Garden Couture, Friendship & Cats, and the Future We Grow

By Kelly Wood, SCCG Founding Member and Board of Directors Chair

Happy July friends of SCCG! Hope you (and your plants) are enjoying the summer sunshine and great gardening weather! 

If you’ve been to SCCG recently, you might agree that the garden, with its 70 plots and surrounding plant areas bursting with healthy food, pollinators, and ornamental designs, is a summer spectacle of garden couture!  Artichokes are showing off their crown jewels, while Summer squashes and Fall pumpkins seem to be flaunting their golden curves, and the tomato plants are preparing for a big debut of their ripe and ready fruit (and yummy tomato sandwiches all summer long)!  Rising high above all others, the Holly Hocks and Sunflowers strut their seasonal splendor catching the attention of bees and ladybugs, while newly hatched Monarch butterflies flutter around the garden like happy, little fairies.  If it sounds magical, it is.    

Friendship and Crazy Cats

What is our secret to producing such a beautiful and bountiful summer garden? I believe it comes down to two things: Friendship and Crazy Cats!

Nothing brings me more joy than when I see our gardeners, volunteers and visitors making connections with one another, or  when I see children joyfully explore the garden and immerse themselves in nature. And, when I encounter someone mulching the garden, pulling weeds, or helping behind the scenes to support our website, marketing and admin, I am humbled by their service and inspired by their actions.  But what really moves me are all the friendships that have been created in our garden and are still growing.  I see how we work together and support one another.  We are truly growing more than food and flowers at SCCG; We’re really Growing Community.

There’s also our other secret weapon: Our beloved cats.  Yes, we owe our Summer bounty credit to our loveable cats and Crazy Cat Committee (CCC).  Since adopting cats from the Vista-based non-profit, Love Your Feral Felines last fall, our furry guardians of the garden have done an outstanding job keeping unwanted pests away, helping our gardens thrive. You can help support our garden cats with a donation or reach out if you’re interested in volunteering as a CCC volunteer.

The Future We Grow

I recently returned from an inspiring trip to NYC where George Mercer, SCCG’s landscape architect, and I had the honor of presenting SCCG’s success story – Think Beyond the Plot: from Ideation to Sustainable Growth - at the 2025 National GrowTogether Conference, a pivotal event in the community gardening and urban agriculture movement that took place in the surprisingly “green” metropolis of New York City!  Over four days, George and I explored fabulous art-filled green spaces and mingled with more than 1,800 community gardeners, urban-ag program leaders, researchers and policymakers - some joining from as far abroad as Australia and Mexico.  We also awed the audience with this video (special thanks to Tony Gross and Michael Spaulding for volunteering their video time and talents to produce this for SCCG).

One of the conference highlights was the keynote delivered by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Potawatomi botanist, environmentalist, researcher, and bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass.  Kimmerer shared how community gardens have become more than green patches in our neighborhoods — they are powerful symbols of our collective hope, resilience, and healing.  She spoke of our sacred responsibility: to leave the land better than we found it, to tend not only the soil but also to the human spirit. She declared that community gardens are among the most profound acts of hope we can perform, because they restore belonging — to place, to each other, and to ourselves.  “We are in a sacred reciprocal relationship,” she explained, “The land loves us back, if only we love it first.  And, by caring for the land, we care for each other, and by caring for each other, we strengthen the roots of our shared future.”

As she shared her wisdom with us, I thought about our spirit of “growing community” at SCCG and felt so honored and proud to represent “our success story”.  On behalf of SCCG’s founding members and our all-volunteer SCCG Leadership Team, we thank you for your support and we thank the hundreds of SCCG’s gardeners and volunteers who have moved the rocks, toiled the soil, and tended to the many seeds that have been planted over the last thirteen years.  To the person who reads this, know that you play an important role in this sacred responsibility that we share.  Your service and friendship is much appreciated and we hope that you’ll continue to be a loyal friend to SCCG.

Rooted in gratitude,                 

Kelly

P.S.  If you’d like to get involved as a gardener, volunteer, community partner or sponsor please reach out to info@sancarloscommunitygarden.com.

WANTED: Garden Contributors!  Do you like to write stories or interview others?  The SCCG seeks content contributors for our monthly newsletter and Mission Times Courier column.  Stories can be a memory of reflection from your gardening at home or SCCG (or elsewhere), a favorite recipe, or informational gardening tips.  Contact Kelly@sancarloscommunitygarden.com if you are interested.