Where Gardening Is Seen as a Revolutionary Act

The cubes and quadrangles of this tiny backyard don’t look like a hotbed of revolution. Not to George Gutekunst.

A non-practicing lawyer and retired longshoreman, Gutekunst says all he did was transform the arid sliver of earth behind his Richmond district apartment into a thriving, pint-size farm.

But this is a city where little things like riding a bike, boycotting grapes or drinking shade-grown coffee can equal civil disobedience. So, to a growing community of urban farmers in the Bay Area forced to make do with scraps of land, it’s also a place where gardening can be a revolutionary act.

“Organic gardening is probably the most radical thing you can do,” said David Blume, a third-generation San Franciscan and founder of the Permaculture Institute. His farm, three steeply terraced acres south of the city, grew 100,000 pounds of produce last year. Most of it was sold to Bay Area families.

Blume delivers his farming-as-revolution message worldwide. In Mexico, he taught a cooperative how to farm oyster mushrooms using agricultural waste such as coffee pulp. In Montana, he taught sustainable agriculture on the Blackfoot Indian reservation.

“By being an organic farmer, you fly in the face of every part of the power structure,” Blume said. “Refusing to use chemicals, refusing to use genetically modified seeds--it’s a real act of defiance.”

Viewed in that light, Gutekunst’s garden, free of chemicals and full of life, is little short of subversive.

“This neighborhood used to be all sand dunes, and the soil was awful,” he said. He used railroad ties to make 10 raised beds, trucked in some starter soil and created a compost pile. Today dozens of robust greens and vegetables fill the rows, the result of the hours each day that Gutekunst, 45, spends in his garden.

“I had to build the soil from the ground up, until it had tilth and buoyancy,” he said.

He once sold his harvest to upscale restaurants. Now, weary of the bookkeeping, he farms for himself, his friends and a few fortunate neighbors. They share the scores of varieties of robust greens and vegetables that grow in the beds, the result of the hours each day that Gutekunst spends in his garden.

The spicy pepper of wild arugula explodes in your mouth. Red and yellow Swiss chard glow like neon in the misty light. Puckery sorrel, fragrant lemon verbena, ruffled wild celery, apple mint, black Spanish radish, kale and squash grow in a seamless swath of vigorous color.

“This is going to be garlic, potatoes, spinach and beets,” Gutekunst said, pointing to a bed topped by a delicate frizz of pale green. “People are always surprised by what they see back here, but for the most part they understand. There’s something about a backyard farm that feels right, deep inside you somewhere.”

It’s a feeling more and more people have come to share. Bay Area gardeners can get help from a raft of organizations, from the Institute for Sustainable Forestry to the International Society for Ecology and Culture.

“There’s been a definite increase in urban agriculture,” said Abiola Adeyemi of the Maryland-based Alternative Farm Systems Information Center. “People became interested in all aspects of backyard farming. Now you find people growing food on rooftop gardens or vacant lots or even on empty land.”

And they’re shunning genetically altered seeds and pesticides.

Ray Green heads the California Organic Program in the state Department of Food and Agriculture. To gauge growing interest in alternative farming methods, just look at the numbers, he said. Last year, 435 farmers applied for state-sanctioned organic status. Croplands ranged from thousand-acre enterprises to tiny city lots. Certification isn’t easy--it takes 36 months of chemical-free farming just to get started.

Robert MacKimmie, a high-tech consultant, is part of San Francisco’s gardening revolution. Fascinated by honeybees, he founded City Bees in 1998. With 20 to 30 hives that he lends to backyard farmers throughout the city, he gives urban gardeners the very pollinators needed for successful harvest.

The bees produced about 2,000 pounds of honey last year, much of which was packaged and sold.

Some people host hives to help pollinate their produce. Others, including a Stanford professor, are in it for the science. “The bees are experts at thermodynamic heat distribution and keep the hive at a constant 96 degrees year-round,” MacKimmie said. “Studying the bees in her backyard helps her in her work.”

Judy Adler’s garden understands.

The half-acre yard of her Walnut Creek home, which backs up to an oak-studded hill, inspired her. Rather than fight nature with landscaping that ignored her region’s Mediterranean climate and her neighborhood’s abundance of wildlife, Adler created a wildlife corridor.

She planted trees to attract birds and shrubs to feed deer. “I look at this as part of a whole ecosystem,” Adler said, her gesture taking in the yard and the hills beyond.

Adler’s passion led her to help found Lifegarden, a nonprofit group whose aim is to teach other gardeners about this alternative approach to landscaping. “This is a joyful way to live, to share your land with living things,” she said.