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Angie Watson-Hajjem:Hello Alameda! Welcome to the Island City Beat Podcast. I'm your host Angie Watson-Hajjem. The Alameda Backyard Gardeners was founded right here in Alameda back in 2010 as a way to help fellow Alamedans grow food, donate food, and build community. On today's show, I'll be talking to Jullian Saxton, who is the board president of the Alameda Backyard Gardeners, and she's going to talk to us about this wonderful organization and the impact that they're having here on our island city.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So with that, welcome, Jillian, to Island City Beat Podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Jillian Saxty:This is so great. I'm so happy to be here.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I'm happy that you're here, too. So give us the background story of how the Alameda Backyard Gardeners came to be.
Jillian Saxty:Well, it was started by two women, Amanda Brumer and Janice Edwards. They're not with the organization anymore, but they really built a strong foundation because their mission was not just to grow, to start an organization around sharing food, but it was to build community at the same time. They built that right into the foundation. In fact, the original motto was growing community one veggie at a time. So we still use that.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I love that.
Jillian Saxty:But they had this idea and they started gathering folks around them. I personally joined when I think it was in the Sun, the Alameda Sun, they had an article about come and help with a compost pilot plowshares. We're going to help them volunteer and everything. So I met a group of people and that became the core group that eventually created this nonprofit.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:That's wonderful. And one of the things that you do, I know we were talking last week, I never knew this even existed here in Alameda, will go to someone can have a tree, a beautiful tree growing lemons or oranges, apples, and they'll say, I have an abundance of fruit. I want to share it. Come pick up my fruit, come to my house, pick up my fruit and take it to somewhere where people can enjoy it. So talk to us about how that actually works.
Jillian Saxty:That's what really drew me to the to this organization, this group in the beginning. I just thought that was such a fantastic idea. I mean, if you drive around Alameda, you'll see lemons and oranges all over the place.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:On the sidewalk, when I'm walking, I see all the time, I see lemons and snatched up oranges.
Jillian Saxty:It's crazy how much free food. It's literally free food we have in Alameda. So, what we do is we have a way for people to contact us either by calling or by emailing and we find out a little bit about their tree and then we come out with our van that has tools, you know, extendable pickers and ladders and a crew of volunteers and we harvest the tree and then Dina Anderson and then Amy Kalkstein, who are running Project Pick right now, will deliver the food. All of it goes to the Alameda Food Bank and they put it right on their shelves and it goes right out the door. So we're taking free food and giving it to people that are hungry.
Jillian Saxty:So it's really amazing and I'm so proud of what we do. And I have to say that this month, this year is a record year. We've already hit 10,000 pounds just this year. So Wow. It's amazing.
Jillian Saxty:All all credit to Amy and Dina who are running it right now, but it's fantastic.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:That is incredible. So outside of this project that you have where people are picking food and taking to the Alameda Food Bank, what are some of other programs that you offer through the Alameda Backyard Gardeners?
Jillian Saxty:It's Alameda Backyard Growers.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Oh I'm sorry.
Jillian Saxty:That's okay. We are gardeners. It's fine. There's sort of three main components. The first one that we just talked about, Project Pick, which harvests fruit and donates to the food bank.
Jillian Saxty:The second part is educational. We have a really strong educational program, either classes where we have speakers or workshops that people can come and get hands on and it's all free. Most of them, most of what we offer is free to the public. And then the third part is really our outreach to the community, which could be tabling at an event or helping with community gardens and we also have free seed libraries that you might see around town. They're sort of like the book libraries, you go and you get free seed packets.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I've seen that.
Jillian Saxty:So, that's our outreach. So, those are the three main pieces of what we do.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. I know I've been so curious about composting. That's kind of the big thing now. I don't know how to do it. So can you give people who want because we're supposed to be composting, right?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Not just throwing in our garbage cans. What is the best way to go about composting our foods?
Jillian Saxty:We have a lot of resources on our website where we've offered a lot of classes and we've worked closely with Stop Waste, which is a nonprofit organization under the Alameda County. And they want people to not waste food and compost. But you just have to have a space in your yard either most people use containers because you don't want pests getting in there. And really, you shouldn't put any kind of meat or things like that where they'll attract, you know, pests that you don't want. But there's a variety of different ways.
Jillian Saxty:There's a spinning composters, there's the stacking composters, and a lot of those are available through stop waste or you can also pick up free compost out by farm to market around the point. And you're right that there is a new state law that is requiring cities a lot of their garbage. So it's good. It's encouraging people to do that.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:You know, a lot of people really love the idea of being a gardener and growing their food and all that. But if someone's living in an apartment, they don't have a lot of space, but they really want to get into growing, what advice would you have for someone who doesn't have a beautiful backyard, doesn't have the space to grow a lot? How can they get involved with this?
Jillian Saxty:They can absolutely grow really good food in containers. It's amazing. You can grow fruit trees, you can have little lemon trees and orange trees and you can grow tomatoes and any kind of just dive in, I would say. And the other thing is, we're also working with ARPD and other organizations around the city to develop more community gardens. So if you do live in an apartment and you do want to have a little plot of land that you can grow food on, we're going to talk about that in a minute, but that's one of our goals for the next couple of years is to help with that.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Oh, great. Now, what are some of the easiest vegetables to grow if you're just starting out? You don't want anything too complicated, something that you can just put some water in, it's magically a
Jillian Saxty:Well, I have to say you can't do better than tomatoes in Alameda. I mean, we have such a great climate. It's warm most of the time, such a long growing season. In fact, you can grow food all year round in Alameda. It's amazing.
