Photo by Kristen Russell
Remembering Steve Carara, Guardian of Sonoma Garden Park
By Tony Passantino
I knew Steve Carara maybe not better than all, but longer than most people at Sonoma Ecology Center. I started my career at SEC 13 years ago, first as an educator leading field trips and running the Enviroleaders program at the garden and later as the staff program manager for the park. However, my role at Sonoma Garden Park was, as I would often tell new staff at the garden, “to support Steve and whatever he needs.” Because we all knew Steve ran the garden.
In my early years at SEC, the financial situation was in dire straits, still reeling from the 2008 recession. Running a grassroots community 6-acre garden was not something that was easy to find funding for and we’d just lost our long-time garden manager with limited resources to keep the garden running. I remember conversations about the Garden Park’s future, and if it was time to let it go. Fortunately, as we all now know, none of that happened because Steve showed up in a way that goes beyond anything you’d ask of a volunteer. Steve said he “just kind of took on the job.”
Steve had retired after a career spent managing databases and business systems for the aerospace industry. He described that life as “Always in an office.” When he and his wife, Sue, moved to Sonoma, they thought about buying a farm, but realized that might be too much to take on. Instead, they bought a cozy place in eastern Sonoma walking distance from a little known park at the time tucked off 7th street east.
He traded in the white collar and picked up the garden gloves while learning on the job. He picked up skills in planting, pruning, composting, irrigation, chickens, and crop rotation, building a small library of garden books he referenced along the way. His willingness and curiosity invited an array of experts to the garden, learning about agricultural burns and biochar, incorporating an Asian technique to ferment bokashi in old pickle barrels, and adopting the German Hügelkultur practice of burying fallen tree rounds, those same mounds now sprouting healthy lavender and pollinator rows long decomposed into the land. He was always learning, always adding to what he knew how to do.
A handmade card gifted to Steve at the celebration of his 10th Anniversary as Sonoma Garden Park Manager, in 2021. Photo by Kristen Russell.
Over his 15 years at the garden, Steve brought life to the park, and under his nurturing leadership, it grew in size, incorporating the last annexed portion of the Grandmother Oak area. It grew in beauty with the array of flowers, new orchard fruit and additional community garden plots built. And with that, increasing visitation with the parking lot now constantly full with visitors from around the community. He became the person who knew where everything was, what needed to happen next, what was broken, what was growing, what was struggling, and what had to be done. Multiple garden staff came and went over his years, but he stayed on, deepening his roots and passing along his legacy knowledge to the next person that came along to work alongside him.
Photo by Kristen Russell
Many of us can picture him driving the mower in his floppy sun hat or covered in grass shavings with the weed whacker in hand, or moving through the garden with Tiny Tucker his chihuahua and Old Ava, the greying black lab following closely at his heels. He was constantly fighting to keep the grass, blackberries, and most importantly, the ground squirrels at bay. He was our Bill Murray in Caddyshack, forever on the hunt for the subterranean pests.
Steve was always moving. To talk with Steve was usually to walk with Steve. Once you found him, you joined the route. You passed by the long list of garden projects, little problems, and seasonal tasks that lived in his head. He did not seem overwhelmed by it. He just kept walking, talking, and working. If the conversation took time, he would simply stay longer to finish what needed doing, often working into those beautiful summer sunsets.
He never really took a break, except for his annual summer trip to Tahoe. He was often at the garden sometimes seven days a week. Even when the work was hard, even when the pace of caring for the park was more than most people could imagine taking on, he kept showing up and anyone else that came out, he found a task for them.
Photo by Austin Noble
It is hard to imagine Sonoma Garden Park without Steve moving through it.
But his fingerprints are everywhere you look. They are in the soil, the barn, the orchard, the chicken coop, and the memories of all of us who walked and talked with him.
Steve was a quiet leader. He had very little ego in the work. He managed the park well, but never made it feel like it was his project. Somehow, it always felt like our project. He generally said “ok” to ambitious ideas and gave people room to try. He offered the space to the community again and again, expanding community garden plots, building thematic “culinary” and “medicinal” gardens, creating a Lavender Labyrinth, or what we call the “Laverinth”. Already overwhelmed with his day-to-day tasks but never wanted to deny someone their passion to get involved with the space.
With the teen EnviroLeaders, Steve was patient in a way I will always admire. Young people learning to work with plants and tools make a lot of mistakes. Irrigation drippers go in wrong. Tomatoes are not planted deep enough. Orchard trees get hacked up by novice pruners. Steve knew that. He did not take it personally, and he did not make people feel foolish for learning. He just kept teaching, fixing, adjusting, and moving forward. That patience was part of his gift to the garden. He liked, as he put it, having “a part in introducing children to what is actually going on out here in nature, with plants.”
Over the years, Steve did that for thousands of people. School groups from our Growing Discovery 4th grade field trips, Harry Potter and other whimsical summer camp programs, our many volunteers and public visitors, and over 40 semesters of teen interns all experienced a garden that was flourishing because Steve cared for it and kept it alive.
It is hard to imagine Sonoma Garden Park without him moving through it. But his fingerprints are everywhere you look. They are in the soil, the barn, the orchard, the chicken coop, and the memories of all of us who walked and talked with him.
We love the farmer we got to spend these last 15 years with. Your hands are forever imprinted all over the Sonoma Garden Park, and in our hearts. We love you, Steve.
