The Chandler/Pass Community Garden is marking its fourth year with a new mural, a growing harvest and a free produce table that has become a Saturday morning staple for neighbors across Burbank.
The anniversary brought a new addition to the site: an 8-by-10 mural painted by artist Amanda Leigh Smith depicting California native plants, fruit, birds and insects.
“I just really like the chance to celebrate community,” Leigh Smith said. “What was really fun to work here was getting to have conversations with the gardeners as I was painting. People had questions about the plants and what insects were in the mural. That part was really fun.”
For Leigh Smith, the mural was also an opportunity to educate.
“So much has been built here that we have really lost touch to what our native plants are,” she said. “A lot of people, whether they are born here or move here from somewhere else, really might not be able to recognize just a handful of native plants.”
The garden has become more than a place to grow vegetables.
For Crystal Hopkins, a third-year member, it became a lifeline.
Hopkins said she started by volunteering to pull weeds, got on a waiting list, and a year later was growing her own produce. Hopkins got emotional describing what the garden meant to her and described the people as part of a family.
“I think I found it when I was missing [community], right after COVID everyone was isolated,”Hopkins said. “[It] just kind of became a place that was the antithesis of what we had to do during COVID.”
Frankie Glass, the garden’s current steward and one of its original members, has watched it transform over the years.
“This site used to be waste ground, it had been mowed down twice a year probably for 30 years,” Glass said. “We all came, built our own plots and we dug down in the ground, put in gopher wire to keep the critters out and we all started making friendships.”
Glass says the sense of abundance now extends beyond the garden’s fence.
In fact a few years ago, members began weighing their harvests and were surprised by the scale of what they were producing. Glass said last year’s total surpassed 1,500 pounds, prompting them to set out a free table for the surrounding community.
“I think that’s an amazing statistic in times when we are struggling to pay our grocery bills and some people can’t do it at all,” Glass said. “And here we have this bounty [of food], it’s just fantastic.”
The table has become a weekly ritual.
“We have regulars who come at 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning and say, ‘Oh what do you have this week, is it tomatoes, is it zucchini?'” Glass said. “It’s just lovely because you get to meet people. There are people who say, ‘I remember when this site was all orange groves.’ It’s an incredible connection to the whole community.”
