After 27 years, a San Jose urban garden is facing imminent eviction.
Plant & Soul California, a beloved urban garden at 76 Race St., has been ordered to vacate its property following a real estate sale. The business is hoping residents, a foundation or angel investor will step up to help it make a counteroffer or relocate, even though the property is already in escrow. So far, the organization has raised $5,000. If it isn’t able to raise a substantial amount, the group will try to find a new location and start again.
“Our community was given just 20 days’ notice to leave,” Sofie Gmerek, a volunteer at the garden, said in a statement. “We are launching an emergency campaign to raise $2.5 million to place a counteroffer or fund an emergency relocation before the land is bulldozed and replaced by urban sprawl.”
Board member Jessicka “Joosey” Chamberlin said the organization has been upgrading the property, which has been a costly endeavor and has impacted its ability to pay $8,000 a month in rent to property owner Fred Soltanzad.
Soltanzad did not respond to a request for comment.
“Since we’ve been regenerating the organization, we haven’t been able to pay rent because it’s just been so hard to,” Chamberlin told San José Spotlight. “He just kept increasing the rent all the time. But I haven’t paid it for the last 18 months, and he’s been extremely gracious.”
Chamberlin said the board would love to buy the land, but the only way it can do that is with community support. The less than half-acre property includes a structure at the back of the garden and a house at 80 Race St. Chamberlin said it will cost tens of thousands of dollars to start anew.
“We’re not just trying to raise the $2 million to buy the land, we’re trying to raise an extra $700,000 to finish … a strategic plan and vision for the property,” Chamberlin said. “We need to make some important upgrades to our existing infrastructure. Many of the additions on the property are falling apart with leaking roofs.”
She also wants to hire one to two people to help manage the garden and create a native plant nursery. Chamberlin said if Plant & Soul owned the land, it could be fully sustainable with its landscaping design-build business and nursery rebooted.
Paige Sweetin, chief operating officer of San Jose Opera, reached out to Plant & Soul upon hearing of its predicament. She suggested the organization relocate and create its community garden at the historic home of the opera’s founder Irene Dalis on the outskirts of downtown San Jose.
“I’ve always had this long-term dream that it would be a community garden,” Sweetin told San José Spotlight. “But we’re an opera company. We don’t have the resources. It doesn’t align necessarily with our mission to run a community garden ourselves. But we are big on community partnerships. We want to help other organizations thrive here as well.”
Sprouting a garden
In 1999, founder Alrie Middlebrook, who rented the property from Soltanzad, began transforming a vehicle repair shop and parking lot into a demonstrative garden supported by her landscape design business that featured native plants, Chamberlin said. In the summer of 2022, Chamberlin started volunteering at the garden and joined the board in 2023.
When Middlebrook retired in 2024, the garden became Chamberlin’s full-time job. Chamberlin and her partner David Shapiro took over Middlebrook’s landscape design-build business and nonprofit California Native Garden Foundation, which they renamed Plant & Soul California.
“It’s a very unique organization that we actually have something that brings in money,” Chamberlin said. “I want us to stay here and also help the opera create a community garden. And then do another one here and another one there.”
If they receive the necessary funding and the current sale falls through, Chamberlin envisions creating a zero-waste store selling locally grown beans and pesto made with basil from the garden.
The group has hosted a variety of community events including a folklorico band that had everyone dancing.
“We served hot chocolate made from sacred cacao and homemade focaccia and pesto,” Chamberlin said. “We throw our love into everything we serve. We feed the community and we teach them about all the native plants. San Jose needs a place like this.”
Garden assistant Kendra Hein said the garden is a place that reminds people they’re engaging in a partnership with the land and bringing it to life.
“We brought it from the bare asphalt into the place you see now, where we have birds coming and eating fennel,” she told San José Spotlight. “We have crows dropping acorns to crack them and eat them. It reminds us there are places where we can just be without societal pressures. With your hands in the soil, you’re calm, you’re centered.”
Karen Schaffer, who volunteers at the garden, said it’s a great demonstration of the beauty of California native plants. She appreciates its educational programs and community benefits.
“There’s nothing else like this in San Jose and especially not in this neighborhood,” she told San José Spotlight. “It would be a terrible loss.”
Contact Lorraine Gabbert at [email protected].
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