coming in as hobbyists.”

Ashley Garrow, a 36-year-old entrepreneur and student, told The Inquirer, “I started a plant business during the pandemic. I haven’t been able to find a job, but I figured, ‘I still have my business—I should go back to school and figure out how to run this properly.’”

Initially, Garrow said, “I started with the intention of completing the horticulture entrepreneurship certificate, but now that I’m in it, I’m more interested in pursuing an associates degree.”

“This is my first real attempt at a college degree, and plants are what got me into it,” Garrow added.

Another student, Linnea Lion, is taking Plant Materials and Uses, taught by Eyestone. Lion, 64, said she first started taking horticulture classes in 2012. She has an associates degree in biology from Los Medanos College, and multiple certificates in horticulture from Merit College and DVC.

“You just can’t ever stop learning,” said Lion.

Regardless of students’ backgrounds, Eyestone said, what brings them all together is a love of plants.

“I think that everybody has something in common, that everybody wants to learn how to grow food, which I think is really kind of an [outgrowth] of Covid, because we all learned how threatened our food supply really is.”

Eyestone said her passion is to help students regain the skill of growing food.

“You can really add to your food security through your ability to grow food,” she said, so “we try to have all kinds of options. A lot of times students come through the program and all they have is a balcony, so we often have stuff you can grow in a pot. We really try to honor options that are good for the entire community.”

Eyestone added, “Food is really the most important thing, and it’s a thing we all share. Regardless of gender or race, we all need to eat.”