Earlier today the PttP youth crew helped plant a new sidewalk garden outside of Mission Pie on the corner of 25th and Mission St.s. There have been more and more sidewalks popping up around the Mission, which is super exciting, some made by community projects like Mission Greenbelt Gardens, some by neighbors, some by residents and some by businesses. Some of these gardens are under the radar despite happening right out in the open, meaning that they haven't gone through any permitting or requirements to legally install a sidewalk garden, and some, like the Mission Pie garden, have gone through rigorous designing and adjusting and re-adjusting of plans to get to a place where the garden could legally happen.
Most of these gardens feature native plants, great for our local ecosystem, supporting our local wildlife and beneficial insects, and thrive with little maintenance and little extra watering once established. Most legal sidewalk gardens do not feature food plants because it is quite complicated to pass fruit trees especially through this permitting process (despite Newsom's desire for us all to grow food and especially fruit trees on unused public land). Mission Pie worked long and hard to get some food plants through this process and managed to succeed with full size almond and linden trees, dwarf meyer lemon trees, raspberry canes, strawberry and lavender plants.
Karen Heisler (who co-owns and operates Mission Pie with Krystin Rubin) giving everyone the run through of the days activities. Karen is also a co-director of Pie Ranch and we have been working together to help build the food garden at Mission High School. Also, off to the right is Catherine Butler of Urban Edibles!
The steadfast PttP gardening crew (from L): Kristine, Yuwen, Lauren, Burton, Brenaja, and Kevin (who mostly got cut off in this picture)
Kevin helped dig a really deep hole and plant a full size linden tree.
Burton planted a couple meyer lemon trees and some raspberry canes.
Kevin and Brenaja top dressing newly planted lavendar with compost.
One of the most important parts of a hard day of gardening work is hanging out on the pick up truck when the work is done.
Thanks Mission Pie for the delicious picnic lunch out on the sidewalk for all the volunteers! And thanks PttP youth for all the hard work!
Kevin helped dig a really deep hole and plant a full size linden tree.
There is an intimate and wonderful garden tucked away in secret space between the back gardens of four houses in the Mission, quite appropriately called The Secret Garden or El Jardin Secreto. Clara, who I had initially met through the Free Farmstand (have you noticed how many people connect over the Free Farmstand? Come by if you want to meet gardeners, or food makers, or canners, or just really nice people looking for good food or to share good food, Sundays, 1-3, Parque Ninos Unidos/Treat Commons, Treat and 23rd) has recently taken up the task of getting this garden back into shape. 
We have been doing our best to keep up with the incredibly tall loquat tree, and the handful of cherry plum trees that are making and ripening fruit so much faster than we can manage to pick. Really, these cherry plums are out of control! We have been to the garden several times already and stand to go several more times (I'm pretty sure the PttP youth have had their fill of cherry plums and now understand way too well about local, seasonal food, and why it's important to share!)
The garden is beautiful though, and quite an oasis in the city, and hey, there's even a swing for break time!
We had a small group for the youth workday the other day, so Burton, Brenaja, and I left the Mission to check out the 18th and Rhode Island Permaculture garden. We met up with our good friend, Tree, of the Free Farmstand, and set to work, starting seeds, especially leafy greens, and harvesting potato towers.
This was a great task for us because we had just started potato towers at the Mission High School garden and I think doing the harvest was helpful to understand the process of the planting (although I admittedly have had much more success growing potatoes in the ground than in towers. But in tight city quarters, towers are a really good alternative to the ground space potatoes take up).
