A Gardener's Journey to the Bay Area

[NOTE: this article was contributed by one of our community members. If you've got something you'd like to see here, send it in to info@apple-nc.org and we will have a look! We hope that Community Participation and Contribution will be a big part of our new web page!]

A Gardener's Journey to the Bay Area - by Ellen Solomon

Last week I took a vacation and went to the Big City - San Francisco. I had a great time. My gas-guzzling truck stayed at home in the Sierra Foothills. I went across the valley to the Bay Area by bus and train, to San Francisco by ferry, across San Francisco by foot, across the Golden Gate and over Mt. Tamalpais by bus.

Walking to the Fort Mason hostel, I encountered the first of many hidden treasures, a beautiful community garden, said to be the oldest in San Francisco, with terraces made from recycled concrete.

I registered at the hostel, a "recycled" army barracks, full of lively, mostly young people. The walls bear witness to its age, but it was clean, and early the next morning breakfast was served in a cafe overlooking the beautiful bay, where wisps of fog were disappearing.

In the morning I walked up Fillmore Street from Union Street to California Street. Fillmore is so steep it has stairs instead of a sidewalk. Its the great, instant aerobic, uphill walk! From the top one is rewarded with a beautiful panorama of the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, visible beyond houses adorned with turrets and Victorian ornament.

After exploring the upscale thrift shops further down Fillmore, I enjoyed lunch at my favorite restaurant, the Mediterrannee, at Fillmore and California. A walk through the city (between Bush and Pine is a hidden, walking lane called Cottage Row), brought me to the Civic Center. Just behind City Hall I came upon a vegetable garden, in raised beds made from wrapped straw bales, and named the SLOW FOOD NATION VICTORY GARDEN.

Nearby is the four story Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library with books and media for everyone. This unique library even has a cafe! Although the cafe is in the basement, daylight streams down from above past the stairs, and there I had an excellent cappucino.

Across from the library, I couldn't resist entering the Asian Art Museum just to look at the majestic marble staircase of the original San Francisco Main Public Library - retained in the updated museum design.

Day Two: I walked up and down the Fillmore stairs again, and then took the bus across the Golden Gate Bridge, transferring at Marin City to another bus going to the top of Mount Tamalpais. There I had a great coffee overlooking the hills of Marin and the islands in the Bay.

Day Three: Because I wanted to go to Muir Beach, I had to rent a car. (Buses no longer go to Muir Beach.) After a short drive from Mill Valley, I sat on the sand before the infinite, eternal roll of the waves.

A short walk brought me to the Green Gulch Farm, the locus of Wendy Johnson's book "Gardening at the Dragon's Gate." Here is a peaceful, agricultural, meditative community. The peace garden is designed in a square; to enter brings one to instant stillness. It reminded me of the Memorial to the soldiers of St.Petersburg, Russia, with an eternal flame in the center, also a square pattern.

Then a drive winding along the coast to the Audubon Bird Sanctuary on Bolinas Bay. I have lived almost all my life in California, and never before had I visited this beautiful, sheltered cove watered by a narrow isthmus connected to the ocean. Audubon Bird Sanctuary was closed; I had just missed the season.

Next year I will come - by bus - with my grandson, between March and July, to walk the overlook and watch the egrets in their nesting ground.

When we leave the car behind and even though we use gas operated public transit, we don't add any carbon to the atmosphere. By sacrificing our own private luxury space, we meet people everywhere and find beautiful treasures.

When we go out walking, and leave the car behind, we see the world slowly, we find interesting people, and we see places which nourish the spirit.

Ellen Solomon is a gardener, certified arborist, and landscape designer practicing in the Sierra Foothills. A native Californian, with a degree in Environmental Horticulture from Sierra College, she has traveled and studied gardens in Europe (especially the Mediterranean). She consults and designs vegetable, fruit and ornamental tree-wise, water-wise, earth-wise gardens.