Leisure World's Harvest Festival Raffles a Garden Plot. The Waitlist That Once Made That a Big Prize Is Gone.

"This event really showcases the heart of our community," Recreation Director Jesse Cripps told LW Weekly after Leisure World's first Harvest Festival on Oct. 25, 2025. That morning, residents dropped off more than 1,000 cans for the OC Food Bank, and one raffle winner left with a free Community Gardens plot for a year.

The second annual festival is Saturday, Oct. 24, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Community Gardens, 13101 Nassau Drive. A one-year plot lease is again on the prize table. A year in the garden is no longer hard to get. In 2026 any shareholder can apply for a plot at a $75 annual fee, and the August board report said there is no waiting list. The festival now works as an open house for a garden that has room, while the board rewrites the garden's rules to fit.

The Saturday schedule, hour by hour

Admission is free. Here is the day as GRF laid it out in the Oct. 7 LW Weekly preview:

1. 10 a.m. The Wimberley Bluegrass Band opens with the first of three 45-minute sets.
2. 10:45 a.m. First hands-on gardening workshop, led by an experienced gardener. You plant a seed and take the seedling home. Seeds and materials are provided.
3. 11:30 a.m. Second bluegrass set.
4. 12:15 p.m. Second seed workshop.
5. 1 p.m. Final bluegrass set.
6. All day A garden scavenger hunt, lawn games and the OC Food Bank drive.

The preview describes two ways to earn raffle tickets. Finishing the scavenger hunt earns one ticket. Each non-perishable, unexpired food item you donate earns one more. Prizes include a Samsung 75-inch TV, a $100 Home Depot gift card and the one-year Community Gardens plot lease. Sponsors listed in the preview are CaptionCall, SCAN and Rose Hills Memorial Park.

The scavenger hunt does more than fill time. Its sheet shows pictures of spots inside the Community Gardens, and you have to find each one. For anyone who hasn't walked the rows since the gardens opened, it's a guided tour of a place they could be renting a piece of.

What last year's festival set up

The 2025 event set the pattern for this year's. Susanna Kiely led the gardening demonstration, showing guests how to grow basil, bell pepper and lettuce from seed, and participants took seedlings home. The Wimberley Bluegrass Band played. Before the festival opened, Rollin' Thunder's decorated golf-cart parade wound through the community and ended at the Community Gardens. The 2026 preview doesn't announce a parade this year. Its only mention is a photo caption recalling the 2025 one, so look for word from the club before planning around it.

The 2026 festival keeps the band, the seed workshop and the food drive, so the format is settled. What has changed since last October is the garden behind the stage.

From a five-year wait to open plots

Before the Community Gardens, Leisure World's gardeners worked the Minifarm. According to LW Weekly's account of the August GRF board meeting, Minifarm leases ran eight years and the waitlist was long, "sometimes more than five years." Because of that wait, the lease term was cut to four years when the new Community Gardens opened, so plots would turn over faster for the people in line.

When GRF was getting ready to open the new gardens in 2024, LW Weekly reported that they would have 248 plots, including 25 ADA-compliant plots. GRF Director Nick Massetti described the goals as food availability during emergencies and year-round, community ties, less isolation and exercise. That plot count comes from the 2024 opening, so treat it as background rather than a current tally.

Two years later, the pressure that set the four-year term has gone the other way:

The April 15, 2026 notice in LW Weekly listed 24 plots available to lease at $75 a year. By the August board meeting, LW Weekly reported "there is currently no waiting list for gardens; some people have two plots, and there are open plots."

That's the context for the prize at the raffle table on Oct. 24. When last year's winner took home a free plot for a year, it was a pleasant bonus. This year, the same prize mostly saves the $75 fee and skips the paperwork. The bigger value of the festival is that it brings residents into a garden that has open plots.

The rulebook is catching up

A lease term built for a long waitlist doesn't fit a garden with empty beds, and the GRF board has been working on that through 2026.

Lease length. In July, the Member Services Committee recommended stretching the lease from four years to six. Current gardeners had asked for a longer lease. In August, the GRF board sent the change back to committee for more review instead of adopting it. Two directors described different ways to handle the open space, as reported by LW Weekly. Director Marla Hamblin of Mutual 15 suggested keeping the four-year lease and adding two one-year extensions that would apply only when there is no waiting list. Director Mark Hughes of Mutual 2 said Recreation staff were concerned that a more complicated lease could add to their workload.

"Extending the term to six years seemed to fix everything," Hughes said. "That's coming from the committee."

Hours. At its Aug. 25 meeting, the board voted to change the Community Gardens' operating hours to 8 a.m. to dusk, pending a 28-day membership review. In the same action, it sent section 2.9 of the garden rules policy back to the Member Services Committee. At the Sept. 22 meeting, the board reviewed a batch of proposed policy revisions, and LW Weekly's recap notes that policy changes are posted for 28 days before final ratification. We haven't seen a final ratification of the new hours reported yet. Until LW Weekly or the Recreation Office confirms it, treat 8 a.m. to dusk as the proposed schedule.

Both changes respond to the same situation. Once the waitlist cleared, the questions shifted from how to share scarce plots to how long gardeners can keep a plot and when they can tend it.

Getting a plot without winning one

If the festival leaves you wanting a bed of your own, the April 2026 notice describes the process. Shareholders apply online. The Recreation Office then gives you an appointment date to come in. A second plot is possible only when there's no waitlist and more than five plots are available. With no waitlist reported in August, LW Weekly noted that some gardeners already hold two.

A few practical notes for Saturday:

• Bring cans. Each item is a raffle ticket, and last year's drive collected more than 1,000 cans for the OC Food Bank.
• Pick a workshop time. The 10:45 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. sessions fall between bluegrass sets, so you can catch both music and a workshop.
• Walk the rows on purpose. The scavenger hunt is the easiest way to see which parts of the gardens are planted and where the open beds are.
• Ask about leases while you're there. The four-year term and the hours are both under review, so the rules for a plot you sign up for now may change.

Fees, lease terms and hours mentioned here come from GRF policy as LW Weekly reported it. This is general information rather than legal or financial guidance, so confirm current terms with the GRF Recreation Office before you apply.

If you're curious how current conditions in Leisure World affect your own unit's value, Gasper Monteer Realty Group is happy to walk through it with you. Request your complimentary Leisure World home valuation, and we'll see you at the Community Gardens on the 24th.