As the weather continues to warm up in Morgan Hill, potatoes and
onions make way for tomatoes, radishes, peppers and a wide mix of
produce at the Community Garden, a former skate park that is now a
robust cluster of planter beds and eager growers of all ages.
As the weather continues to warm up in Morgan Hill, potatoes and onions make way for tomatoes, radishes, peppers and a wide mix of produce at the Community Garden, a former skate park that is now a robust cluster of planter beds and eager growers of all ages.
Nearly 100 gardeners have stayed busy tending the 47 plots for rent at the Community Garden since it opened in September 2010 due to the generosity of volunteers and donors and the enthusiasm of the tenants. And the nonprofit organization has big plans for the future, with an eventual expansion inevitable as a waiting list for plots grows, and education efforts abound to permanently weave home-style gardening into the city’s character.
Elaine Hays and two of her children – Nick, 7, and Beth, 5 – were busy tending their 100-square-foot plot one afternoon this week, pulling weeds and watering their bed of radishes, tomatoes, herbs, cilantro, peas and other produce.
“Because it’s small, we had to decide what we would eat,” said Hays, whose family of seven lives in a Jasmine Square apartment, where there is no room for a garden. “We all have the desire to be a locavore, and grow food ourselves.”
Their plot is near the end of one of four rows – each about half the length of a football field – of raised beds contained within 2-by-6 planks of lumber, with enough room between them for gardeners to move all the way around their respective spaces. The beds are of varying sizes, up to 300 square feet, and the gardening tenants pay 50 cents per square foot per year to cover water costs and the minimal overhead it takes to maintain the facility on Butterfield Boulevard, next to the South County Courthouse.
With the help of a long list of donations of time and supplies from local businesses and residents, and lots of work by volunteers and the gardeners themselves, the nonprofit’s board of directors turned the dusty former skate park into a colorful oasis of maturing produce and flowers, according to board member Sherrie Wren. The city of Morgan Hill gave the community garden a two-year lease for $1, Gary Sluder did the earth moving, Johnson Lumber donated irrigation equipment, Cal Color Growers contributed plants and a beehive (from which the gardeners should be harvesting honey by next spring), South Valley Recology helped with composting materials, and San Jose Community Gardens lent its experience and advice in operations.
In fact, the work has been entirely volunteer, and the organization doesn’t hire any paid staff.
Wren, 64, beams at the success of the garden since it was only a vision, as all available plots were quickly rented out as soon as it opened, and 10 families wait for openings. A master gardener, Wren and other experts have a series of classes lined up. The classes take place on a row of benches under an awning at the eastern end of the fenced-in property. So far this year, instructors have held classes on potato growing methods, starting seeds, birds in the garden and composting. A couple of the plots are maintained by disabled and special needs gardeners.
And the community garden’s board of directors wants to expand the reach of their education efforts. Wren noted that most of the schools in Morgan Hill have gardens, but they’re not maintained because non-gardeners often associate gardening with the summer months, when class is not in session.
“We have a plan to help educate the schools and work with the school district so kids can learn how to garden during the winter,” Wren said.
Another board member, John Jenkins, 58, maintains his plot almost daily. He was there Tuesday watering the last of his potatoes growing beside sunflowers, peppers and tomatoes. A sales representative for a horticulture company with college and post-grad degrees in botany and soil science, Jenkins lends a wealth of expertise and enthusiasm to the community effort. He taught a recent class on planting potatoes, and he thinks the best use of the nonprofit facility is for education.
“A lot of people don’t know how much food they can produce on their own,” Jenkins said. He added that with housing growing more dense in Morgan Hill, adding permanent shade to places that used to be ideal for gardening, the community garden is a suitable option for residents who don’t have room or sunshine at their homes.
It’s also a worthy family activity. Maurizio Cutrignelli, 43, owner of Maurizio’s restaurant, rents two plots at the community garden. He also donated lumber for the garden.
His father, Michele, 81, is mostly in charge of the 50 or so tomato plants, growing from seeds he brought from Italy. Maurizio’s daughter Floriana, 8, takes care of the radishes.
He plans to use some of the tomatoes grown at his plot in his restaurant, and some he plans to experiment with for tomato sauce for his own personal use.
New to gardening, Cutrignelli laughed when asked what he has learned so far. “I’ve learned to be patient – that’s the main thing.”
Another advantage to a community garden is the camaraderie it produces among the gardeners, as Michele added he is impressed with how helpful the more experienced gardeners are toward the novices. Maurizio added that his daughter has made friends at the community garden.
Due to the popularity of the community garden itself, and gardening in general in Morgan Hill, the facility’s operators will start soon to look for a new site. The city plans to eventually build a fire station at the current site, and Wren said they might have to move by September 2012.
But with months of work seemingly just finished to get the facility going, this summer the gardeners – Wren included – plan to relax and enjoy the fruits of their labor.
“People are tired of all the giant tasks, and they just want to enjoy this growing season. Just getting this garden was a huge effort.”
Morgan Hill Community Garden
For more information, visit www.mhcommunitygarden.org
Upcoming classes:
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Sunday, June 26, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.: Integrated pest management in the home garden.
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Sunday, Sept. 11, 1 to 3 p.m.: Growing onions and garlic in Morgan Hill’s mild and rainy winter.
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Sunday, Oct. 16: Soil building and the winter crop cover.
