On Saturday May 16th I got the opportunity to meet up and interview the founder of Charles Street Gardens, which is a lovely community garden just off of the central downtown area of Sunnyvale. Charles Street Garden is about two acres of opportunity for kids and adults alike. Charles Street Garden is such a wonderful garden because it incorporates individual beds, beds for the handicapped, a seminar section (where classes are taught), as well as a communal section called the food forests, where volunteers from anywhere can participate in giving back to the community by providing produce to the food shelters in the bay area.
My interview with Josh Salnas was an informal tour around the
beautiful garden that he made a reality.
The first part of our tour was under the trellis located in the central area of the entry to the community garden. Under the vine covered trellis Josh explained the history of the garden. He explained how the reality of Charles Street Garden came from a meeting just across the land in the parking lot where a man of the last name Satterburg was willing to give the city $40,000 to start a community garden in Sunnyvale. From there Josh, already a gardening guru took on the job of finding the location, rallying the volunteers and building Charles Street Gardens ground up. It took two and a half years, from the idea in the parking lot to the official opening of Charles Street Garden. Most of the time was spent on fighting the city council for the land that he so desired, but it was well paid off. In total it only took six weekends (twelve days) to actually build the garden. A non-profit base manages everything in the garden, which keep land costs low. The price to have a bed for a year is a mere $50!
To the left of the trellis were the handicapped beds, which are perfectly accessible to anyone in a wheelchair. I was shocked to see that the garden was that communal, to the point where everyone, literally everyone could have the opportunity to garden there.
After we stopped by and visited the educational beds where master gardeners come in once a week to better off the gardeners on how to grow, what to grow, when to grow and so on..
The next part of our tour was visiting the rows of individual beds in the garden. They are all beautiful and blooming with flowers, fruits and vegetables. Each row is assigned a produce name, for example there is Artichoke Ally shown in the picture.
Next came time for seeing what the food forests were. The food forests, as previously mentioned, are beds of land dedicated to provide produce to the food shelters of the bay area. The goal of the beds is to try and fill it with as many plants as it can hold in order to maximize their give back to the community.
Later we approached the composting piles where excess leaves and rotten fruit go into making enriched soil for years to come! Talk about renewal!
After that we stopped by the green houses in the back of the community farm. The three petite green houses house budding plants that go on say in April for profit to aid the garden.
Overall the garden was such a boost in my day. Experiencing time in that garden made me so proud of all the work they had done, from the accessibility of the handicapped to the renewable soil of the compost bins, Charles Street Gardens was truly the highlight of my year. By far my favorite part was seeing an edge of the garden dedicated to mint plants as well as the opportunity to be so close to nature while still in the center of the city. My experience of visiting Charles Street Garden really inspired me to one day start a community garden of my own. The following blog post is a brief letter that I will send to Los Altos City Council in order to give them an idea of what a community garden can do for our city!
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