Regaining the 'Heart's Delight': Peninsula group works to reconnect people with the fertile land once known as the Valley of Heart's Delight Regaining the 'Heart's Delight': Peninsula group works to reconnect people with the fertile land once known as the Valley of Heart's Delight (August 01, 2001)

By Renee Batti

Almanac News Editor

Silicon Valley is probably a good, in many ways. The Valley of Heart's Delight was a glory. We should have found ways of keeping the one from destroying the other. @dropname:Author Wallace Stegner

'The garden is growing for you, so please enjoy it."

With those words, Karen Harwell welcomes the neighborhood's children into the garden she has nurtured for many years at her Palo Alto home.

It's a bountiful garden this time of year _ tomatoes peek out from healthy green leaves, fruit hangs on the branches of a number of the 17 semi-dwarf trees. Clusters of lettuce leaves invite and corn stalks promise.

But it is a garden that serves not only as a source of fresh food; it serves as a reminder as well. Karen Harwell's carefully cultivated land, which last year she turned over to the neighborhood's children to tend, recalls a time when the fertile soil of the area provided its farmers and gardeners with more than 100,000 acres of orchards, vineyards and other edible crops.

It was a time when much of Silicon Valley was more commonly known as the Valley of Heart's Delight.

"I think we are part of an absolutely beautiful Earth, and I want kids to know about that," says Ms. Harwell when asked why she turned her garden over to the care of children, ranging in age from about 4 to 10.

"Through gardening, (the children) can experience how the Earth works, ... the interconnectedness of everything. The garden is a way for young people to experience awe."
Silicon Valley roots

Ms. Harwell is part of a group of Menlo Park, Palo Alto and other area residents dedicated to reminding Silicon Valley residents of the area's roots _ literally and figuratively. The 2-year-old group, a project of the Foundation for Global Community in Palo Alto, calls itself the Valley of Heart's Delight, borrowing the label given to Santa Clara Valley by farmers, poets and commercial enterprises in the early 1900s.

Heart's Delight aims to "reconnect people with the Earth" as a food source and a source of spiritual nourishment as well, says Debbie Mytels, one of two Foundation for Global Community staff members who direct the project. It encourages residents to grow their own food, using sustainable methods _ which typically means saying no to chemicals and yes to organic soil enhancement and pest control.

Volunteers such as Ms. Harwell and other believers in the value of "edible" home gardens work to educate local residents about the Valley's past, and what they can do to make its future more livable and spiritually satisfying for generations to come.

Among Heart's Delight's focuses: the encouragement of home food gardens; creation of "edible schoolyards" at local schools to give kids hands-on experience in food gardening; partnerships with local businesses that would result in "edible landscaping" and employee gardens; and educational events, such as last week's talk by John Robbins, author of "Diet for a New America."
Digging in

In the area of home food gardens, Heart's Delight has had much success in getting participants to dig in for the cause. The group helps organize neighborhood networks of home gardeners who get together to share information, seeds and encouragement.

Many neighborhood network participants were growing their own food gardens long before they became involved with Heart's Delight. One of them is Menlo Park author Jeannie Du Prau, who has planted and harvested food for her dinner table for some 20 years.

Although there wasn't as much attention paid to organic gardening two decades ago as there is now, Ms. Du Prau says her garden was "organic by default."

"It just didn't occur to me to use sprays or chemicals (on plants and in the soil) _ it just made sense to me not to put poison on them," she explains.

In addition to about 100 square feet of soil, mostly in her back yard, Ms. Du Prau uses numerous pots to grow her edible plants. "It's amazing how much you can cram into such a small space," she says of her garden of apples, peaches, lemons, oranges, limes, figs, tomatoes, chard, kale, mustard greens, winter and summer squash, three kinds of beans, and assorted herbs.

She became involved with Valley of Heart's Delight, she says, because she supports its goals, "to encourage people to grow their own food, and use this Valley in the way it was used in the past."

Heart's Delight also encourages people to buy locally grown food if they can't grow it themselves, raising public awareness about the true cost of food shipped across the country or from other countries, Ms. Du Prau notes. "The actual cost of a peach shipped from Argentina (includes) the cost of tons of fuel (for shipping) and labor, and the preservatives used to not let it rot between there and here," she says.

As for her own love of gardening, Ms. Du Prau says: "There's just something exciting about seeing things growing in your own yard. (Gardening is) not just rewarding at the end _ the whole process is rewarding."
Celebration

Just around the corner from Ms. Du Prau's home garden is that of Kathy Switky, another Heart's Delight participant. Ms. Switky shares her neighbor's excitement about growing fruits and vegetables for the dinner table. "Look, that's my first apple _ I'm so excited!" she says, pointing to a "northern spy" hanging from a tree she planted early last year.

Walking through her backyard garden of tomatoes, squash, strawberries, leeks, garlic and many other edibles, Ms. Switky points to various "tools" she uses to keep snails away from her future meals. She learned of the techniques _ organic straw scattered near plants and copper ringing the base of plants _ from other gardeners in her Menlo Park-North Palo Alto neighborhood network. "We share stories and seeds ... and suggestions," she says of the network, which meets every four or five weeks.

