Everything Glendale

Filed Under: Cool Websites, Farmers' Market, Food, Green Living, Montrose, News

A few years ago, my best friend moved into a swanky apartment in West Hollywood, right across the street from the Wattles community garden. On the way up to our hike at Runyon Canyon, we snuck a tour of the garden's periphery and saw, beyond the wire fence, an abundant beauty that reminded me of one of my favorite childhood novels, The Secret Garden. There seemed to be a hundred or more small vegetable and herb gardens, separated by a simple mulched pathway. Bordering each farmed plot were creeping vines and blooming flowers. We spotted busy gardeners, working the weeds, schmoozing under lemon trees.

I was insanely jealous. Here was a communal sanctuary, right along Hollywood Boulevard and yet too far from home. When I got back to this side of town, I rushed online and Googled "COMMUNITY GARDEN GLENDALE CALIFORNIA." Sadly, the search proved unfruitful (pardon the pun), as such a garden did not exist.

About a month ago, I became aware of the new Coalition for a Green Glendale, an organization working with the Los Angeles Community Garden Council in building a new community garden at 870 Monterey Road. The Coalition was founded by recent college graduates who have joined with landscape designer Guillame Lemoine (and who I recently had the pleasure of meeting) to "protect, preserve, restore, and enhance the ecological environment of the City of Glendale through conservation, research, education, and activism." Their website also shows that they've been working to make Glendale a more environmentally respectful city by taking even simple steps like handing out reusable bags at the Montrose Harvest Market.

Those who are interested in participating in the new Monterey Eco-Community Garden can go to the Coalition's website for the interest form. According to the Glendale News-Press,
the proposed plan includes communal fruit trees along the edge of the garden (which means anyone could pick 'em!), the possibility of 45 plots of land, and it would serve as a model for future community gardens. Under the current plan, "gardeners would put down a $20 deposit and pay $80 annually for a full plot, $45 for a half plot." Not bad for a year's worth of food and a small slice of Eden.

Visit the Coalition for a Green Glendale website.