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Published on 08/10/1998 All articles from this issue

Private gardens of Eden

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By Linda Taaffe

Town Crier Staff Writer

Urban living doesn't stop locals from cultivating their own green paradise

Don Bird and Holly Little beam as they talk about their four varieties of tomato plants, 9-foot grape vines, green peppers and giant onions that grow in their tiny garden behind the Los Altos City Hall. Like any other typical workday, the town building inspector and his assistant arrived at their office last week nearly two hours before the start of the workday to tend to their garden.

"This is good emotional therapy in the morning," Bird said.

Little decided to expand her home garden to her workplace four years ago. "Nobody seemed to mind," she said.

Bird, who grew up on a farm, eagerly pitched in to help. The garden now produces enough vegetables for the entire city staff to enjoy and for a local food bank to distribute. It includes exotic plants, such as a tomato plant from Peru that won't bear any fruit until 2000.

"A lot of people see it and are interested. They walk by and point at this and that. It has turned into a real educational thing for families leaving the library," Bird said.

Bird said he learns as he goes along. He recently discovered that brushing the flower buds on a tomato plant will increase its fruit.

"This one plant has 200 tomatoes," he said pointing to a cherry-tomato plant.

Bird and Little are just one example of local residents who have transformed parcels of land into their own private gardens of Eden.

Craig Murray said he, too, believes gardening is good for one's soul.

The longtime Los Altos Hills resident turned a neglected plot of land in Los Altos Hills into a half-acre garden, where he grows 40 varieties of tomatoes - some heirloom, collected and passed down from families all over the world - dozens of eggplants, herbs and exotic peppers.

"I think it's an incredibly healthy and positive way to spend your energy. I would like to see more people use their land like this," he said.

Murray, a licensed horticultural landscape architect, said he started the garden "because you can't buy the quality and variety that you can produce this way."

He said he grows things most stores don't carry. He said the seed varieties he plants are too expensive for commercial growers to harvest. He has spent a lifetime collecting seeds from Chinese markets to Russian villages, he said.

"I don't buy produce in the stores. I'm very spoiled," he said. "As the saying goes, 'money can't buy love or home-grown tomatoes.'"

Residents can find Murray's produce in local restaurants such as Joccos in Los Altos and Country Gourmet in Mountain View and at De Martini Orchard in Los Altos and Draeger's three Peninsula supermarkets under the label, "The Garden."

Murray said he grows everything organically and from seed. Harvesting his garden is a "real endeavor" he said, which starts every September with the planting of a cover crop, such as clover, to provide nutrients to the soil. In the spring, he uses a tractor to disc and pull rows in preparation for planting new crops. Murray said he then lays out about one mile of pull tape, a drip system used to water the plants. After sprinkling compost over the rows, he covers each one with agricultural mulch, a material that looks like plastic and acts as a mini green house, he said.

Although Murray uses commercial farming techniques, he said what he does can easily be adapted to a small garden.

Murray said he sees more people incorporating edible gardens into their landscaping. There's a whole network of agricultural hobbyists in the area who exchange their goods with one another, he said.

"I have people bringing me tomato sauce, pickled beets, salsa, pesto. It's nice," he said.

Harvesting apricots is still done just up the street from Murray's garden on 45 acres of the David Packard family land. Earl Kilpatrick, orchard manager of the estate, sells dried apricots from his back yard.

Gretchen Dennis, trust administrator of the Packard estate, said "We do the whole operation the old-fashioned way." She said Kilpatrick hires seasonal workers to harvest the fruit each year.

"The men start picking early in the morning, and the woman sit at the trays cutting. The 'cots are then placed in the drying shed with sulfur overnight and set outside for about a week."

She said up until a few years ago, the Packard family used the apricots solely as personal gifts and for family consumption.

"These apricots have been shipped around the world as gifts to some of the most famous people," Dennis said. "Family members get their share, and what's left, we now sell."

She said the money goes to the Packard Foundation. She said the foundation has raised as much as $20,000 in one year from apricot sales.

Dennis said there's "quite a backing of customers. We get a lot of requests."

She said the amount of apricots yielded varies each year from a low of four tons to a high of 100 tons.

On a smaller scale, a group of Mountain View residents harvest vegetables and herbs at the Senior Garden, a 64-plot community garden behind the senior center on Escuela Avenue for residents 50 or older.

A group of seniors launched the garden about 17 years ago, said Eva Koltai, volunteer program coordinator. Sponsored by the city of Mountain View and the Mountain View Senior Center, seniors have access to water, tools and land for free. Today, the garden boasts an international collection of produce from places such as Russia, China, Korea and Hungary.

"The idea was not to save money at the store on tomatoes. The main thing is to get the elderly to exercise. They need that," she said. "Some can hardly walk, but they come out, talk to the plants, spend time outside. It's very healthy."

Koltai describes the garden as a place to talk, socialize and trade seeds and knowledge.

"I come out here, and it's a completely different life," she said while tending her garden plot last week.

Margaret He was on a waiting list for a year before she got a plot in the garden. She said she took up gardening to stay healthy.

"One hour of weeding, digging, pulling plants will burn 200 calories," said the retired cardiologist.

She said she gets most of her seeds from friends. She pulled some seeds from her pocket that came last week from her homeland, China.

She said she picks up gardening tips from her neighbors there. She said her tomatoes are no good this year because she watered from the top, not the roots. Next year they will be better, she said.

She gives any extra produce to other classmates in her English class.

Elmira Cuttitta, who has had a plot at the garden since it started, said she tends to garden at least twice a week.

"I like to feel the soil in my hands, the breeze in my hair. I love it," she said. "This is the best place for meditation."

Craig Murray is available for consultations. For more information, call 941-1301.

For more information about purchasing dried apricots from Earl Kilpatrick, call 949-5571.

For more information about the Mountain View Senior Garden, call 903-6330.