Jillian Saxty:But tomato, in our garden, we even have tomatoes that we left in from last year and they're still producing tomatoes this year. So, yeah, we're sort of the home of the tomatoes. And also at our, we have an annual plant sale that we do with at the, you know, the city's spring shindig. And one of the things we do is sell plant starts for the spring and the tomatoes just fly off the shelf.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Popular. Yeah.
Jillian Saxty:Yeah. Yeah.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So what are some of the besides all the things that you're that you talked about that you're doing? Do you have any new initiatives, projects that you guys are hoping to get going here in Alameda?
Jillian Saxty:Well, in addition to the community gardens that we want to work on, one of the specific ones is at Jean Sweeney Open Space Park. We're trying to work with ARPD to put in a community garden near the aquatic center since they're doing all that work. And we've been working with them for a long time to keep poking them that, you know, you said you would help us build a community garden there with an orchard and a place for people who live in apartments to grow food. So we're still on that. But we're also going to work with smaller organizations like churches and other nonprofits to build community gardens where we can.
Jillian Saxty:So that's one thing. The other thing is we've got just recently had three new board members join us, which is great. They're fantastic. And two of them are really interested in reaching out more to families. So we're going to have more family oriented events, workshops.
Jillian Saxty:We just had a really popular seed starting workshop at the library and it was fantastic for a lot of families with little kids there and planting seeds in the dirt, taking things home. And so we're going to work more with families. And then the other thing that's been sort of ongoing, but we'd like to put more energy into that is to help other communities and other towns in the East Bay do their own gleaning programs. Because a lot of times we'll get calls from people from San Leandro, can you come and pick my lemon tree? And we're like, no, sorry, we only do Alameda, but we really want to help San Leandro start their own program.
Jillian Saxty:We have helped Berkeley and Oakland, we've sort of supported their growing of their own gleaning programs, which is great. But there's a lot of other cities in the East Bay, especially that could really do their own programs. And we'd love to see that happen. We're totally available to help them do that.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:That's great. It does seem like more and more cities, communities are really interested in the community gardening and growing. It's a wonderful way, like you say, you know, building community. Kids it. Kids love getting their hands dirty.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I mean, it's just a fun educational thing. I'm just so happy that you guys are here doing this. I'm sure you guys need volunteers.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So how can people volunteer? What kind of roles do you have for people who might want to get involved with Alameda Backyard Growers? I'm sorry, I say gardener all this time, growers. It's okay.
Jillian Saxty:There's a lot of need for volunteers. Obviously, with Project Pick, we need crews to go and help pick the trees and deliver it to the food bank. We also need people to man our tables at events to help run some of the workshops
Angie Watson-Hajjem:and training for people? Because for someone who doesn't know anything about growing food or working for an organization like yourself, would you you provide that for your volunteers?
Jillian Saxty:Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, there's another another initiative that we're considering is to help teach people how to prune fruit trees, because you really need to keep maintaining these trees to help them stay healthy and productive. So, there are people through Alameda Backyard Growers that go to farm to market and help prune their orchard. So, they're learning skills about pruning and we'd like to have those people be able to go to homeowners, you know, and help them with their own trees.
Jillian Saxty:So, there's that possible volunteer opportunity. And then, you know, there's just basic admin stuff, like we'd love to have somebody help us with social media and, you know, that kind of stuff that organizations always need. So there's lots of opportunities. We have a volunteer form on our website that people can sign up to help with a lot of different things.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:That's great. Well, I tell you, I do a lot of walking here in Alameda, and whenever I see a large tree where there's abundance of fruit and they're on the ground, I will be happy to knock on a person's door and say, hey, there's a four month organization right here in Alameda, Alameda Backyard Growers. Would you like to donate some of your fruit? I mean, because it's just there's a lot of it, and a lot of it just goes to waste.
Jillian Saxty:Absolutely. And we have postcards that we hand out to people, we write a note, leave it on their front doorstep.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I want to get those postcards. Yes. Yeah, I would love to do that. I would love to help you out in that way. That would be great.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:We would love that. I know in your bio is so wonderful. You said that one of your missions in life is to make Alameda the greenest little city in America. And you're doing that right through your work here.
Jillian Saxty:And we really love our collaboration with, you know, we're not doing it in a vacuum. Alameda is such a wonderful place because people are always so engaged and active and supportive. And so, you know, we connected with like CASA, with plowshares, with the nurseries in Alameda, with Stop Waste, with 100,000 Trees for Humanity, and a lot of organizations, we're all on the same boat, you know, we're all trying to make Alameda not only healthy, but also thinking about climate change and trying to mitigate that through the work that we do. So we're really passionate about what we're doing and we feel really strongly about building our community together, working together.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Well, Jillian, it has been wonderful having you here. You're a longtime Alamedan and doing some great work here in our island city, and I really appreciate what you guys are doing. It's been a pleasure talking to you.
Jillian Saxty:Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for spreading the word.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Absolutely. I'm gonna get those postcards from you so I can get some of those homeowners, get them to share their wonderful abundant fruit with you.
Jillian Saxty:Yep. Sounds great. You can go to alamedabackyardgrowers.org and learn all about us.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Good. Thank you, Jullian. And thank you for tuning in to our podcast. I hope that you enjoyed the show. I hope that you come back and join us for another episode.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Until then, I am your host, Angie Watson-Hajjem Take care. Goodbye.