Paul Maschka - Urban Farmer

Recently retired after seventeen years from the San Diego Zoo Horticulture Department as Lead Organic Horticulturist.  Paul is a passionate conservationist - he studies, practices and lectures on a number of environmental topics including organic urban food production (edible landscaping), biointensive gardening, mycology (cultivation of culinary mushrooms), water conservation (rain water harvesting), beekeeping and urban bee rescue, composting, vermiculture (worm farming), native habitat restoration, home grown, home made, and whole live foods (cheese, canning, kimchi, tempeh, honey).  Paul believes the most profound environmental act a person can make is to learn to grow  one’s own food.

Julia Dashe - Gardening Educator

Julia Dashe is a Farm and Garden Educator with a Certificate in Ecological Horticulture from the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UCSC.  Having worked on small organic farms in California and New England, 

she returned to her home town of San Diego and cofounder San Diego Roots Sustainable

Food Project to support the burgeoning food movement in San Diego. She established and managed the Seeds of Leadership (SOL) after-school garden program at Morse High School and has worked with San Diego 

Food Not Lawns in organizing the 'Cultivating Food Justice' conferences which now take place annually.  She also holds a Certificate in Permaculture Design from Occidental Arts and Ecology Center.  She hopes to reunite the words 'agri' and 'culture' so that we can all celebrate the rural and urban landscapes that feed and 

sustain us.