The world in a garden - Hayward Community Gardens, Hayward, CA

Sunset, Oct, 1996 by Lauren Bonar Swezey

On a few acres in Northern California, 108 families from 12 countries grow vegetables

It's a warm summer morning. Cris and Sandra Ortiz are relaxing under a large shade tree - the only tree on Hayward Community Gardens' sunny, 7-acre property in Hayward, California. Cris, who is president of the board for the gardens, is talking about gandana, an Afghani relative of the onion with a mild leek flavor.

He leads me to his plots, pointing out the 26 tomato bushes, dozens of 'Blue Lake' beans, Japanese and Pakistani cucumbers, squash, zucchini plants, and an unusual-looking plant called apio (Puerto Rican potato). This member of the celery family has celery-like leaves and potato-like roots. "You can boil the leaves for tea; it puts you to sleep," says Cris. "The root is delicious in soup or mashed like a potato."

Down the path that borders plots of familiar and unfamiliar vegetables, Mitch Nakashima is harvesting Japanese cucumbers and tending pole beans. Soon Ghulam Durani strolls by, headed for his plot of Afghani vegetables. He shows me a baby dill-like plant. "We are people from the mountains," says Durani, "and every plant has a medicinal use. This one cleans the blood."

Strolling through these gardens is like visiting many of the agricultural communities of the world squeezed into one place. Some 442 people from 108 families - representing 12 ethnic groups - grow crops here. You'll find rows of corn, green beans, and tomatoes, as well as a wonderful array of less common vegetables, such as taro and sugarcane.

Like many other community gardens around the West, this garden is about much more than vegetable plots.

"Many of the people at our community garden are immigrants," says Cris. "Everyone learns from each other here. We trade vegetables and recipes. It helps [us] integrate."

Cris Ortiz, who emigrated from Puerto Rico 34 years ago, tends 4 1/2 plots at the community garden. Some of the vegetables he keeps for his family, but the rest he sells at the community garden's vegetable cart near the entrance. The proceeds help pay the garden's water bill. "Cris is here day and night," says treasurer Betty Chaffin. "He knows everyone and what they plant. The gardens couldn't operate without him."

Ortiz collects and saves his own vegetable seeds at the end of each season. "For tomatoes, I just take seeds out, wash and dry them, and then store them in a jar. I cut open cucumbers and scoop out the seeds."

Ortiz takes me over to visit with Fadieh Haddad (shown above), an elderly Jordanian he calls "Mama." Dressed in a long skirt and apron, with her hair tucked under a colorful bandanna, Mama's tending beans. She doesn't speak English, but she cheerfully shows us her vegetable plot. Mama brought seeds of runnerlike beans from the old country, Ortiz explains.

Mitch Nakashima, a Japanese American from Hawaii, takes special pride in the appearance of his garden plot. All of the vegetables are neatly arranged and, whenever possible, strung up on trellises to save space. He even prefers to trellis his Japanese 'Long Green' cucumbers, because then "I can see all of the fruit," says Nakashima.

His cucumber trellis is actually a tent made with 2-inch wire mesh. He plants the seeds at its base and allows the vines to crawl up both sides. Nakashima's bean trellis is made from recycled wood and string. "I use a lot of recycled materials - I never throw anything away." He even recycles twist ties to attach the vines to the trellises.

When Nakashima starts seeds, he doesn't just plant a few for his own plot. He sows a packet in containers and passes out 2-inch potted plants to anyone at the garden who wants them.

Besides growing standard vegetables such as asparagus, 'Blue Lake' beans, 'Butterfruit' corn, and seedless 'Oregon Pride' and 'Siletz' tomatoes, he also grows special Asian vegetables. "Japanese pumpkin ('Kabocha') is like an acorn squash - sweet in flavor - but it's green. I chop it up and cook it with meat." Another unusual favorite of Nakashima's is burdock (gobo in Japanese), a 3-foot-long, sweetly pungent root vegetable shaped like a parsnip. "I plant it in May and harvest it in November. Japanese [eat] it for New Year's."

During the cool season, Nakashima plants broccoli with different maturity dates so his harvest doesn't come all at once. 'Packman' matures in 85 days, 'Shogun' in 102.

Chico Rios came to Hayward from Jalisco, Mexico, 15 years ago. Each Saturday he spends all day tending his plot while two of his children, Veronica and Angel, play in the garden and, on hot days, soak in a bright blue barrel of water.

Gardening is one of Rios's favorite pastimes, and he does it well. His plot is a home away from home, complete with a shed that has an arbor attached. The arbor not only provides shade on hot days but also holds up rambunctious vines of chayote and chilacayote (a special Mexican squash). His beds are immaculately tended and edged with wood to make them easier to water, and "so the kids don't step in the plants," says Rios.