Ms. Switky has turned her back yard into a refuge for birds _ she hand-painted a number of birdhouses and keeps water in a bird bath _ as well as a paradise of fresh food. Dinner is often eaten on the deck surrounded by sunflowers and edible plants.

"We had our first ceremonial tomato a few weeks ago," she says, recalling the celebratory meal she shared with her husband that marked the real beginning of summer. "We got some fresh bread, a little bit of olive oil, fresh garlic ..."

A student of ecology when she was in college, Ms. Switky says she has always gardened organically. "I always felt that we have so much here," she says, sweeping her hand through the air to indicate her bountiful back yard. "It would be a crime to destroy it by putting chemicals in the ground."

Getting kids connected

A resounding theme for Heart's Delight leaders and participants is the need to help children learn about where food comes from and feel connected to the Earth as the source of life and nourishment.

So far, Heart's Delight has helped two local schools establish "edible schoolyards," including EPA Charter School in East Palo Alto. More are in the works, according to Heart's Delight staff member Susan Stansbury, who will help Nativity School in Menlo Park establish its garden by summer's end.

Ms. Stansbury says the two existing school gardens are causing excitement at the schools, giving teachers a hands-on teaching tool for subjects ranging from math and science to journal writing.

"Some of the kids who don't excel in the classroom really excel out in the garden," Ms. Stansbury says. "And some kids from homes that are not too great have really thrived. ... That's really touching."

At the EPA Charter School, a drawing is held to give food that's not eaten by the children as snacks to families, she says, adding that excess produce also is given to the area's senior center.

The garden, Ms. Stansbury says, is a great source of "the wonder and mystery of food-growing. ... It teaches kids respect for the planet and other living creatures. It gives them a sense of awe."
Digging for treasures

Ms. Harwell, the Palo Alto resident who turned her garden over to the neighborhood's children, agrees that the experience of gardening is invaluable for kids.

"In today's world, everything is so speeded up _ so technical and mechanical," she says. "The garden is a very accessible way for kids to see how the Earth works, in their own neighborhood."

She says she was prompted to open up her own garden _ which she named Dana Meadows Organic Children's Garden _ in part because some of the kids would come by and see fruits and vegetables in the front yard, and ask her if they could pick some of it.

"These are all young families _ the parents are so busy," she explains. "I'm 60. I've got the time ... to spend with them, to get kids connected" to the Earth.

Ms. Harwell relates the pleasure she and the young gardeners found in one particular harvest last fall. Just before Thanksgiving, Ms. Harwell says, she announced to the kids that the potatoes in the back yard were ready to be dug up.

With the enthusiasm of adventurers digging for buried treasure, the children unearthed about 70 potatoes. "They told me, 'We're so lucky _ we have our own potatoes right here in our own garden,'" Ms. Harwell recalls with a laugh. She took great pleasure, she recalls, in "watching those kids get so excited about a potato _ all the love that went into planting it, and out comes a potato."

Saving what's left

Participants of Heart's Delight also strive to convey another message: Farmland in what has come to be known as Silicon Valley has been lost at an alarming rate in recent times.

Yvonne Jacobson, a Santa Clara Valley historian and author of "Passing Farms: Enduring Values," says that in 1925, there were 125,000 acres of orchards and vineyards in the Valley.

Quoting from a report from Santa Clara County's agricultural commissioner, Ms. Jacobson notes that the number of acres had dwindled to about 4,200 by 1999, and to about 4,000 by 2000.

Ms. Jacobson has first-hand knowledge of the loss of local farmland, having grown up on the family farm, rich with fruit trees, in the heart of the Valley.

In the forward for Ms. Jacobson's "Passing Farms," the late author Wallace Stegner writes: "The title of the book might be 'Paradise Lost.' The moral is that, given a second chance anywhere else, our migratory people might do a little better, save a little more, develop institutions and tax laws that would permit the saving of productive and edenic valleys like that of Santa Clara from what happened here."

Ms. Mytels, the Valley of Heart's Delight staff member, says, "We're obviously not going to come back" to the agricultural world of old, but her group wants to help people experience some of the richness of that way of life. And, she says, preserving the farmland that still exists should be a high priority for everyone in the area. "We need to be aware that a lot of land is still getting paved over."

Although Heart's Delight doesn't offer workshops to help people learn the techniques of sustainable, organic gardening, Ms. Mytels says, the group collaborates with Common Ground Organic Garden Supply and Education Center in Palo Alto, encouraging interested people to take classes there.

And neighborhood networks are a rich source of information and encouragement for those with little or no gardening experience. Noting that "we're an expert-oriented society," Ms. Mytels laments the fact that some people are hesitant to jump into an enterprise they're not schooled in.

"What we're trying to do is say 'Hey, we're all learning.'"

To make the connection

**Valley of Heart's Delight , at Foundation for Global Community: 222 High St., Palo Alto; 328-7756.

**Common Ground Organic Garden Supply and Education Center: 2225 El Camino Real, Palo Alto; 328-6752.