Garden helps developmentally disabled people grow

Goodbye, star thistle; hello, garden.

A dry patch of land in Pleasant Grove that once corralled wandering horses has been transformed into a lush paradise of ripe fruits and vegetables.

InAlliance Sutter Buttes launched The Farm last summer to give people who are developmentally disabled a chance to garden. And in partnership with the sustainable nonprofit Farm to Fork, the bounty of their harvests is now sold at a Yuba City farmers market and by delivery subscription.

Plumas Lake residents Matt and Jennifer Van Buskirk operate The Farm and oversee produce sales from its sprawling melon vines, bushy tomato plants and towering cornstalks.

"We have a love for agriculture, and it's great that we can combine it with individuals who want to create that life, too," Jennifer Van Buskirk said. "It's just wonderful to go out every day and see them contribute and give to the community and themselves."

A wall of vines stretches across the garden, with dangling beans hanging everywhere. As Yuba City resident Quentin Sheppard peruses them with nimble fingers, he plucks one, snaps it in half and pops it in his mouth, smiling at its fresh sweetness.

With a shovel and rake, the 34-year-old spent countless hours carving raised beds and walkways for the garden more than a year ago and this spring helped plant two-thirds of it by seed. Every Friday, he picks the produce and gathers petite cream-colored eggs from the henhouse to package for sale.

"This is my job," he said. "I'm gonna go to my produce market and sell my veggies and fruit."

Know how to grow

The Farm's crop includes 10 varieties of heirloom tomatoes and okra, eggplant, peppers, sunflowers, nasturtiums and basil. There are lemon and white cucumbers, and several types of squash, including the Van Buskirks' own cross of a yellow crookneck and zucchini.

Watermelons sit like green striped bowling balls near warty "green witch" pumpkins as butterflies flutter above marigolds and plump black bumblebees pollinate delicate bean flowers.

The garden is all organic, relying on insects and labor to keep plants prolific and pest-free. Wasps flit around fences, but no one shoos them away since they are a natural pest deterrent, even if a bit pesky themselves.

Participants garden year-round, so when the tomatoes and squash and beans are exhausted, winter crops will take their place.

After a morning harvest, Andy Zamora, 55, sits in the shade with a blond silky rooster in his lap. When it clucks, he speaks soothingly and strokes its feathers.

"I like the chickens because they understand me," he said. "Sometimes it goes to sleep on me."

Zamora checks on all of the farm animals, greeting the goats, feeding the horses, and finding guinea hens hiding among the sunflowers.

"My uncle told me to treat animals with respect," he said. "They're nice to me. I'm nice to them, too."

When he's not watering or tending the chickens or cats, Zamora likes to pick beans and is well-known for finding the longest ones hidden under heart-shaped leaves.

"He says, 'You want to pick corn or the beans?' and I say, 'Let's find the long ones,'" he said. "I look down and see what's hanging down. See those right there — they are right in my face."

From soil to sales

As Zamora hunts beans, stalks of pastel and red corn tower high above Sheppard's head as he searches for ripe ears in its rustling passageways.

He has about five regular subscribers and charges $10 for a 10-pound box, which is filled with a sample of The Farm's harvest cornucopia. He is saving the money he earns to buy a laptop computer.

Yuba City resident William Hope wanted to support the effort because he knows an InAlliance participant, so he pays for a few subscriptions to be sent to local food banks.

"I'm not sure my wife and I could eat up a whole box of produce ourselves, but they are always talking about how the local food banks are short on donations," he said. "It seemed like an opportunity ... to get the produce in the hands of people who may not be able to afford the basics much of the time."

Hope also likes the idea of giving the developmentally disabled a chance to work in agriculture.

"I think one of the problems is you get shunted aside if you have perceived disabilities," he said. "Having something where you say, 'I have a job, I'm a functioning unit of society,' is probably rewarding to some people who don't get that much of a chance otherwise."

The five farm participants have a variety of disabilities, from brain injuries to seizures and cerebral palsy. Yellow stakes mark off a special plot for Taeler Khan, one InAlliance participant who is legally blind but can recognize bright colors and wanted to garden.

"We found that adults with disabilities in this area didn't have anywhere to work in a community garden," said Jennifer Van Buskirk. "We created our own little area and it took off from there."

She and her husband both come from farming families and have been in agriculture for more than 45 years. They work at InAlliance and are in the process of creating Farm to Fork, a sustainable agriculture business for adults with disabilities.

Longtime friend Eva Hill provides the land and water free of charge. The once-small fenced-in garden now sprawls beyond its borders to an adjacent pumpkin patch and secondary flower and gourd garden.

Most participants put in four to six hours of work during the week, five hours on Fridays and another few hours on Saturdays. The farm provides job training — Sheppard hopes to work at Bishop's Pumpkin Farm after gaining so much pumpkin knowledge — and social skills.

"Quentin was once hard to talk to. It takes him a long time to get a sentence out. He thinks it up no problem, but the motor skills to get words out was difficult," Jennifer Van Buskirk said. "Now, he loves to be the salesman."

CONTACT reporter Ashley Gebb at 749-4783.