In the Bay Area, Community Gardens Can Help You Make the Most of Spring

The Bay Area’s weather and soil make for excellent growing. It’s part of why we have ample access to fresh fruits and vegetables at local grocery stores and farmers markets.

But even if you’re tempted to try your hand at growing your own, for many people, having your own garden at home just isn’t possible — you may not have the space, the tools or the knowledge to get started.

Luckily, the Bay Area is full of community gardens: shared spaces offering all those things, plus a group of gardeners eager to share in the oftentimes literal fruits of their labor.

And the good news is: Even though summer is around the corner, there’s still time to get planting in time for a full harvest this year — or to just dip your toes in the hobby for your first season. Plus, with grocery store prices sky-high due to inflation and tariffs, supplementing your pantry with homegrown vegetables may give your budget a break, too.

Keep reading for our guide to local community gardens, plus recommendations from experts themselves on what to plant this season.

Jump straight to:

• Where can I find a plot in a community garden?
• The waitlist for a community garden plot is so long. What are my other options?
  
• What can I get out of a community garden (besides the produce)
• What (beginner-friendly) veggies to plant in spring/summer in the Bay Area

How can I find a plot in a community garden?

The odds are good that your city, town or neighborhood has a community garden with plots for the public or gardening work days you can join, where anyone can participate in planting, weeding, watering and harvesting shared plots.

The city of San Francisco alone has 42 community gardens in almost every neighborhood of the city, and there’s a wealth of gardens in the East Bay and on the peninsula as well.

Don’t just limit your search to city-run sites: Local nonprofits, churches, universities and community colleges often have their own gardens. In San Francisco, there are also gardens managed by other agencies like the Presidio Trust in the Presidio, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in Fort Mason and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission in Bernal Heights. Most gardens charge a low (around $30 or so) yearly fee that funds equipment costs or maintenance.

But while there may be an abundance of community gardens in the Bay Area, demand for plots is also extremely high — and spots are limited.

“That’s how popular the idea of sustaining yourself locally is and knowing how your food is grown,” said Corinne Haskins, coordinator of Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative. Her group supports local community gardens and advocates for food security across the Berkeley community.

If you’re committed to having your own plot, go ahead and join the waitlist at your local garden now, Haskins said. But remember: Having a plot of your own means you have to take care of it, so ask about the size of the plot before you commit — and what kind of rules you might have to abide by if you’re lucky enough to snag one.

For example, at Karl Linn Garden in Berkeley, new gardeners are given a half plot to start — but “we insist that gardeners keep their plots up, that they plant their summer vegetables and their winter vegetables,” said Mary Ross Lynch, garden co-coordinator. “We have evaluations twice a year to make sure that they’re fulfilling all the rules like ‘no weeds’ and ‘no shading of other plots’ and keeping their gardens planted and harvested — because there’s so many people waiting.”

The waitlist for a community garden plot is so long. What are my other options?

Don’t despair. Ross Lynch and Haskins both suggest asking around among neighbors and friends to see if anyone has extra space in their backyard that you could use, or if they’d be willing to split a larger plot somewhere with you.

Or, if you’re not quite ready for an entire plot of your own, they also recommend looking for spaces like Pacifica Gardens, where all the plots are shared and anyone can participate in a harvest, which is then donated to the Pacifica Resource Center food bank each week.

While you’re on a waitlist — or still deciding if having your own plot is for you — one way to get involved is by volunteering at your local community garden and quite literally getting your hands dirty, San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department spokesperson Daniel Montes said.

As well as individual plots, many community gardens also have common areas offering “an associate membership,” Montes said: “meaning people can also drop in and help out in the communal area without the responsibility of maintaining a plot.” The parks department also hosts occasional garden resource days where they give out materials and advice to gardeners, and some city library branches also offer seed libraries.

Most gardens have similar events, work days, seed swaps or need a helping hand once in a while — offering you some of the fun of working on a plot with far less of the commitment that comes with it. You may even get to take home some of the harvest or ready it for donation. The Karl Linn Garden, for example, hosts monthly work parties to take care of common areas in the garden.

