Permaculture Garden in San Francisco Flourished During COVID
“The idea behind it is to educate people where the food comes from and how special it is to grow food on empty lots and direct towards people in need,” he said.
By Michael Iacuessa
Potrero Hill View
July 2021
Excerpt:
Volunteers cultivated the first sizable harvest in some time from the garden in January. While open for the public to use and pick, most of the crop is donated to the Free Farm Stand, which operates from noon to 1 p.m. on Sundays at Parque Niños Unidos in the Mission.
According to Dennis “Tree” Rubenstein, who helps operate the stand, the garden contributed 94 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables from January to May. With new plantings that’s expected to increase. Although it can be deceptive to evaluate produce abundance by weight, in its heyday the garden yielded 1,000 pounds a year.
The plot is a testament to what can be grown on just 0.11 acres. There are 40 fruit and nut trees including five figs that line Rhode Island Street, apple trees as high as six feet tall, avocados, which’re presently blossoming, and a Sapota that’s native to Central America. There’s even a Yuzu tree, which produces citrus popular in East Asia but banned from being imported into the United States to protect against the spread of diseases.
Among 23 species of row crops are scarlet runner beans, fava beans, leafy greens such as arugula and spinach, sunchokes, squash and a variety of potatoes. Tree collards, easy to pick, made up most of the January harvest.
