Redondo Beach Celebrates Anniversary Of Community Garden

REDONDO BEACH, CA — A group of novice and experienced gardeners came together at the Redondo Beach Community Garden one year ago and have grown with their plants to become a family.

With the backing of a passionate community group, the South Bay Parkland Conservancy opened 27 plots in Redondo Beach's first-ever community garden in June 2023. Exactly one year later, the community gardeners gathered to feed each other with dishes created from the food they grew in their personal plots.

From rhubarb crumble to herb butters, each dish included hand-cultivated ingredients and was enjoyed in the very garden they were grown in. While the plants grew, so did the connection between the gardeners.

"It's really an awesome community and we all help each other," gardener Kicki Byers told Patch. "If somebody needs help, like if they're going out of town, everybody helps with watering."

The gardeners have cultivated a community that helps each other and freely gives each other tips. Gardener Jennifer Price said she is often in the garden at the same time as one of her plot neighbors who watched her having trouble with her tomato plant.

"She sees us trying to trim our tomatoes, and she always comes over to say 'I think you should be cutting off all the ones that go down heavy because no tomatoes are growing on that," Price said. "It's a neat community and I love that. It's really nice."

Throughout the year, different seasons and weather conditions in the garden helped certain plants grow. For example, gardener Ginny Weinert said the dramatic rain storms during the winter season were really good for growing kale, radishes, celery, lettuce and beets.

While there is some overlap in what the gardeners grow, many have yielded a wide variety of food for themselves including potatoes, garlic, nightshade, eggplant and more. Weinert says she often grows way more than she can eat, so she hooks her friends and family up with fresh veggies.

"Whenever they visited, I'd have peppers or bushels of basil and I was just like, 'Hey, you want this?' I didn't wait for an answer. I just gave it right to them," Weinert said.

The garden doesn't only provide sustenance for the individual gardeners, it also has partnerships with many organizations in the community to help teach students and even feed the homeless.

Byers' plot neighbors the community garden, which is used to grow lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers for St. James Catholic Church member Linda Cabibbo, who oversees the Feed the Needy program. With the vegetables grown in the garden, Cabibbo will create salads to feed unhoused people in the community.

"We can't wait to start harvesting this and help them because it's such an amazing thing," Byers said.

In the future, the South Bay Parkland Conservancy would love to reach more people in Redondo Beach and possibly start up another community garden. No official plans are in the works yet, officials said, but high demand for the limited number of plots has inspired ideas of expanding.