Home-Grown Plot Can Save a Public Garden

Re “L.A. Needs These Oases,� editorial, Oct. 18: Anyone who has ever grown anything can tell you that you don’t throw some seed on a vacant lot and sit back and await the bounty. The people who have developed the “loaned� ground at 41st and Alameda streets have poured 11 years of their sweat, compost, fertilizers and souls into creating this oasis. Isn’t there something that can be done to compensate Ralph Horowitz, who I’m sure is an honorable man, for his property so that the garden can continue?

Warehouses creating jobs sound attractive, but ask yourself: Would you rather be spading “your own� plot of edibles or hauling and stacking boxes inside a dingy cavern for someone else’s profit? Can’t we instigate a fund to save the garden? I, for one, would contribute to my meager income’s limit for such a cause.

Would Horowitz be content with $1 a month’s rent from each of the 300 or so gardeners? How about a warehouse or two on, say, a quarter of the land and a redivision of what’s left among the present growers? Some example of Yankee ingenuity to match this excellent example of old-fashioned work ethic is desperately needed here.

Chele Graham Welsh

Los Angeles