Splash of greenery:
Garden grows in S.F.’s Ingleside
“A lot of kids don’t see where food comes from . ... They don’t know about farming. I think it’s a good educational tool.” Sharon Eberhardt, who helped campaign for the community garden
San Francisco’s newest garden got a thumbs-up from the green thumbs.
A crowd of gardeners, civic leaders and parks officials gathered in the Ingleside district Saturday for the grand opening of the Geneva Community Garden, the 40th of its kind in the city.
What was once a tangle of overgrown weeds on the way to the Balboa Park BART Station became a 10,427square-foot garden at Geneva and Delano avenues.
“This is going to be the hottest park corridor in the city pretty soon,” Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the Recreation and Park Department, told the crowd.
The space was created after a long campaign by a handful of gardening enthusiasts in the area, who planted the seed nearly a decade ago. On Saturday, they finally reaped the harvest.
Money doesn’t grow on trees, so the project was set in motion after resident Martha Arnaud applied for a community opportunity fund grant in 2009.
“It occurred to me it would be really nice to have a plot in a community garden,” Arnaud said at the grand opening. “As I started looking into it, I realized there were no community gardens anywhere near here. And one thing led to another, and I just can’t begin to describe how delighted I am.”
A number of additional programs funded the $1.6 million garden as well, parks officials said, including the city’s 2008 Parks Bond.
The garden just opened, but already about 30 people are on the waiting list, said Mei Ling Hui, the city’s community garden program manager. People are allowed to plant “pretty much everything,” with the exception of cannabis and plants that grow so tall they might unintentionally shade the others.
Steve Wasserman, a resident of the Forest Hill neighborhood, managed to get one of the 60 plots before they filled up. He said he plans to grow some tomatoes, carrots, onions, beets and shishito peppers.
“I grew up in the Midwest in the suburbs, with a big yard and a big vegetable garden every summer,” said Wasserman, 64. “Gardening is something that I’ve been involved in for a long time.”
But he found the yard at his home is too small, shady and foggy for good gardening.
“When this opportunity came up. it was a great chance for me to put my hands back in the dirt,” he said.
Sharon Eberhardt, one of the residents who oversaw the years-long push for the space, said the yard at her home is “full of gophers.” Now, she said, she’ll plant carrots and lettuce at the community garden.
“A lot of kids don’t see where food comes from. They think it comes from a package at the grocery store. They don’t know about farming,” said Eberhardt, 72. “I think it’s a good educational tool.”
Maria Uchi, an Outer Mission resident, walked over to her plot Saturday to plant a calamansi tree — what she calls a Filipino cross between a tangerine and a lemon. The garden is a welcome change from what used to be there, she said.
“This was such an eyesore before,” Uchi said. “It was kind of creepy. It’s so nice to have something like this.”
But at the root of it all, gardens aren’t just about planting pretty or delicious things, said Mei, of the parks department.
“Community gardens aren’t the end goal. Communitybuilding is the end goal. Community gardens are a tool for community members to come together,” she said. “When I’m able to do this kind of work, it really solidifies that the city belongs to me as much as I belong to the city.”