Garden Takes Root : Moorpark Residents Begin Planting on Church Land

Last year, Moorpark residents anxious to plant the city’s first community garden saw their plans uprooted by opposition from some homeowners in the exclusive neighborhood next to the proposed site.

Now, after the plan has germinated for more than a year, the garden is finally taking hold on a lot barely two blocks from the previously proposed location next to the upscale Design Edition housing tract.

Tilled just two weeks ago, the quarter-acre field that has been sectioned off into 10-by-10-foot plots is the first community garden in Moorpark and apparently the only one in any of eastern Ventura County’s three cities.

The gardeners, who range from limited-income senior citizens to young middle-class families, say they are relieved to have finally found a place to get their hands dirty.

“It’s great,” organizer Rob Vickers said as he dug his spade into the freshly mulched soil of one plot. “It just took longer than I thought.”

Vickers and a group of other gardeners had planned last spring to sow their seeds at a vacant lot owned by the Moorpark Unified School District at Peach Hill and Rolling Knoll roads.

But the Design Edition homeowners association protested to school officials.

Although the school district property has for years been nothing but a weed-choked vacant lot, the association complained that the proposed vegetable-and-flower garden and the chain-link fence that was to surround it would create an eyesore at the entrance to their community of cream-colored stucco houses and manicured lawns.

Some homeowners also raised concerns that the garden would attract people from outside the neighborhood.

Following the complaints, school officials told the gardeners they would have to buy up to $1 million in liability insurance for the project.

Discouraged but not entirely defeated, the gardeners let their plans lie fallow until Moorpark Presbyterian Church officials offered free use of church land at Peach Hill and Spring roads.

Although the church plans eventually to pave over the plot of land for a parking lot, Pastor Dave Wilkinson said the property--next to the church’s new worship hall--will remain vacant and open to the gardeners for 10 to 12 years.

Wilkinson said the church property is better suited to a community garden than the school district property because it is on the other side of Spring Road from Design Editions and other residential neighborhoods.

“This really isn’t in anybody’s back yard,” Wilkinson said. “There’s also an advantage to us: We don’t have to keep weeds down in that part.”

With a separate water meter hooked up to the single spigot next to the garden, the gardeners will repay the church for their water costs, which organizers estimate will come to $5 to $10 per month per person.

The gardeners plan to install pipes themselves to take the water closer to the farthest plots.

And the city has kicked in $500 for needy families who want to garden but cannot afford the water costs. Some of the city money may also go toward buying chicken wire to shield the individual plots from rabbits and other animals.

Organizer Pat Kemper said the gardeners plan to avoid using any pesticides or other chemicals.

“If there are any gardeners who want to use chemicals, we’re going to kind of chuck them off to one side,” she said.

Although only about a dozen plots have been planted so far, there is room for nearly 50 more. Twenty-six families have shown interest in joining the garden, Kemper said.

Some of the gardeners see the project as a sort of outdoor classroom for their children or the community.

Vickers, 38, for example, said he hopes to make the garden a center for composting the city’s yard waste and for demonstrating mulching techniques to residents.

Roger Ball, who works as a lighting director for video productions and concerts, said he and his wife joined the effort to teach their two young children about how food grows.

“We see it on our dinner tables,” said Ball, 41, whose family has planted corn, radishes, beans, pumpkins and sunflowers. “But where does it come from?”

Some of the community gardeners said they they do not have yards of their own, while others said their yards are already full of flowers, leaving no room for vegetables.

But all of the gardeners said there is an overriding reason they joined the project: to meet people and enjoy the company of their neighbors as they all work toward a common goal.

“It’s better to have two or three gardening with you than just by yourself,” said Vi Johnson, an artist and veteran gardener whose yard is mostly concrete. And “gardeners are really nice people.”

Homemaker Linda Selnick said this is her first try at gardening.

“I don’t want it to be a chore,” she said. “Doing it at home and just reading the books, it would be a chore. Doing it this way, it’s an adventure.”