Bumper Crop Is Freeway Close

Sunsets are golden in the magic gardens of Woodbridge Village.

As a chilly wind spins the blades of dainty windmills on sticks, gaily painted wooden gates rattle their greetings to butterflies. Carrot-tops wave gently in the breeze. Aside from air whistling through leaves, the only sound is the whoosh of rush-hour traffic from a nearby freeway.

“I like the solitude and feeling of space,” says Anne Taub, who has been tending a plot in this Irvine garden for more than a decade. “Often, when you come down here, you’re just all alone.”

It’s an unlikely place for gardens or solitude: the bottom of Orange County’s flood-water catch basin next to the San Diego Freeway. Yet here they are, glimmering mirage-like in the fading light: 82 neatly kept plots speaking of abundance and domesticity.

“Most of the gardeners are very enthusiastic about having their own plots,” says Taub, former president of the Woodbridge Garden Club. “They’re very reluctant to give them up.”

When they do, there is always another gardener ready to hoe. Thirteen names are on the waiting list. The collection of 16-by-20-foot garden plots greened in 1988 when residents of Woodbridge Village -- a 1,700-acre planned community of 35,000 people in 9,500 homes -- persuaded their homeowners association to install faucets and erect a fence.

For $25 a year, those lucky enough to have migrated to the top of the list can reach their gardens through a gate unlocked with association-issued magnetic cards.

The plants reflect varying tastes. A few gardeners raise wildflowers, but most concentrate on the edible. There are lemons, pears, artichokes, grapes, onions, garlic, rosemary, parsley, cabbage, bell peppers, chard, strawberries, tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, asparagus, radishes, cauliflower, celery, peas, spinach, squash, melons and beets.

There is more than enough to go around.

“We eat it at home and give to our neighbors and kids,” says Bob Felando, 65, who has been gardening here for five years.

“Last year, we took some down to the soup kitchen in Costa Mesa. It’s freedom, and you get a little exercise.”

Gardening at the bottom of a flood-control basin does, of course, have its disadvantages -- especially when there’s a flood. During the El Nino storms of 1998, the basin filled, drowning the gardens under 3 feet of water for a year.

The gardeners bided their time and eventually persuaded the Woodbridge Village Assn. and Orange County Flood Control District to help them rebuild.

Today, the gardens’ chief enemies are more traditional: gophers, mice, rabbits, caterpillars, snails and birds. Some gardeners use insecticides or scarecrows to deal with the intruders. A year ago, they erected a wooden nesting box atop a tall pole to attract a rodent-eating barn owl.

“Supposedly, if you build a nest, the owls will come,” Taub said, “but we haven’t seen any yet. We’re still hoping.”

The sun is the plants’ friend but the gardeners’ enemy, at least at midday, when the heat can become intense. So most of the gardening gets done in the mornings and evenings. Some use the gardens to mark the passage of time.

“I’ve been here ever since the flood,” said Phyllis Olson, 72. “I keep a garden journal -- every time I go down there, I write down what I plant, when I plant it and when it comes up.”

Members of the Seo family are among the newest gardeners. Immigrants from South Korea, they spent six months on the waiting list before getting their plot two months ago.

Now the parents walk to the gardens twice a day with their 7- and 4-year-old sons to water the plants and pick off the snails.

“We’re just beginners,” says Angela Seo, 36.

“California weather is hot, so we need lots of water. It’s a family activity. We like to talk about our garden: how it grows and what we want to plant next. The kids like to find ladybugs -- they are learning about nature and science and the environment.”

As if on cue, 7-year-old Thomas Seo stops watering and leans on his hoe like a veteran of the patch. “I like how it grows,” he says. “I like the lettuce. You put it on a hot dog and it tastes really good.”

What does he think the experience has done for him?

“Well,” Thomas says, “I want to be a gardener.” There’s a pregnant pause. “But I promised my dad I’d be a doctor instead.”