The Sunnyvale Sun
News
Soil is prepped for city garden
A way to plant for those with no yard
By JASON GOLDMAN-HALL
Sunnyvale's first community gardens are no longer simply on paper or a local fantasy.
The once cluttered lot at Charles and Olive streets just north of City Hall is now a level, clean, 350-foot-long plot of dirt, with ditches for piping and markers showing where almost 90 Sunnyvale residents will soon plant fruits, vegetables and herbs in fertile South Bay soil.
"It's very exciting to finally be here," Sunnyvale Community Gardens leader Josh Salans said, surveying the lot on April 27.
On April 25, Salans stood before the city council--where he has spoken countless times over the past year and a half--to open the application process for the more than 90 plots and begin signing up gardeners.
But before anything can be planted, Salans and a rotating group of Sunnyvale Sustainable Gardens volunteers are working every day to prepare the soil, build planter boxes and lay irrigation pipe.
Prior to any work being done on the property, Salans and other SCG members had a ceremony there, during which five women who consider themselves pagan goddesses blessed the soil.
Since then, several trees were removed, debris was disposed of and the formerly uneven land flattened. The city donated an $800 backflow control unit for the water line to prevent water from being wasted and allow the group to shut the pipes off if needed.
Workers are currently laying $3,000 worth of pipe, including 200 feet of 3-inch pipes and 150 feet of 2.5-inch piping. Those pipes will feed individual hoses in each planter box to enable people to experiment with their own watering styles.
To make sure water is not wasted, Salans said Master Gardeners will show residents how to use hand timers and drip watering systems.
"We want people to be here as much as they can, so one of our rules is 'no unattended watering,' " he said.
Running true to Salans' promise to council, the project is bringing together the Sunnyvale community as a whole--not just those with green thumbs.
"We have some amazing volunteers working out here," Salans said. "Actually, some of our hardest-working volunteers are the ones with no interest in having a gardening bed of their own."
Sunnyvale resident Mark Aubin said he can barely keep up with his garden at home and doubts he'll get a community plot, but he's been working with Salans to section off the property so other people can begin growing.
"This is just the right thing to do. Sunnyvale needs this garden," he said.
Aubin, a Google software engineer, said his engineering background helps him lay out the property to make sure every water pipe, planter box and walkway gets to where it needs to be.
After a year of work, he said it's good to finally be on the property.
"It's very satisfying to get to this place," Aubin said. "Once you're moving dirt, it all becomes a reality. Now I can picture the rest of it, all the beds."
To get involved with the Sunnyvale Sustainable Gardens, contact Josh Salans at Jsalans@aol.com or call 408.735.8166. Applications are available at www.sunnyvalecommunitygardens.org. To learn about Victory Gardens of World War II which are the prototype for today's community garden, visit http://www.gardens.si.edu.
