The Tehachapi Community Garden has provided free food to the people of Tehachapi and the surrounding area for a few years now, and the organization shows no sign of slowing down.
The garden, part of the Tehachapi Humanitarian Relief Group, grew 300 pounds of pumpkin alone last year, along with another 300 pounds of other vegetables and fruits, all given out for free.
Paige Lanteigne, one of the garden’s long-time volunteers, said the organization is not hierarchical, with she and her fellows sharing duties fluidly as needed. But of the five most active volunteers she has the most time for the garden, so she’s been the primary coordinator of the group recently.
Lanteigne said she got involved with the garden at the suggestion of a friend after moving to Tehachapi from Bakersfield, and joined in 2023.
She said she’d done plenty of food distribution with her friend group in Bakersfield through Food Not Bombs, but the Tehachapi Community Garden gave her the opportunity to really improve her skills at gardening. It was something she always wanted but had great frustration with in the past.
“I had tried gardening for many years,” she said. “… I was not good at it. I killed every single plant I tried to grow. It was very discouraging.”
She said when she joined the garden there were enough people with experience that she got the help she needed to significantly improve her skills, learning how to balance the complex task of managing many different kinds of plants, all with different needs in terms of water, soil, sunlight, water, nutrients and more.
“As long as it’s not just me, I can do this,” she said.
Lanteigne said the garden was started in 2022 by Madeline Rebush, and supplied food to the Humanitarian Relief Group, which in turn distributed food across the Tehachapi area during COVID-19. The food especially went to those who had trouble shopping for themselves, whether due to a disability or any other reason.
After the group lost some delivery drivers, she said, the garden started to do its own deliveries and focus more on supporting local food banks, such as the Tehachapi High School Warriors Pantry.
The garden doesn’t means test, she said, and they do plenty of events that are for anyone in the community regardless of income. But they want to continue serving the most vulnerable in particular, especially as food insecurity remains prevalent despite often not being obvious.
“Food insecurity tends to be invisible,” she said.
Lanteigne said she wants to reach out to local seniors in the future especially.
As for the community as a whole, she said, the garden offers plenty of free events at which they hand out fruits, vegetables and herbs to anyone who wants them.
At some events people can decorate pots they can use to grow food on their own, and soon they want to start providing classes on the basics of growing food at home.
“When to plant, how to plant, what kind of fertilizer you should be using,” she said of the subjects she wants the organization to teach.
Lanteigne said the garden also seeks to provide education on how to support local wildlife, especially pollinators, as well as provide information on farming practices and soil health, which is a massive part of what they do.
The group is considering other ideas as well, like making raised beds that they can rent to local restaurants, and growing hops for Westlane Brewing to make a beer named after the garden.
She said the garden, which, between their spaces at The Village Tehachapi, and next to the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District office, has 11 flower and herb beds, a greenhouse and a pollinator garden, still has room to grow yet, and they want to expand their composting and grow more nutrient-dense food in the future.
“We’d like to become our own little farm,” she said.
She said they want to keep working with the local schools and maybe even help them set up their own gardens.
But, maybe more than anything else, Lanteigne said, the garden wants more volunteers and more suggestions from the public about what they want to see.
“We want more community involvement,” she said.
She said not all the help they need is hard labor, as they also need help with tasks such as producing publicity materials, as well as making meeting agendas and minutes.
She said working with the garden keeps her active and it is incredibly rewarding to see the fruits — literal and figurative — of her efforts.
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