Soil saturated by rains earlier this month did not deter anxious gardeners from picking up keys to the city’s new community garden at Val Vista Park. Twenty-two urban gardeners have signed up so far, and 11 more plots await those who get a thrill from watching things grow.
Pleasanton’s Thad and Heidi White live within walking distance of the site, and, with their two children, plan to make gardening a family affair. The Whites have successfully grown tomatoes in their backyard, but had less luck with cantaloupe and corn. Three-year-old Noah said the first crop he’d like to see sprout is Cheez-its.
Both parents believe helping out in the garden will teach their boys where food comes from and have already explained why they won’t be growing Cheez-its (or bananas, Noah’s second choice) in a space they plan to separate into four six-inch-tall raised beds, in which they will grow tomatoes, strawberries and maybe even artichokes. Heidi said Noah “likes tomatoes a lot.” The Whites also plan to give cantaloupe and corn another try now that they’ll have more room to grow them. Thad said, “We’re still working on a design and what to plant.”
Community garden caretaker Kathy Southern said the first year will be tough going for gardening pioneers like the Whites due to the composition of the garden’s soil. “Heavy clay,” she explains. The “lake bed” sediment will be amended with aged horse manure to make it both easier to work and more productive. Raising the beds, she said, will improve the drainage.
The Whites believe Noah and 18-month-old Jake will enjoy weeding and watering and just digging in the dirt. The entire family will like the taste of fresh-picked vegetables. They know they’ll get great gardening tips from those who are more experienced gardening beside them. Plus, the two have a sort of genetic link to gardening. Thad’s father participates in the community garden in Rossmoor. Heidi grew up eating fresh-picked produce from her grandparents’ garden in Connecticut. “Eating the sweet corn and all the wonderful vegetables and fruit,” Heidi remembers. “It’s a fond memory of mine and I want to instill that in our kids, too.”
They’re going to take a stab at growing vegetables “organically”–without using pesticides to kill off bugs that may invade their crops. “Because, you know,” Heidi said, “pesticides aren’t really good for anybody.” Southern said, “People are becoming much more aware of what the issues are. In a family setting such as this, instead of killing all the good and bad bugs, you’re creating a nurturing environment for good bugs (that eat the bad bugs) to survive.” What’s really sad, she said, is that, for instance, DDT–a pesticide banned when it threatened to decimate the country’s population of bald eagles–is still sold in South America, a source of vegetables and fruits consumed by people in the U.S.
Southern said, “In fact, I just read something that said everybody has DDT in their body.”
Asked what drew Southern, who has a masters in environmental education, to gardening to begin with; she said both her mother and grandmother were gardeners. Southern starts her own seeds as, she said, do many who’ve signed up for plots in the Val Vista garden. Southern said she finds gardening, “so relaxing. It’s just a joy to get outside and get back to nature.”
The Whites are pouring over gardening books and researching their new project on gardening Web sites, too. Each year, Heidi said, they’ve always taken their boys to the Farmers Market when fruits and vegetables are in season. She said, “Now we’re hoping to kind of take it to the next step where we grow our own and they can pick right off the vine.”
While the soil was soggy, Noah wasn’t too happy about getting muddy. His mother said, “You should see how many times a day he changes his clothes.” Jake, on the other hand she said, laughing, “likes eating dirt.” As for Noah, it’s fine with him if mom and dad skip planting asparagus and broccoli.
Space still available
Pleasanton’s Community Garden at Val Vista Park still has several 225 square foot garden spaces available. The fee is $75 for a complete growing season. For more information, call garden manager Kathy Southern at (925) 931-5356.
(WITH ART OF WARTIME POSTER)
War-time “Victory Gardens” the prototype of community gardens today
During World Wars I and II, American farmers parked their tractors and went off to war in droves, said Pleasanton community garden manager Kathy Southern. What happened next, she said, was a shortage of food.
Launching a national effort to solve the problem, the government encouraged even city dwellers to grow vegetables like tomatoes (which are actually a fruit), even if they had to grow their tomatoes in a pot of dirt–a practice now known as “container” gardening.
People planted “Victory” gardens in recycled flower beds, and entire vacant city blocks were converted to war-time production of scarce fresh produce. Southern said, “The government started a campaign to get everybody out gardening. Everybody would get together on their city lot, and everyone would come together and garden and help raise food.”
The gardens even found space in parks, schoolyards and baseball fields. Excess vegetables and fruits were canned, frozen or otherwise preserved.
Typical vegetables grown in Victory gardens included:
* Beans
* Beets
* Carrots
* Peas
* Radishes
* Lettuce
* Spinach
* Onions
* Cucumbers
* Kohlrabi
* Corn
* Parsnips
* Turnips
* Cabbage
* Peppers
* Tomatoes
* Eggplant
* Summer squash
A replica Victory Garden is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The 130-foot long garden has more than 50 varieties of vegetables and flowers that change with the seasons. The vegetables are “heirloom” species–older varieties dating back to the Victory Gardens of the 1940s.
