The Rainbow Garden at St Stephen’s in-the-Field

Saturday Volunteer Work Parties

Every Saturday morning, from 9am – 12pm, a group of 2-15 community volunteers comes to work on the gardens. Most of the volunteers are queer or trans, though there are several straight volunteers as well, and we’ve had volunteers ranging in age from 10 days to 70 years.

Any given Saturday, we might be building an arbor, planting native trees, rebuilding community garden beds, painting a mural, pruning trees, chopping wood, building benches, sweeping sidewalks, harvesting grapes, or planting seeds.

Here is a video of one of our planting days, from March 13, 2021.

Please feel free to come by any Saturday morning volunteer work party, or reach out to Jessica Dickinson Goodman at 650-804-9044 or jessica.dickinson.goodman@gmail.com with any questions. We maintain a lively Discord server for regular garden volunteers — reach out to Jessica for the link.

The Rainbow Community Garden

Our 2 acre campus provides 55 low-cost community garden beds to low-income seniors and community members. Each bed comes with a dedicated water spigot, access to a seed library, tool shed, comfortable seating, and support. Gardeners pay annually for their beds on a sliding scale, up to $50/year. Most gardeners are Mandarin-speaking elders in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, though several speak Assyrian, so the signage in the garden includes Mandarin, Assyrian, Spanish, and English.

If you are interested in renting a bed, please email office@ssitf.org. If you’d like to help maintain and build the garden, please reach out to Jessica Dickinson Goodman at 650-804-9044 or jessica.dickinson.goodman@gmail.com. For more on the garden, please see this video from the Pollination Project or this article.

Native Gardens

Our 2 acre campus hosts 7 native plant beds and we’re adding newly developed beds every year. Generally speaking, the plantings follow these 5 rules:

1. Colors: This garden uses the liturgical colors of the Episcopal church: red, white, blue, purple, gold and silver; we’ve also added yellow and orange for the Pentecost bed.
2. Feel: This garden is designed to be peaceful; a sanctuary for parishioners and community-members alike. It is designed to create a range of separate “rooms” in the garden, which allow people to gather in small groups.
3. Native plants: The plants are nearly all native to California and most are native to the ecosystem that St Stephen’s in-the-Fields was built within, on unceded Muwekema Ohlone land. This will help them be water-wise, long-lasting, low-maintenance, and also ensure they invite in native birds, bugs, lizards, and other creatures who struggle to survive on non-native plants.
4. Plants should reward curiosity: this specifically means planting edible plants and not planting anything that is poisonous to humans or likely to cause injury if a child runs face-first into it. For example, the only berries I want to plant on campus are safe for humans to eat (usually after some cooking); I’m not interesting in planting anything that many people have allergic reactions; the only things with thorns are in places where people don’t usually walk.
5. Lovely in All Seasons: One of the realities of planting in our climate is that summer is the resting season for many plants. The hills go beige, it’s too hot to want to do a lot of gardening, and summer is the time for maintenance. But, there are a range of plants which flower deep into the summer (blue-eyed grasses, lupin, yarrow, gumplant, evening primrose, California fuscia) which when planted beside those who rest in the summers (purple needle grass, blue wildrye, melic grass) can ensure there is visual interest and variety at all seasons in this garden.

If you are interested in native plants, want to check some seeds or cuttings out from our seed library, want to browse our extensive native plant book library, want to get some hands-on practice with caring for local native plants, reach out to Jessica Dickinson Goodman at 650-804-9044 or jessica.dickinson.goodman@gmail.com. You’re welcome to attend any of our Saturday morning work parties or arrange for a private tour. Jessica and other volunteers are active members of the California Native Plant Society and participate in a number of local tours; we hope to see you there!

Support

We are deeply grateful to the many community groups, donors, and volunteers who support the gardens at St Stephen’s in-the-Field. An incomplete list of our supporters is:

• St Andrews Saratoga, for the $5000 Opportunity Fund grant for fruit and shade trees and associated landscaping.
• Pollination Project, for $1000 for dirt for the community garden.
• Calero High School’s job training program for 5+ years of volunteer work, usually Monday and Wednesday mornings in the garden.
• The community garden was started by Sarah Wilson who earned her Silver Award for this project.  She worked with Dan Hughes, a member of the St. Stephen’s congregation.  Sarah was a Girl Scout in troop 774.