Plus, it doesn’t hurt to be a regular at your community garden while you’re on the waitlist, Haskins said, so garden leaders know that once you get a plot, you’re sure to maintain it.

“There’s something really nice about learning skills with other people,” said Maggie Marks, director of Garden for the Environment, an educational garden nestled below Mt. Sutro in the Inner Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco.

Garden for the Environment is open to the public every day, and offers volunteer work hours twice a week and classes for schools another two days. You can also pay to sign up for workshops on topics like composting, food growing, beekeeping, bird watching, native plants and more.

The Master Gardener Program is also there to help, said Maggie Mah, the spokesperson for their San Mateo-San Francisco branch. The program, an extension of the University of California system, trains volunteers to work with local community gardens and at-home gardeners and teaches them proper gardening techniques.

Every county has a Master Gardener Program, and Mah said its volunteers host classes, workshops and other events, making themselves available to gardeners of all skill levels. Her branch even has a gardening education center in San Mateo.

“Basically, our role is to educate people on how to be successful with producing things,” Mah said. “We try to reach as many people as we can.”

What can I get out of a community garden (besides the produce)?

Communal gardening provides benefits beyond the food itself, Haskins said. It’s a great way to get outside, share resources and knowledge with your neighbors and cut down on grocery costs, too. Some community gardens also act as a shared space to explore cultural practices, including Indigenous agricultural methods.

And just because you don’t have a plot doesn’t mean you can’t share in the bounty. Some gardens, like Bancroft Garden in Berkeley, leave their harvest out in exchange for donations.

“It just works to the benefit of everyone,” Haskins said. “There’s lots of support to encourage people to have the ability to eat healthy, feed themselves and reduce their grocery bill.”

For some, the garden offers personal and community connection, unlike anywhere else — although it wasn’t always so competitive to get a plot, said Loren Jones, a San Francisco native and composer who’s been gardening at the Clipper Terrace Garden since the ’90s.

Jones said he stumbled upon the garden, which was established in the ’70s, when two brothers donated the land from their family dairy farm — after noticing a giant bush of blackberries on the side of the road. “One day, I just made the time to stop in, and I couldn’t believe it,” Jones said. “It’s one of the best blackberry patches in the city.”

Clipper Terrace had a few other hard-to-believe attributes, like its stunning view of the city skyline, hard-to-grow Gravenstein apple tree (since cut down) and tough-as-nails manager, a firefighter named Sarah who Jones fondly remembers having to call upwards of 15 times to convince her to give him a plot.

What Bay Area produce should a beginner plant in spring and summer?

Some of Jones’s recommendations to get you started in a Bay Area garden:

• Zucchini
• Potatoes
• Chard
• Fava beans
• Lettuce (although these fast growers need to be harvested regularly)

This Bay Area-oriented planting calendar may also help you brainstorm what to sow, keeping in mind if your plot tends to get more sun or fog.

The good news is that pretty much anything grows in the Bay Area, but be sure to ask the other gardeners at your community garden for their own location-specific tips or tricks.

For example, tomatoes don’t grow well outdoors at Clipper Terrace because it’s often cold and windy on this Diamond Heights hillside, Jones said. Instead, tomatoes must be grown in their greenhouse.

California actually has two growing seasons — winter and summer — which vastly expands the opportunities for what types of produce to grow, Ross Lynch explained.

“The Bay Area is great because you have these multi-climates. But the further inland you are, the more things that you can grow that you would grow in the heartland,” Haskins said, including melons, which are her favorite.

As for Ross Lynch, she just planted tomatoes, carrots and peppers, and plans to put in parsley and basil seeds soon —and she’s still harvesting her winter crop of leeks and beets from the winter.

“I give stuff to my friends, I give stuff to other gardeners in the community garden,” Ross Lynch said. “So it all gets given away or eaten.“

But don’t be disappointed if sometimes your crops fail. It still happens to even longtime gardeners.

“You’re not a gardener if you’ve never learned to garden,” Marks said. “People have this idea that gardening is something that you either have a skill for or don’t.”

“You just have to learn it,” she said.