By Megan Robertson

Walking along Seventh Avenue at Lawton Street in the Inner Sunset, Garden for the Environment’s yellow banner appears as a beacon of the natural world among the city streets, inviting San Franciscans to “come on in” to its green space. The teaching garden is home to a “reservoir of community,” as garden staff like to call it.

Funded by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), Garden for the Environment serves approximately 2,500 people a year, providing programming on subjects like urban composting, growing food, beekeeping and seasonal fruit tree maintenance. Its “Get Up!” three-month, application-only, intensive composting program, is a staple of the space.

The garden was founded in 1990.

“It has forever had the purpose of being a teaching and demonstration space, which really makes us distinct from most other gardening programs in San Francisco, of which there are many wonderful ones,” said Maggie Marks, executive director of the garden.

The space has programming six days a week, two of which are aimed at youth when the garden becomes the site of school field trips. Many of the workshops are in collaboration with other Bay Area environmental organizations.

“We teach people about the environment – soil, water, plants, creatures and climate – so together we can grow a resilient, more beautiful world,” according to the garden’s website.

“(The programming) is community building, it’s network building, it’s long-standing relationships, it’s the experts that we connect with,” Marks said. “It’s a culmination of all of the years that we’ve been around.

“There’s also our interest in bringing in diverse voices and creating opportunities,” Marks continued. “Last year, for example, we had a soil scientist from Davis who used our site as a soil sample site and taught a bilingual Spanish class all about soil.”

On Nov. 16, the space was busy with visitors attending a rainwater harvesting workshop, in addition to offerings of a holiday wreath making workshop and appearances from regular Saturday garden volunteers.

Enjoying pastries while hummingbirds and bees flew overhead, attendees of the rainwater harvesting workshop learned about Bay Area waterways and how to install their own rainwater catchment systems.

“We offer this workshop twice a year and we have for at least 10 years,” Marks said.

Instructor Kat Sawyer is the Greening Urban Watersheds Program manager for The Watershed Project, a Richmond, California-based organization aimed at protecting local watersheds. Sawyer has been involved with Garden for the Environment since 2002.

“What (workshops) do is they empower people to pursue their interests and do something tangible that makes them feel more connected, more fulfilled,” Sawyer said. “That is the power of it – the applied knowledge.”

Sawyer not only instructed attendees how to install a rainwater catchment system on their properties, but also taught them about what watersheds are and about the watershed here in San Francisco.

“I always try to focus on putting some context before going deep into the technical thing, like really start to think about, ‘Hey, where does your water come from?’” Sawyer said.

The workshop brought Berkeley resident Sarah Cunniff back to the garden for a second time. After visiting once, she said she was excited to return and learn how to make the most of the upcoming weather.

“We’re entering the rainy season here, and most of the year we don’t have enough. I want to try to do what I can to help conserve,” Cunniff said. “I learned that installing a system is much more doable than I first thought.”

Attendee Jon Corbet came for something fun to do in the City and left with plans to install his own rainwater catchment system.

“It’s something I’ve looked into before,” he said. “Now that it makes sense, I’m going to try to twist my landlord’s arm and have him install one.”

The space is fully open to the public. While some came for specific reasons, others found their way in just by walking around the neighborhood.

“For a teaching garden like the Garden for the Environment, I think that’s the value, that you can drop by and just walk through and enjoy it for what it is, or you can look into it and see that you want to take a specific workshop. You can just get in where you fit in,” Sawyer said. “It’s kind of an analog thing in a digital world. You’re doing something with your hands. I think it helps us find a balance in our day-to-day life.”

Garden for the Environment has a number of upcoming workshops, which can be accessed at gardenfortheenvironment.org. It will be hosting a holiday open house on Dec. 14.