About 30 community members gathered for the formal reopening of a community garden in El Quito Park in Saratoga on Monday afternoon.

The garden officially opened in June after a significant revamp, with the number of beds up from 17 to 49. It was further built out with the addition of concrete picnic tables, toolsheds, a greenhouse and even a new bulletin board. Saratoga residents can lease plots annually with the possibility of renewal.

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“It’s a gathering place, and it’s a connection over a common interest,” said Bridget Cash, a former Public Works Department analyst who served as project manager for the redesign.

Cash said the new designs for the garden were unveiled at a Parks and Recreation Commission meeting in July 2024. After several meetings to receive community feedback, she added, the city had hoped to get the garden fully opened by March of this year but faced some delays. Public Works Director John Cherbone said that one reasons was that some of the furniture, like the greenhouse, took a few months to come in.

The entire Saratoga City Council turned out for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday afternoon, and city staff provided a table with refreshments and free succulents to give away. Former Saratoga mayor Jill Hunter also made an appearance. Mayor Belal Aftab spoke briefly about the garden, saying that it was “really cool to see all of this come together” with input from residents and that he hopes the garden will “serve different parts of the city.” He credited landscape architect Jeff Heid with the garden’s design.

Cash said the renovation cost almost $350,000, with the funding coming in different stages from park development fees. She recalled that demolishing the old garden was very costly as there were a lot of tripping hazards on the ground and an outdated irrigation system. She said workers had to regrade the ground, and the fences were pushed back for more space. The old irrigation system was updated with spouts in each garden bed.

“I think people are very passionate about their gardens,” Cash said. “A lot of people just share their ideas, their tricks; they rely on each other to watch over (their plots) for them when they’re out of town…or to watch out for pests, so I think it does support a lot of the community.”

Gardener Terry Carlson, who had a plot in the garden for three years until the redesign, recalled that not all of the garden plots had boxes before the renovations. To keep gophers and moles out, gardeners had to put their own screens under the ground to keep them from digging up to the plants.

“These boxes are an improvement because every single box has a very heavy duty screen,” Carlson said.

The garden uses restorative agricultural practices to prevent topsoil erosion by enriching the soil with microorganisms, Carlson said. Lettuce, collard greens, daikon radishes, cauliflower, carrots, Swiss chard and strawberries, among other flowers and crops, are growing for the winter season.

Carlson said residents can eat the food grown at the garden after gardeners harvest the ripe fruits and vegetables and take it to a center on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and Sea Gull Way.

Although the garden is now officially reopened to the public, Eagle Scouts are due to build some ADA-accessible beds.

For more information on how to rent a garden plot, visit http://bit.ly/4qnRKdw.