Since 1990, Garden for the Environment has been teaching San Franciscans how to grow their own food and live more sustainably. Founded in 1990 by the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, the garden has occupied the same 1-acre plot at 7th and Lawton since it opened. 

The garden is staffed by four full and part-time employees, about 12 instructors who teach weekend classes, and dozens of volunteers. Each year, approximately 400-500 adults participate and roughly 800 children from SFUSD visit on educational field trips. Managed by a registered non-profit, the garden cultivates land owned by the San Francisco PUC, which also provides some funding. Other monies come from private donors and class registration fees. 

Hoodline interviewed Blair Randall, the program's Executive Director, to learn more about GFE, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this fall.

Tell us a little bit about your background in gardening and education.

"I spent a number of years teaching in Hillsborough at Nueva School and absolutely fell in love with teaching. I saw the magic of learning and what teaching can do, but I wanted to have a subject to teach that was of my own interest. I had actually just taken a class here at Garden for the Environment, a training program we still run called 'Get Up!'. I decided that this was what I wanted to teach so I went to the Farmer Training Program at UC Santa Cruz in 2005, and that's where my two major interests combined.

"I see this whole place as a classroom and I want to provide teachable moments for this really particular skill called gardening. That's sort of what we do here, we are providing educational experiences for youths and adults."

Tell us more specifically about what your program has to offer.

"For youth, we offer field trips where we bring classrooms from SFUSD. We bring 800 children each year. For adults, we offer two formats. We have single-day classes where we teach every subject related to gardening, things like pruning, seed starting, fruit tree growing, irrigation, keeping chickens, and growing vegetables. Another format is a three-month training program once a year in the fall. That's called 'Get Up', and the goal of that program is really to teach adults not to be just gardeners, but garden advocates and garden educators.

"We help them build their toolbox with both gardening skills and the skills to take this knowledge out into the community. Our graduates have gone off to all sorts of different projects, and part of the program is to volunteer for 50 hours. At this point, we've sent our students to most urban gardening projects in the city. In fact, many of our graduates have gone on to start their own. For example, former students Antonio Alcala and Jason Mark re-started Alemany Farm. Another graduate, Eli Zigas is the Urban Agriculture and Food Policy Director for SPUR."

How has Garden for the Environment evolved over the past 25 years?

"In the late '90s, 'green gardening' was popular, and then it became 'sustainable landscaping', and then 'organic gardening' and now 'urban agriculture'. What's interesting is that the skills are very similar, but why people are attracted to them is usually for very contemporary reasons. For example, at one time a primary concern might be the ability to gain access to your own organic fruits and vegetables. Another time, it might be because one wanted to gain independence from the food miles associated with most American meals."

What would you tell someone who's thinking about getting involved in your program?

"If you learn best by just volunteering and doing, then come and we'll lead you through a series of tasks. If you prefer a more formal education, you can attend one of our weekend classes. I'd also like to say that all the food we grow is grown and harvested by students and donated to a local homeless youth shelter. Annually, we donate about 500 pounds of food a year.

"We are different than a community garden where individuals have plots. This whole garden is just for learning. I want people to come here to learn to garden, and they can be at any skill level. Everything we're growing is designed to be a hands-on laboratory for our students. For example, you can read about pruning in a book, but it doesn't really make a lot of sense until you're doing it with your hands."

What's your favorite thing to grow?

"Fruit trees. They are absolutely my favorite thing to plant. It's a relationship with a plant that develops and changes over time."

You've been the director here for the past eight and a half years. Why are you so passionate about this program? Why do you love your job?

"I really believe in the transformative power of education and I really believe that the practice of gardening can connect us to each other and our food. Honestly, the skills of gardening seem like, if no one is teaching them, they will slowly pass out of knowledge. I think this feels like really important work for us to do as individuals, as a city, and as a society."

Volunteers are encouraged to drop by on Wednesdays from 10am to 2pm and on Saturdays from 10am to 3pm. Register for a GFE class via the website; most are free, but some range between $15 and $25. Just curious? Garden For the Environment is open every day to visitors from dawn 'til dusk.