The fire roared through first. But after the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cleared the Altadena Community Garden of hazardous waste and burned-out structures, the people who loved it best finally had a chance to step foot into their happy place again.
Over three days before Easter Sunday, the owners of 84 plots in the community garden got a chance to retrieve whatever they can from their green spaces. Volunteers saved items for gardeners who couldn’t be there.
On Monday, April 21, Los Angeles County workers scraped the topsoil of the garden beds, which sits adjacent to lower Loma Alta Park on North Lincoln Avenue.
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“Due to the size of the garden, heavy machinery is brought in to remove large debris. Then, about 3 to 6 inches of topsoil is taken away,” said Joe Nagy, president of the nonprofit that runs the garden. “This is a crucial step to ensure that potentially toxic remnants from burned materials are cleared out, especially important in a place where food is grown.”
Mary McGilvray of Pasadena is vice president of the garden. She said aside from the ash and soot that covered everything in the days immediately after the Eaton fire, scraping the topsoil removes any leftover fire-damaged debris and toxins.
This will be followed with soil testing, application of a layer of fertilizer, vermicompost tea, biochar, and organic material, before new soil is laid in May. It will then be treated with more “microbial goodness” and oyster mushroom mycelium before it is covered with straw. This “mycoremediation” will take two months and will break down toxins in the soil. Another round of soil testing will happen after that, ensuring the soil is clean, nutrient-rich and biologically active for returning gardeners.
Both said they understand the emotional connection people have to the toil they’ve built over the years.
“I’ve felt that loss, too,” Nagy said. “But there’s a real gift in what’s to come. With the help of Metabolic Studios and Flo Engineering Inc., we’ll be bringing in soil recovered from the Topanga Canyon mudslide, a donation we’re incredibly grateful for.”
But before all that, on April 17, Nagy and McGilvray welcomed gardeners by name, offering them PPEs, masks and gloves to work and clear their plots. Of the Altadena Community Garden’s 84 gardeners, 44 lost their homes and 25 remain displaced, Nagy said.
It was a somber reunion for the gardeners, all of whom said their plot in the two-and-a-half acre land was their safe space and haven.
“I just love it. It’s a magical place, an escape from the world,” Nagy said. “But it’s taken a hit.”
Scorched cacti near the entrance to the garden still stands, but a large storage shed, tool shed, benches and metal structures were lost. There are burnt trees visible at the north part of Loma Alta Park, and burned homes and even a charred pickup truck are within view from three corners of the space.
What survived: the deck, an owl house and unofficial Little Free Library.
When the gardeners walked through on April 17, they also found a riot of weeds everywhere, as well as plants and fruits that continued to thrive even after the fires. Growing on trellises and amid little stools and birdbaths were roses, sunflowers, lavender, red lettuce, calendula, fennel and various other herbs and vegetables.
John Lynch, whose Altadena home nearby is safe, had to remind himself not to pull the weeds from the plot he and his wife Michiko have tended for 18 years. The couple, who moved to Altadena 20 years ago, saved some leeks and strawberry plants. But couldn’t dig up old cement blocks they could have repurposed.
Michiko Lynch said she would have preferred not to rush the cleanup, if it meant saving the soil they’ve nurtured for years.
“When we rebuild, let’s rebuild better,” she said.
“Let it be science-based and not an overreaction and let’s not be under-prepared,” her husband added.
Looking over the neighboring squares, John Lynch could name its owners and recite how many years a garden element had stood guard there.
“Our oldest gardener is Ike Turner. He got his plot in 1972, and when he comes, he has helpers,” he said. “This was a meeting place.”
For McGilvray, who also serves as orientation coordinator, “this was my tribe,” she said. “I felt like this was home.”
The garden’s waiting list averages five years and has more than 100 people on it, she added.
The garden’s resurrection is not part of the reopening of Loma Alta Park, set for May 17, according to county parks director Norma E. García-González. She said volunteers will work Saturdays this month to replant, clean and repaint the park. Tree People, Los Angeles Conservation Corps and a coalition of Rotary Clubs from across the state have pledged its support. The garden itself will hopefully reopen in January.
The Altadena Community Garden first bloomed in 1970, built from the site of Mt. Lowe Military Academy, which had reverted to ownership by Los Angeles County. County workers graded the lot, built the fences, tool shed, patio deck and benches, as well as most of the sidewalks. The county also installed water lines.
By the time Loma Alta Park was redesigned in 1984, the garden was a pivotal piece in the landscape, which included tennis courts and an equestrian center. Reminders of Mt. Lowe remain in the wrought-iron entry gate on Palm Street.
The garden operates under the auspices of the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation. An annual picnic at the garden is one of the town’s biggest events, McGilvray said.
Rebuilding with purpose means looking forward to many things, Nagy said, including installing a fruit orchard just outside the garden’s chain link fence, replacing the aging irrigation system, expanding its offering of gardening classes, enhancing rainwater capture systems and planting high-transpiration trees and creating a native “mother plant” area to serve as a demo site supporting pollinators and native plant species.
Marie Yeseta, 65, spent hours saying goodbye to her garden of 20 years. She, too, resisted pulling weeds and tending to plants. She gets no sunshine in her yard in La Crescenta.
“I came at least weekly, I had different kinds of kale, plants from Portugal and the Czech Republic,” she said.
Community activist René Amy’s green thumb is apparent in his associations with native plant propagation groups, the conservationist Xerxes Society
Amy, 64, waited years for his garden plot, which he started in 2010. When he visited on April 17, he found the artichoke plant he grew from two two-inch pots from Lincoln Avenue Nursery had grown into giant proportions. It’s testament to what can grow in good soil, Amy said. He saved several Xerxes Society signs, some tomato cages and a double-barrel composter.
In a way, this “one more thing, one more loss” is easier to take because he can regrow what’s alive, Amy said.
“It’s just so sad, this is my sanity spot,” he said. “Like everything in Altadena, it will take time. But what is that quote? As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.”
