San Francisco's Urban Garden

This week our class took a field trip to Alemany Farm in San Francisco, an urban garden that was once a bog, surrounded by a freeway and housing developments. Upon arrival, we had a discussion about Alemany’s activism in food justice and food sovereignty. As we have read in class, food justice is when good, healthy food is accessible to everyone, whereas food sovereignty is when people are educated about how to grow their own food and have access to land where they can grow. Alemany provides land to grow, environmental education and opportunities for people in San Francisco to thrive. People in the community volunteer at the garden along with other schools in the area. The man we met with told us that they provide a farmer’s market/ CSA boxes once a week, while there is a good amount of harvest, to the local community. At this weekly event, the community is not charged for the produce, however they keep a donation box for whatever amount the people are capable of donating each week.

On our tour of the garden we saw beehives, a small creek that flows through the farm, their compost bins, their cover crop and the nitrogen its harvesting, and many plants beginning to grow food like strawberries, garlic, apple trees, peas, and more. We learned that the local horse stables bring their dung to the garden to use as a fertilizer, which helps the stables out since they get to dump it for free, and helps the garden out by providing free fertilizer. After our tour, we broke up into groups and fertilized the apple trees. Some of us scooped the fertilizer into wheel barrels, others brought the wheel barrels to the trees and dumped it, others spread the fertilizer around the trees, above the roots. After the fertilizer was spread, we laid mulch over the fertilizer to prevent erosion and retain moisture. Then, we turned the compost piles, which keeps the compost aerobic. Through this volunteer work we all have contributed to urban food justice. By spreading the manure, we brought nutrients to the soil, improving an area that would normally have poor soil, so that the trees could actually grow and produce fruit and feed more people in an ethical and sustainable way.

When I imagine the city and the suburb, I see pavement and buildings in the city, and plants and open fields in the suburbs. As we traveled to the Alemany Farm, yes there were trees around, however, it was mostly pavement, buildings, houses, apartments, and condos that I saw. I was excited to see that some of the houses we walked by had found ways to grow grapes and oranges in their small yards. I have never lived in a city like San Francisco, but I can imagine that it would be very refreshing to see what real “earth” looks like as you pass by the Alemany Farm, instead of never ending pavement. It was so nice to walk on grass and dirt once we arrived at the farm in comparison to the concrete that lead us there, it helped me feel more connected to and aware of the earth. Usually there is a hustle and bustle environment the city, but in the garden, surrounded by the hustle and bustle, there is peace.

In the documentary, The Garden, we follow the people of Los Angeles South Central Garden through their battle to keep their land. As the camera zooms out, you are given a bird’s eye view of the South Central Garden- brown, grey, and black makes up the city, until a little rectangle of green appears- here is the garden. The garden seems to be a little patch of hope for this concrete jungle. In LA, similar to SF, pavement covers the soil below. Main access to food is at supermarkets and grocery stores where produce and food has been shipped hundreds of miles. One of our most intimate connections to the earth is disconnected from people in the city. The people of the South Central Garden were given a big plot of land that was once a junk yard, and before that a place where trash was burnt. These people, along with the people who created the urban gardens in West Oakland and San Francisco, found ways to utilize the limited land that they have and become reconnected to the earth. In both the Los Angeles South Central Garden and the Alemany Farm, the land that grows magnificent fruits, vegetables and plants was once a dump, a land full of waste. They have made it possible for low-income people, who deserve good, healthy food just as much as wealthier people, the chance to grow their own food. I have noticed that at all of the urban gardens we have seen, big and small, the garden has become an important part of the people’s lives.