SENIORS GARDENING : Turnips Versus Tires : Assortment of Vegetables Competes With Garbage Cans in Oxnard Alley
There are any number of things one could reasonably expect to find in an alley. Old tires maybe, some stray bottles, a garbage can or two, some snow peas and several rows of freshly grown eggplant.
Yes, eggplant. Turnips, even. Vegetables of all kinds. Still in the ground.
OK, so not every alleyway is so easy to cultivate, but there is such a place in Oxnard, off Hill Street. That’s where men and women from the Wilson Senior Center have been growing vegetables for about 10 years.
There are 21 plots of land on the city-owned site, most measuring 10 by 20 feet, and they are loaded with just about every vegetable you can imagine.
“I’ve got some Arkansas corn. It’s the sweetest corn I’ve ever had,” said Bob Tijerina, 68, a veteran of the Oxnard Senior Vegetable Garden. “I’ve bought some from the store. Blah. Nothing. This is just like the corn I ate back home” in Texas.
Like the other gardeners, Tijerina enjoys seeing the vegetables he grows and takes pride in his okra. He’s also happy to spend a few days a week in a peaceful setting with people he likes, doing what he loves. After 24 years in the Army, he relishes the simple life.
“I joined the Army in 1940. We landed in North Africa. Made invasions in Italy and Southern France.” he said. “This is 100% safer. You heard of the Battle of the Bulge? Here we have the Battle of the Bugs.”
This isn’t Tijerina’s first taste of the soil. He spent his childhood on a farm. “I had to milk seven cows before I went to school each day. I wanted to get the hell away from the farm as soon as possible. Then I landed in the infantry and I wished a million times I was back at the farm.”
Al Daniels, 74, also spent some of his youth on a farm.
“It was a long time ago, years and years ago back in Kentucky,” he said. “We raised tobacco. It was backbreaking. I had to work all the time. Now I can quit when I want to. Here you just take it easy. When a bunch of men get to talking, time goes by fast.”
Daniels is successfully growing mustard, celery, cabbage and kale. He said he joined the gardening program because he had the time after retiring from his job as a school custodian.
“I retired in 1976,” he said. “I had open heart surgery and didn’t go back. I’m here every day for a couple of hours. If you’re doing something you like to do, you’re going to keep doing it. I like to see the vegetables grow. I like to give them to people.”
Most of the gardeners are men, but some women participate, and there are several husband-and-wife couples. Yuki Kobaschigawa, the gardening club president, works on his plot with his wife, Nancy.
“I cultivate and let her do the easy part,” he said. “I leave it to her to plant what she wants. We came here from Hawaii where we did a lot of back-yard gardening. My wife tried to do that where we live, but the space was too limited.”
Not only does the 63-year-old Kobaschigawa enjoy the physical side of gardening, it suits his changing tastes as well. “I’ve noticed as I grow older I have begun to eat more and more vegetables,” he said. “I’m surprised.”
Paulette and Clayton Freeman have been coming to the garden for about a year. They grow fava beans, chard, carrots, beats, onions and some other vegetables.
“My father was a farmer in the mountains of Algeria, where I was born,” said 66-year-old Paulette. “And Clayton was a car mechanic at Dullam Farms, so he has a lot of knowledge. I come here once a week. He comes here every other day. Fresh vegetables are so much better. The tomatoes we grow here, you want to eat them right here.”
Yes, it all seems like a vegetable Garden of Eden. And maybe it would be, if it weren’t for those birds. Even the handmade scarecrows don’t always work.
“Those birds, those little birds. Some guys have mesh to keep them away,” said 67-year-old Tom Barber. “The crows . . . the crows make the visit early in the evening. About 5 o’clock, in come the crows. They get the corn. They won’t eat it. They’ll just pick it up and drop it, those turkeys.”
