Little City Gardens

Bob looking at our new aquisition said “So you’re starting to grow cardboard.”

We needed a very large quantity of cardboard to sheet mulch some big areas of the land, especially the back of the lot, that are inundated with invasives: himalayan blackberry, fennel, bermuda grass and dock. We had been filling the back of the pickup with cardboard from our local market about once a week, but that was hardly meeting our cardboard needs. So in an attempt to be more efficient we scheduled a cardboard delivery from a recycling center.

Although we were forewarned about the dimensions of the delivery truck, somehow we gravely miscalculated how far onto the lot the truck would be able to drive, and just how much cardboard it would contain. The drop-off happened so fast we didn’t have the time or composure to call it off. Before we knew it, we had an interminable mountain of compressed cardboard (we estimate 3 tons) squashing a section of our freshly germinated field of cover crop, and the truck’s wheels had carved one-foot trenches in the soft soil of our field. It was humorous, ridiculous, and daunting.

We knew we had to move all of that cardboard to the back of the lot before too many neighbors had the chance to observe that we were turning their street into a dump. Of course we knew that the monstrous pile of trash was temporary, but it was an eyesore and not the kind of thing that happens everyday on a quiet residential street. For the past six months we have been striving to be great neighbors, and this situation was not helping our reputation. After working seven straight hours loading the truck with cardboard and driving it to the back, hardly stopping to eat or drink, the sky threatened rain and the pile had not noticeably diminished. We got the truck stuck in the mud twice and, at best, we had moved only an eighth of the cardboard.

Around 4 oclock, taking a little perspective from our debacle, we acknowledged to ourselves that we simply had more cardboard than we could use. We needed someone to take the rest. But we didn’t know who. At 5 o’clock that day, we had our best piece of luck. We met a man named Jose, who at the time when we encountered him was neck deep in a dumpster in Glen Park. Before I even said hello, he smiled at me and made a joke “It’s hard to make a dollar these days!” He was collecting cardboard from the dumpsters to sell to a recycling center. He gets about $140 for a ton. He followed us back to farm and the three of us, with the help of our neighbor, Bob, loaded up Jose’s huge box truck in the fading daylight. When we left the farm it was dark and we were exhausted. In the next three days we filled Jose’s truck twice more to the brim. He was great to work with and promised he would come back to visit the farm.

Lessons learned: Be very cautious and clear about delivery sizes. Plan well for them. Make sure the road to the drop off spot is wide enough and firm enough for the size of the truck. Sometimes going for the big load isn’t as efficient as perservering with many small loads.

The good thing is it’s over, it’s funny, and now we have enough cardboard to carryout our big sheet mulching plans.

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And a note to SF Residents:

Although this delivery was ill-planned on our part, it was a very generous donation from the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council’s (HANC) Recycling Center. The Recycling Center, which doubles as a native plant nursery and is a valuable community resource, is currently facing threats of eviction from the Recreation and Parks department. Rec and Parks has plans to replace this 36 year old organization with a Garden Resource Center. As urban gardeners we think its great that the city wants to provide a Garden Resource center –we could use easier access to compost, mulch, plant starts, tools and other ammendments — but definitely not at the expense of rooting out a long-standing and important community resource that provides ten green jobs and already distributes plants and materials. The plans ignore the fact that the city’s best existing garden resource center, The Garden for the Environment, is merely ten blocks away. If the city wants to create more resources for gardeners, why not locate the depot in a location that doesn’t already have one or in a location with more space for a greenhouse? The desire to eradicate HANC’s recycling center and duplicate a garden resource center in this neighborhood seems to be a gesture on the city’s part to undermine the activity and livelihood of homeless residents of the park and low-income neighbors who depend on the reimbursements from recycling as income.

You can read more about this issue on HANC’s website. and if you’d like to help, they need letters, postcards and emails of support immediately to the Mayor!