Welcome to the latest in The Frisc’s periodic column Explore!, in which we encourage readers to enjoy the city’s less heralded outdoor places. In previous installments, we climbed to the top of Tank Hill for panoramic views and visited the restored bay shore at Heron’s Head Park. — Editors
With all of San Francisco’s growth and change in the last decade, it can feel like every neighborhood dive has been sniffed out, every dim sum spot mapped, every bakery worth a 45-minute line discovered. You might think all its culinary secrets have been divulged.
Until you learn that passion fruit grows in San Francisco’s soil.
Not just passion fruit — a tropical delight more often associated with sunny Brazil than our chilly city — but an array of fruits and vegetables that seem nothing short of miraculous to this Outer Richmond fog dweller: papaya, tomatillos, pink corn, candy stripe figs, kaffir limes, Bearss limes, greengage plums, Santa Rosa plums, cherries, ground cherries, pineapple guavas, prickly pear, raspberries, mountain yams, apricots, apriums, and various types of apples.
This abundance springs not from a commercial plot or a hip restaurant’s rooftop greenhouse, but from the Agricultural Garden section of the Visitacion Valley Greenway, a string of six mini-parks that run like jewels on a necklace through the southeast San Francisco neighborhood.
When you exit through the park’s gates — created by Visitacion Valley artists Fran Martin and Jim Growden, with whimsical ironwork and beautiful tile mosaics — the next is always in sight across the street.
Each parklet is unique: the one farthest north, up the slope toward McLaren Park, is home solely to California native plants, from buckeye trees to yarrow to ceanothus. Another section is designed for children, with play equipment, a small field, and plenty of places for hide-and-seek. A third features blooms with herbs, flowers, and public art. All provide a tranquil refuge from city life.
The greenway came to life over the course of 16 years, developed on 12 mostly empty lots owned by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The lots, known as the Reis Tract, had housed water pipes, a run-down mini-park, and a community garden, but in the 1990s were on the market for around $2 million.
Where some saw development opportunities, Visitacion Valley resident Anne Seeman saw the chance to “to bring some nature back to the city” and create more neighborhood outdoor spaces for her young daughter. We meet at the Native Plant Garden on Tioga Avenue. As we wind our way down its sloping paved paths, which make it wheelchair accessible, she explains that she also wanted to create a place where the diverse neighborhood’s ethnic groups could come together.
The greenway has winding paths and hidden nooks; the Agricultural Garden section is more of a free-for-all where anyone can come plant things like mystery squash.
Seeman, Martin, and another neighbor, Salvador Velasco, began working with the SF Recreation and Park Department and the nonprofit Trust for Public Land. Together, over the course of five years, the three partners negotiated an easement with the SFPUC. The land is still owned by the SFPUC and the parks are maintained by a mixture of volunteer labor and Rec and Park gardeners.
The first section of the greenway, Hans Schiller Plaza, was completed in 2001. The plaza boasts a lawn, and benches under a shady pergola, but its large gate and open plaza make it the least secluded part of the greenway. Its entrance is on Leland Avenue, the neighborhood’s main commercial strip that has largely avoided the tumultuous changes felt across the rest of the city. (Perhaps not much longer.)
The other parks give off more of a Secret Garden vibe, tucked among the neighborhood’s houses yet bursting with a riot of trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers. All have winding paths, hidden nooks to discover, and vantage points from which you can catch modest city views. The best is from the Herb Garden between Arleta Avenue and Teddy Avenue, from which it’s possible to see the entire greenway cascading through the neighborhood.
Cornucopia of edibles
A cornucopia of edibles, some surprisingly tropical, spill forth from the greenway’s two community gardens. One, a traditional garden where members each get a specific plot to work, predates the greenway and is run by Martin. The other — the aforementioned Agricultural Garden — is more of a free-for-all. Anyone is welcome to come and plant things during its limited hours.
“It’s a laboratory in a way,” Seeman says as we pick our way past celery that has gone to seed. “We can find out what grows in our microclimate and share it around the neighborhood.” She points to some nascent squash plants: a neighbor donated some unidentified seeds and Seeman is eager to see what variety the vines bear.
The greenway has flourished as an outdoor community center, and nearby preschools and daycares use the parks and visit the Agricultural Garden frequently. Seeman is helping organize a neighborhood Peace and Unity Celebration on August 17th in the Children’s Garden. It will feature arts and crafts, a dog costume contest, and live music. She’s also hoping to station performers throughout the greenway for a sort of “walk-through variety show.”
The lush corridor is a commons for more than just people. It is chock full of plants that provide food for butterflies and bees, forming a pollinator corridor in the neighborhood. As we wend our way back to the Native Plant Garden where we started, Seeman spots the single pale golden egg of an anise swallowtail butterfly (Papilio zelicaon) on the feathery tips of a fennel plant. She carefully clips the fennel to take home and raise the egg in a protected environment before releasing the butterfly back into the urban wild.
Though small, each of the greenway’s parklets radiates calm, inviting visitors to spread out a picnic, dive into a good book, and lose track of time.
How to get there
Neighborhood parking is easy, and you can enter the greenway at any one of the six sections, which run from Leland Avenue in the south to Campbell Avenue, between Alpha Street and Rutland Street, and then from Campbell Avenue to Tioga Avenue between Rutland Street and Delta Street.
Hans Schiller Plaza, the Community Garden, Herb Garden, Children’s Play Garden, and Native Plant Garden are open from sunrise to sunset, while the Agricultural Garden is open on Tuesdays from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. Muni lines 8-Bayshore, 9-San Bruno, and 56-Rutland all drop off close to the greenway, making this a transit-friendly park to explore.