Reporter Eddie Quezada of KESQ-TV interviewed gardener Brian Desborough, who said his small plot yields about 100 pounds of heirloom tomatoes, vegetables that often go for $5 a pound at supermarkets.
UC Cooperative Extension vegetable crops advisor Jose Luis Aguiar noted in his interview the psychological benefits of gardening.
"It's nothing better than coming out and spending a couple hours moving the soil, moving the vegetables around, watering, trimming them, nothing better than that and the added benefit is you get to pick your own vegetables which are always the best because they are fresh," Aguiar said.
All of the Santa Rosa Community Garden's 200 plots are being cultivated by local gardeners, and a waiting list for space there has been maintained for three years, Quezada reported.
Jose Luis Aguiar
The San Diego Union-Tribune ran an article today about the uncertain future of a popular community garden. The Santee community garden is on the grounds of the community's county-owned Edgemoor Hospital. Patients are being moved from the facility and most of the buildings are slated for demolition.
Two UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners are quoted in the story, 85-year-old Joyce Gemmell, and Judy Jacoby, the co-chair of the San Diego County Master Gardener Association's community gardening committee.
Gemmell, who lives in a mobile home, tends one of the community garden's 30 plots, producing corn, squash and other produce for herself and the Santee Food Bank.
"I've always been a gardener," she was quoted in the article. "I'm the old generation – growing food is important to me."
Jacoby commented on the popularity of community gardens in San Diego County. She said some gardens have stopped adding names to their wait lists because of high demand.
“There is a huge, huge interest,” she told reporter Michelle Clock.
