Small-scale farmers and family gardeners at the Tijuana River Valley Community Garden celebrated Friday as news broke that a nonprofit food grower and nutrition education provider in National City has stepped up to save their beloved garden from imminent closure.
The county of San Diego on Friday announced it had selected Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center, which grows organic produce and teaches cooking and gardening skills in what the organization calls a historically underserved community, to manage the Tijuana River garden, the largest community garden in San Diego County.
The announcement comes just one month after the Tijuana River garden’s previous manager abruptly pulled out and issued eviction notices to gardeners amid heightened fears of river valley pollution.
Gardeners expressed relief and jubilation upon learning they would be able to continue growing fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers and other produce at the 20-acre complex of publicly owned farmland adjacent to the Tijuana River near the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We are ecstatic,” said Henry Martinez, who grows broccoli, lettuce, strawberries and other produce at his 30-foot-by-30-foot plot at the Tijuana River garden. “We’re going to be very happy working with Olivewood because they have the experience running a community garden.”
A county spokesperson said officials are still ironing out details of the new management arrangement. Gardeners previously faced a Nov. 30 deadline to move out.
Martinez credited South County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre with speeding up efforts to find a new manager for the garden after the Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego County, which had managed the garden on behalf of the county since 2002, told gardeners last month they had 60 days to pack up and leave because the District had decided managing the garden amid the Tijuana River sewage crisis was too risky.
“I want to say a Bravo Zulu to District 1 County Supervisor Aguirre,” said Martinez, a retired Navy veteran who lives in Chula Vista and commutes regularly to his Tijuana River garden plot. “She moved swiftly to get another organization.”
The threatened closure of the garden initially posed a public relations headache for Aguirre when gardeners and the Resource Conservation District both blamed sewage warning signs Aguirre had urged county officials to post along the river for prompting the District to decide managing the garden was too risky.
But Aguirre quickly pivoted, holding a series of meetings with gardeners, briefing community members at a packed town hall and working behind the scenes to ensure the garden stayed open.
“It’s so important to my constituents,” Aguirre said Friday morning during a brief interview at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new jobs center in Chula Vista. “You saw how much it matters to the gardeners and farmers and all the benefits it brings them. Doing a 180 in the time we did, it’s very important. I’m glad it’s working out.”
Jen Nation, executive director of Olivewood Gardens, was traveling and unavailable for comment.
Olivewood grows more than 6,800 pounds of organic produce per year at the organization’s roughly seven-acre property in southeast National City, according to a recent annual report. The organization distributes the produce to local community organizations and also hosts school field trips and teaches cooking and gardening classes to local community members.
A source close to the Tijuana River garden said three other organizations had applied to the county to manage the garden: Casa Familiar, a San Ysidro-based community service organization; Foodshed Small Farm Cooperative, which connects San Diego-area farmers with consumers; and Barron Creek Farm, a nonprofit farm in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Martinez said Tijuana River gardeners are especially excited to work with Olivewood because the nonprofit pledged “to mentor us and teach us how to manage the garden ourselves.”
“Olivewood Gardens is an amazing group of people,” Martinez said. “[They will] help us form a community garden committee to be self-sustaining in the future.”
More than 200 gardeners and small-scale farmers grow food at the nearly quarter-century-old Tijuana River garden. For many, the garden is a source of food, an opportunity to get outside in a crowded urban area and even a sole source of income.
Ann Baldridge, executive director of the Resource Conservation District, said the decision to end the District’s management of the garden had been “bittersweet.”
But Baldridge said the garden will be in good hands with Olivewood. “They do so much good work, especially focused on the South Bay,” she said. “I’m grateful and excited they put themselves forward.”
On Friday, Martinez was busy sharing the good news with other Tijuana River gardeners. He said gardeners had banded together to protest the garden’s imminent closure and now could celebrate their success.
“What’s beautiful about the garden is there’s diversity, but we’re all one group of gardeners,” he said. “We come together as one.”
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