Meet the No Ho Community Garden

NoHo Weddington Paramount Volunteer Day 052314
More than 25 Paramount Pictures employees volunteered at the North Hollywood Community Garden on May 16 as part of Paramount’s annual community service day. Employees spent the day planting, weeding, mulching and assembling new compost bins.

The North Hollywood High School’s agricultural program has been running continuously since the school opened in 1927 on 100 acres of land.  Today, the school’s footprint has been reduced to eight acres but students continue to learn to grow fruit and vegetables and care for rabbits, turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, goats, pigs, 2 donkeys and a llama.  The school’s caretaker used to live in a small Craftsman cottage on a one-acre site next to the school farm but the cottage lay idle for decades and eventually was torn down.  (In fact, gardeners still sometimes find chunks of asphalt in their plots – remnants of the former driveway leading to the cottage.)  Two Eastern European gardeners started to work the site and in 1999 formalized a relationship with the school to start the North Hollywood Community Garden.

The community garden is hidden from the street by the cooling shade of mulberry, citrus, and oak trees.  Forty-seven gardeners work individual plots and there are several community areas with herb gardens and roses.   The garden has a waitlist of sixty people, and the active Executive Committee, led by Marykate Harris, requires each gardener to take an onsite composting course before being assigned a plot.  We invite you to visit the garden at 11800 Weddington Street for a workday from 10am to noon on the second Saturday of each month!

 

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