Krispy Korner expands food production

One of the most engaging gardens in Bayview is one that combines love of art, cooking, and fresh fruits and vegetables. The Krispy Korner Community Garden is really a group of creative neighbors living near the Bay and amidst the light industry on the eastern side Bayview.

The first garden that emerged from these neighbors' hyper-local community power is the small but stately and very productive one at the intersection of Crisp, Shafter and Palou. When everyone else in the neighborhood were having trouble producing a good tomato, these folks had a bumper crop!

Very recently, new container planting has emerged within a block of the first, including one organizer's kitchen garden outside his home, and another organizer's fruit trees and planting beds for greens across the street from his live/work space.

Informality rules at Krispy Korner, so much so that the spelling of the project name is different depending on who you talk with.  It's a great example of how informal groups are reshaping Bayview from the ground, up.

Informal businesses important to Bayview

Informal businesses make up a key part of Bayview's economic life. But you don't have to tell that to Cody Reynolds and Tony Jones who have started Your Cabana, a festive restaurant-style operation in their live/work space at 1308 Griffith Street.

The food-lovers' oasis in a mixed-use industrial setting serves up signature dishes like Pasta ala Cabana with Italian sausage, peppers, onions, zucchini and mushrooms. Much of the produce is as locally-raised as it comes...a block away at the Krispy Korner Community Garden.

Every Tuesday from 9am to 2:30pm, fresh seasonal dishes are served for suggested donations. Contact Your Cabana at 415.822.1217.

Photos credit: Footprints. Find Your Cabana at the sign of the goat. Enjoy your food indoors or out. Meet Cody and Tony, the talent behind the business.

Local hero achieves national spotlight

Bayview Hunters Point pediatrician Nadine Burke is featured in the latest edition of The New Yorker. She makes a powerful case that growing up with poverty and violence has serious health consequences, and that the physical effects of anxiety may be far more damaging than we ever thought.

Dr. Burke is a local hero and national leader in the evolving sciences of stress physiology and neuroendocrinology. She was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle in February.

See more about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as it affects vulnerable communities in the Seva* Project Policy Brief, which emerged from a community-based participatory research project, a partnership of SF General Hospital and the BVHP community.

Photo credit Footprints (archive): Dr. Burke was caught with a young friend at a 2008 Health Fair sponsored by California Pacific Medical Center.

Big doin's on Bridgeview

Neighbors near the Bridgeview Community Teaching and Learning Garden on Bridgeview Drive at Newhall in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood have been watching a new publicly accessible gathering space take shape just outside the existing garden.

Under the care of extraordinary project leaders, Joel and Mary McClure, who live next to the garden, dozens of pro bono contributors and other volunteers have been engaged in the new work.

Vidal Perez, a Bayview contractor who lives with his family on Thomas, is leading the actual construction of the gathering space, bringing to life a concept that emerged from many community events at the site. The project includes permeable landscaping, a community notice posting board, and a new garden gate that will make the existing garden more accessible for everyone.  The work has been slowed by the rain, but it's still moving forward. Pavers will be installed next, and the new gate and posting board just after that.

An accomplished sculptor who lives nearby is working on concepts for a unique bench for the publicly accessible sitting area ... so that we can all enjoy the view and have a place to rest when we're climbing up from 3rd Street. He will be introduced, along with concepts for the bench, at a celebratory gathering at the site on Saturday, April 16th.

Quesada Gardens has raised funds for this new work from Michael Lee Environmental Foundation, SF Environment, and SF Community Challenge Grant Program. Pro bono design work has been provided by Seth Wachtel and his students at University of San Francisco. Massive volunteerism from many other groups and involved residents is ongoing.

Please watch for details about the Saturday April 16th celebratory event to "launch" the new project. We hope all our neighbors and allies will join us as a show of support, and showcase the Bayview "can-do" approach to community self-definition.

Find more about the history of the Bridgeview Garden project (going back to 2007!) online.

Please join in the fun happening on Bridgeview and Newhall. (There's gardening space available!) Everyone involved is doing this for our community, and loves working and playing alongside neighbors. Donations are needed, will put your or your family's name on the supporters list, and help pay for the bench.

Pictured: Students share design ideas with residents at a community gathering last year.

New ideas on Latona

Thirty-six volunteers converged on the heart of Bayview today to weed their ways through areas of the Quesada, Bridgeview and Latona gardens. Special thanks go to Captain Tyrone Pruitt and the San Francisco Black Firefighters' Association and to all the young people their work in the community involves.

The day included an informal gathering on Latona Avenue at Thornton where volunteers and residents shared food and talked about life on Latona. A new consensus plan for the existing garden and the Thornton Steps began to emerge.

Latona Project Leader, Rita Collins was introduced to neighbors. She spoke about her activity in the garden, so far, and some ideas she has for future work. Lydia Vincent, Bayview Koshland Fellow, presented a quick overview of a collaborative project focused on an arts treatment on the Thornton Steps which run along the side of the Latona Garden. This project is being organized by Lydia with Koshland, QGI, Art 94124 and other groups.

Rita announced that Quesada Gardens has five free backyard gardens to install in the coming months, and that the involved Quesada neighbors have offered them to their friends on Latona. Contact Rita for more information.

Participants shared these suggestions about possible changes to the existing Latona Community Garden:

We could use a new raised bed box. One suggested putting it in the middle to create a group of beds that can be protected from dogs.

We should move the box just inside the gate back further to make entering easier.
To control the fennel we have pulled several times, we need to use weed-killer that disperses quickly without leaving residue except localized residue that kills the roots.

We should improve the fence alongside the steps and make it look consistent with improvements to the steps and garden.

Encampments on the lot on the side of Thornton opposite the existing garden may require action beyond the garden and steps projects.

Littering and trash dumping is hard to keep up with and should be addressed in some way.

We need signage, especially facing 3rd Street that says “Latona Community Garden.” One neighbor used a Chicago garden art-sign made from metal as an example.

We should get more businesses involved, especially as donors of funds and materials.

We should have a bigger event like a BBQ that Latona residents organize to get more involvement on the block.

Education will always be an important of anything that happens at Latona. For instance, we can keep picking up trash, but will have less trash to pick up if people learn how to use the 3-color bins.

One resident living very near the garden has serious allergies/asthma issues, and hopes that new plants will be food or non-fragrant florals. She is interested in maintaining an herb garden to grow medicinal and kitchen herbs, and is open to working with others who may have health issues that herbs can help with.

One participant suggested keeping the garden locked with a combination lock which only residents involved with the Latona Garden have the combination to. This would lessen the amount of maintenance necessary, help with food safety, and be a barrier to nuisance crime. Other participants worried this would make using the garden informally difficult, be a barrier to the involvement of youth on the block and folks from 3rd Street who eat lunch at the garden, and could send the wrong message about the nature and purpose of the project.

Developing letterhead/logo for the Latona project could be useful, especially with fundraising. Jeffrey promised to share the logo done by the last organized Latona Group in case it is still useful.