An acrid smell floated on the breeze amid the calls and caws of mockingbirds, finches, and crows at the two-and-a-half-acre Altadena Community Garden, now an expanse of mostly empty soil.

Joe Nagy, a white baseball cap pulled ...

An acrid smell floated on the breeze amid the calls and caws of mockingbirds, finches, and crows at the two-and-a-half-acre Altadena Community Garden, now an expanse of mostly empty soil.

Joe Nagy, a white baseball cap pulled low over his sunglasses, explained how gardeners hope oyster mushrooms will help bring the 52-year-old landmark back to life: by absorbing and clearing potential toxins from the soil.

“Some people might argue we didn’t really need to do all this, but the big picture is, we are right next to really toxic burn zones,” said Nagy, who is president of the nonprofit that operates the popular 120-member institution.

In January, the Eaton Fire burned through this northern Los Angeles suburb, destroying nearly 10,000 homes, businesses, and landmarks. The fire didn’t char the garden, but members worried that lead and other airborne pollutants had settled in the soil.

In the aftermath, Nagy and the community garden members were left with a quandary: How would they remediate after such an unprecedented disaster? The decision was made more difficult by the fact that many of the garden’s 82 plots, and a trellis-shaded common area, remained unscathed; one even had cabbage ready for harvest.

In April, Nagy said, gardeners donned protective equipment and removed tools and other personal items from their plots. Workers hauled away raised beds, then scraped off more than 3 inches of topsoil. Next, trucks dumped 141 tons of compost on top. The nonprofit’s members added teas, fertilizer, and worms. Finally, in June, they amended the mixture with oyster mushroom mycelium and covered it with straw. The fragile compound required constant watering to keep it alive in the hot summer sun.

It was a lot of work, requiring scores of hours of labor, a demonstration of the strong bonds among gardeners who find solace in this place. Many have tended this ground for decades, growing vegetables, herbs, and fruit year-round. They’ve shared recipes, seeds, and laughs here. One community gardener makes wine from Concord grapes that still crown a chain-link fence surrounding the garden. Another crafts soap out of calendula, a perennial daisy that blooms along the perimeter.

The gardeners include African Americans, Cameroonians, Gabonese, El Salvadorans, Eastern Europeans, and Filipinos, among others. The city itself, established at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, is home to generations of Black families, who comprise nearly two-thirds of the households within the Eaton Fire perimeter. More than half of the Altadena Community Garden’s members lost homes to the blaze.

For Mary McGilvray, vice president of the nonprofit that operates Altadena Community Garden, the remediation of the soil has given her a renewed sense of purpose upon her retirement.

“This is one of the most beautiful places in the late afternoons when the sun hits those mountains,” she said. “One of the first times I was here by myself, the mountains were purple, and these Latino men were riding their horses in their full silver regalia down the street and into the park here—and there was a guy sitting here playing the banjo, and it was absolutely magical.”

‘One of the Hardest Things Human Beings Have to Do’

The space, which is both gender and politically diverse, became so coveted that some members would drive for miles to weed and water their patch of ground. In July, even with remediation underway, the waiting list held 133 names. It can take as many as three years to receive a plot.

Many plots belong to two or more gardeners, who often step in to nurture each other’s fruits and vegetables when a partner goes on vacation, gets knee surgery, or is buried in work.

“Gardeners are doing one of the hardest things that human beings have to do: share land,” said Omar Brownson, executive director of the Los Angeles Community Garden Council, which counts about a third of the region’s 150 gardens as members. “Think about all the conflict around the world. Most of it is around sharing land.”

At the Altadena garden’s 2023 summer picnic. (Photo courtesy of Altadena Community Garden)

In Altadena, even residents who aren’t members of the community garden eagerly await its reopening, particularly its famed summer picnic. “I had a wonderful experience during the last picnic when we had the public in here,” recounted Kurt Zubriskie, who is considered a “new member,” having belonged for a mere three years. “I had a fair field of strawberries, there were some kids over there stealing strawberries, and it was just wonderful—they were so happy and joyous.”

The event won’t happen this year, as gardeners patiently remediate the soil. If it tests negative for toxins later this year, the nonprofit will install a sprinkler system and, if all goes well, reopen by early next year. The group is still raising some of the money they estimate they will need to finish remediation, as well as building an office on site.

“As soon as money comes in, it goes out,” said Silvera Grant, a past president of the garden, whom members credit with helping to transform the institution from “one of privilege” to one where access is equal for all.

The Jamaican-born grandfather shares his space with several others, including Alan Freeman, a retired theater teacher and playwright. Grant invited Freeman, who belongs to his church, to join the garden about a dozen years ago.

“I brought flowers to his garden. He doesn’t really like flowers because he can’t eat them—but I like a little bit of color,” Freeman said as he sat next to Grant and other gardeners around a concrete picnic table, as purple blooms drifted down from a jacaranda tree.

Both men are taking advantage of this downtime to help other members expand a fruit orchard outside the garden’s fence, where the public will be able to pick plums, apricots, avocados, and more, for free. An education program is also in the works, as is a community crop swap and food share.

For now, gardeners are working to bring back what was lost. When the soil is ready, Freeman will plant flowers, and Grant will sow pepper seeds among them, an embodiment of the longstanding communal ethos of the garden. “When I first came to the garden,” Grant recalled, “a gardener said to me, ‘Silvera, when you plant, you plant for yourself, and you plant for everyone else.’”

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