Verdant View - October 2025

The small café grew and grew

Eleven years ago, I was walking around my then-new neighborhood in Riberas del Pilar, getting acquainted with the environment, when I happened upon an empty lot with a chain link fence, between San Juan and San Lucas streets on the Carretera. On the chain link fence hung a drawing of a pleasant garden space with kitchen amenities, supposedly the future home of a café.

My daily walks always included a pass by of the empty lot and project. Slowly the ground of the lot was cleaned, building materials were delivered and a simple structure appeared. The grounds were scattered with Earth Boxes, full of seeds and the promise of verdant futures.

The small café grew and grew to what is now a staple garden restaurant, offering its stalwart clients delicious, nutritious food with some ingredients grown in their own gardens. It also became a beacon of agricultural information exchange and a crossroads for sustainable organic food growth, having housed my own gardening classes and hosted various environmentally focused seminars.

Aside from the restaurant’s growth, there was an additional seed planted at its inception, a seed of hope for community inclusion and assistance. Its owner wanted to become part of a thriving, healthy, connected environment. And it has done just that. Businesses along the neighborhood strip of the Carretera support each other by assisting with deliveries, cooking food for each other, exchanging clientele and pertinent neighborhood information.

The restaurant has apprenticed a chef, restaurant owners, and bakery owners and continues to be a source of excellent food and valuable experience. The owners allow the staff the flexibility to attend school classes in order to continue toward their life goals. Presently three university students and one high school student are part of the staff. The restaurant has supported non-profit organizations such as Poco A Poco San Pedro Itzcian, A.C., Have Hammers carpentry school, and continues to provide much-needed food giveaway or despensas and staple food package coordination to families from the Tepehua Community Center and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Just as when I arrived at Lakeside 15 years ago with the thought of creating or joining community, the restaurant has successfully found a place in our family’s hearts and appetites. Felicidades!

What to plant in October

It is cooler now and time to plant flora that does not like hot weather. Nights are wonderful and balmy. Sometimes the rains continue into October, and the wildflowers are in bloom along the roadsides, at their peak in mid-October especially in Mazamitla and Tapalpa. The viveros have Gerberas, Fuchsias, Petunias, pansies, Asters, Arctotis and Calendulas. Plant sweet peas, stock, Nasturtium, Larkspur, yarrow, and Viola seeds now for cool weather bloom. Set out Gladiola corms. Also plant root vegetables and members of the cabbage family, and of course more lettuce and peas. Divide Shasta daisies and start cuttings of Chrysanthemums for next year. Prune, deadhead and clean up all plants in the garden, especially Geraniums which tend to become leggy and messy looking.

Despite the sun lowering itself slightly in the sky, the soil is still warm. The bonus is that the flavor of many crops get tastier due to the upcoming cold winter temperatures concentrating the sugars.

The pears now are mellow,
The pumpkins are yellow,
Ripe chestnuts are falling,
The late birds are calling,
To gold, leaves are turning,
Great bonfires are burning,
The pecker is drumming,
The bees still go humming,
The sunshine comes streaming—
Ah, can folk be dreaming?
Why say they you’re sober,
You jolly October?

~Wilhelmina Seegmiller,

“Jolly October,” Sing a Song of Seasons, 1914