After two years of planning, a Fresno church completed a half-acre community garden in 2025, offering 74 raised-bed garden plots to its members and the community.

The garden was launched by the St. Paul Catholic Newman Center – 1572 E. Barstow Ave. – after receiving grants and support from Fresno State University, Fresno Metro Ministry Community Garden Program, Stone Soup Fresno, and the UC Master Gardeners of Fresno County.

Master Gardener John Duran, who has 50 years of gardening experience and taught horticulture to high school students with special needs during his career, helped design the layout, equipping each individual bed with drip irrigation line and an irrigation timer to ensure judicious water use. Duran advised that fruit trees be included in the project by planting 20 outside the garden’s north fence, including peach, nectarine and plum. A drip line was installed along the orchard row. The trees are already producing fruit, and local and church families are encouraged to take what they can use without stripping the trees. 

This month the Master Gardeners, led by Duran, hosted the first gardening class at the facility, which drew dozens of not only people with garden plots but many others who are interested in gardening at home. Future classes will assist the gardeners in planning for crop rotation, managing pests and other topics.

“I suggested we need to make a market to provide food to church members and the community, because there’s an abundance,” Duran said. “One of the goals is providing food for the community.”

Led by Newman Center parishioners Jim Grant and Dan Griffin, the garden aims to support the less fortunate by supplementing their meals with fruits and vegetables and enriching their lives with an activity that improves their physical and emotional wellbeing. The effort continues to grow with fundraising now underway to install composting bins for soil enrichment and managing discarded plants and cuttings.

UC Master Gardener Amy Tobin, who is also a Newman Center parishioner, and her husband Rich adopted one of the garden plots and began growing vegetables in spring 2025. The couple planted tomatoes, marjoram, thyme, bell and hot peppers, cantaloupe, fennel and Armenian cucumbers, with mixed results as they adjust to the irrigation resources and soil texture. In August, the Tobins cleared most of the vegetation and planted a fall crop of spinach, carrots, herbs, celery, lettuce and red cabbage. “The vegetables are flourishing,” Amy Tobin said. 

She and Rich are enjoying the opportunity to grow healthy food, but also value cultivating new relationships with other parishioners and people from the surrounding community as they garden together.

“The community workdays are great,” she said. “Everybody pitches in.” 

Click to get more information about the Newman Center Community Garden

Find links to all of the UC Master Gardeners free classes for the public

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Written by UC Master Gardener Jeannette Warnert