San Francisco's loaded with secret garden space hidden behind the rows of Victorian and Edwardian period houses. Some are carefully tended, others just grow wild (like the one behind my house.) Spread out over the city are a number of community gardens on city-owned property, with vegetables tended in small plots that people wait years to get.
Others, like the Corwin Street Garden above, are big plots tended in a meandering, naturalized style. The Corwin Street Garden's not well known- it's on a dead-end street high above the Castro, but over the past decade the neighbors have cleared, planted and maintained it with native species. By any standard it's swell, a downhill slope ending in a spectacular grove of cypresses and views of downtown.
The rains here are ending, and in the next few weeks, Corwin Street's worth a visit.
For more information about community gardening in San Francisco:
· SF Garden Resource Organisation
· San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department
· Fort Mason Community Garden