Recent Ashby Community Garden Work Party a Success

Last Sunday, the Ashby Community Garden hosted a free community work day open to the public, in efforts to familiarize the neighborhood and greater community about the garden’s efforts and objectives, and to teach others how to start and maintain gardens at their homes.

A few Berkeley gardeners scored this vacant plot of land on the 1300 block of Ashby Avenue twelve years ago, through an arrangement with the owner and the City of Berkeley, transforming it into a flourishing urban garden.

The Ashby Community Garden continued to evolve, blossoming into a multi-parcel oasis (they acquired the adjacent property 3 years ago), with a focus on growing one’s own food, observing and nurturing the pollinator population, and learning about the process and impact of local, organic gardening. With over 20 members, the Ashby Community Garden asks for a small membership fee to cover shared tools, water and chicken feed in return for a small garden plot to care for.

In addition to gardening, this event featured a potluck lunch and storytelling. Greens like lettuce and arugula are in season now, along with plums and boysenberries, which attendees got the opportunity to taste.

Perhaps most important, though, is that this event strived to provide both a localized healthy, organic food source and a stronger community by creating a space where everyone is welcome regardless of gardening experience, age, or background.

As part of one of their primary educational themes, the garden puts on a variety of workshops, including classes on bees, creating natural dyes, and an upcoming workshop on soil quality (information following this article).

The work party was a featured event of the Community Resilience Challenge-East Bay, an annual mobilization campaign that inspires thousands of citizens and groups to take action to save water, grow food, conserve energy, reduce waste pollution, and build community. Check out the Challenge website to read about more projects like the Ashby Garden, people-powered, low-cost, high-impact solutions that create healthier, localized, more resilient food systems, economies, and communities. Anyone can participate in the Challenge; just register your action today!

The garden members are currently working on raising money to secure the lot for the future. Events like these help spread the word about membership opportunities which serve as a main source of income for this garden.

As longtime Ashby Community Garden member Bonnie Borucki so beautifully puts it: “The garden has changed a lot of lives. Working with, instead of against, wildlife and creating a sanctuary of nature gives people a sense of purpose.”

~~

On the upcoming soil quality workshop: June 4, from 4-5:30 pm, at the garden. Join garden members and guest speaker Rob Bennaton of UC Berkeley to find out how to improve your personal garden soil.