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The Little Red Hen Community Garden

August 25, 2011 by Elizabeth Weise

Rich Craib on left and gardener Joanne Butler and police officer William Murray on right after the installation of the new sign.

By Murray Schneider

This Mother’s Day witnessed the groundbreaking of The Little Red Hen Community Garden on Police Academy property. Now, a little over three months later, a granite monument is mounted in front of it, witness that the Little Red Hen Community Garden not only could, but did.

On August 17th, Betty Louis surveyed the garden while afternoon fog blanketed Duncan and Amber Streets, a mist that once signaled skepticism that anything but winds could grow on Diamond Heights.

While she wove her way through the rectangular garden plots, two gardeners sat a picnic table, built by Richard Craib, president of Friends of Glen Canyon Park. Others rested on benches adjacent to the slope’s last plot, which served like a bulwark before the hill dropped off to Police Academy classrooms.

“I’ve got peas,” announced Betty Louis, who has lived on Amber Street for 40 years and owns one of the 39, 45-square foot plots that cost $85, each using only a marginal amount of water, and each serving as a communitarian gathering place for neighborhood residents.

Her peas won’t lack for community, either.

“It’s a farm,” smiled the Diamond Heights locovore, as she assessed the vegetable bounty, which includes kale, tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, beets, pumpkins, artichokes, carrots, onions, cucumbers, strawberries and string beans.

The Little Red Hen Community Garden could easily give the thriving Glen Park Sunday Farmer’s Market a run for its money.

Craib, who has lived on Turquoise Way for 47 years, crisscrossed the garden that he and SFPD police officer, William Murray envisioned and put in place on May 8th. He padded on shaved wooden bark that cushioned narrow walkways and that softened his footfalls. Attached to water spigots, rubber hoses circled every few yards. Water dribbled, trickling into small pools that were quickly absorbed into the earth. Intermingled fava beans threaded their way up geometric lattices.

On Duncan Street, a pedestrian snapped a photograph, maybe to verify he wasn’t in Iowa. A Police Academy official, dressed in creased trousers and starched shirt, walked over and studied the monument, possibly wondering how a Little Red Hen etched onto a slab of granite could ever mesh with the San Francisco Police Department’s mission statement.

Craib, orienting a visitor, pointed to a split rail cedar fence that circled the garden’s perimeter.

“There’s 210 linear feet,” said Craib, a retired building contractor who constructed the fence. “Notice how it’s set back.”

The fence, which is the color of a palomino horse and that will eventually turn gray as it ages, stands four feet from the street.

“We’ll plant trees and then hollyhocks to add color,” Craib said, whose Friends of Glen Canyon Park members matched the funds of plot subscribes that initially seeded the fecund garden.

Craib and Murray, both of whom work their own plots, have created a green oasis from a neglected street corner that had, only three short months earlier, embarrassed itself by being a rutted and rocky detritus of glass shards, scratched scrub and stunted weeds.

The four-foot-by-six-inch square monument now sitting on a three-foot-by-seven-foot base, which Craib and Murray constructed, is carved from discarded granite that Craib obtained from a City graveyard of unused stones that skateboarders careened and rattled across.

The Acme Memorial Company in Colma then sculpted and crafted the stone.

“Acme cut, polished and engraved it,” said Craib, on the day Acme workmen delivered the stone from its workbenches, which stand only yards from Hills of Eternity cemetery on Hillside Boulevard in Colma.

“Tommy Musni spent three weeks alone on the inscribing,” added William Murray, director of the Police Academy video productions, as he studied a image of a red hen emblazoned on the stone that could easily substitute for a mother’s bedtime story.

“I pulled in a chit or two,” said Murray, referring to Musni, his childhood friend.

A collaborative effort by the Friends of Glen Canyon Park and the San Francisco Police Academy, The Little Red Hen Community Garden is now so successful a waiting list of 18 people is lined up to grow leafy greens.

Every vegetable garden has its season, even on perennially blustery Diamond Heights.

That’s as plain as a Little Red Hen chiseled on a monument, cradling a rake and hoe and holding a watering can.

Anyone interested in adding their names to the growing waiting list can email Richard Craib at richcraib@gmail.com or William Murray at sfpolicegarden@gmail.com.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES

Bosworth & Lyell tarp wrap
Saturday, May 10, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
RSVP to info@glenparkassociation.org
Just need to get last week’s
loose material into tarps!


SFCTA Freeway Ramp Open House
Thursday, May 15, 5-6:30 p.m.
Ingleside Branch Library, 1298 Ocean Avenue



Spread the Love and the Mulch
Saturday, May 17, 10 a.m. to noon
500 block of Arlington at Roanoke
The blooming Oakwoodland on Arlington and Roanoke turns two. Come join the community in keeping out the weeds and making space for the California Natives. Tools, lunch (sponsored by neighbor Jodell) and good company provided.


Hamerton steps logoHamerton Steps Planting
Saturday, May 17, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
RSVP hamertonstairs@gmail.com



Upper Noe Neighbors Community Meeting Wednesday, May 21, 7 p.m.
Upper Noe Recreation Center auditorium
295 Day Street
Agenda


San Francisco Department of Public Works logoDPW Love Our City
District 8 Cleanup Day
Saturday, June 7, 9 a.m. to afternoon
Learn more and sign up here


 

Logo Center for Creative Exploration

The Center for Creative Exploration
Explore all the Colors of the Rainbow
one-day workshop
Saturday, June 7, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
300 Chenery Street
Learn more and link to registration here


Weeding Party
June 21, 10 a.m. to noon
100 block of Arlington at Charles
Join neighbors on the North end of the Cut to keep down the weeds and beautify top to bottom. Tools, lunch and good company provided.


Monthly cleanup on the Greenway
First Saturday of the Month (usually)
Click here to learn more


Friends of Glen Canyon’s
Glen Canyon Habitat Restoration
Every third Saturday 9:30 a.m to noon
Sign up here

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Click the above button or here to see all upcoming Glen Park Branch Library events. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get events highlights in your inbox.

Glen Park Rec Center

Glen Canyon Park sign
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Glen Park Rec Center
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Saturdays 3-4:45 p.m.
Questions? Call 415-239-4007


GP Movie Night Schedule

Renew Your Glen Park Association Membership for 2025

Join the Glen Park Association and help promote our community’s interests. Together, we can secure improvement funds, publicize neighborhood concerns and strive to speak as one voice on neighborhood and city issues.

Membership in the Glen Park Association is only $10 annually and can be purchased online.

Glen Park Association Advertising Sponsors

JE_Digital Small Space Ad
Diamond Heights Digital Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
moroco
Center for Creative Exploration - adult
JE_Digital Small Space Ad
Diamond Heights Digital Ad
GPA Ad- Perez Construction ad 6.27.22 v Glen Park
moroco
Center for Creative Exploration - adult
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Glen Park Association is in Glen Park.
1 week ago
Glen Park Association

Save the Date! May 17th, Saturday 10:00AM - 11:30AM

Join us and help pick up trash & litter in the neighborhood!
We’re celebrating 3 years of collaborating with @refuserefusesf and the @glen_parkmerchantssf of #keepingGlenParkclean and bringing the #community together!🙌🏽

Meet at Critter Fritters Pet Food and Supplies @critterfritterspetfood
📍670 Chenery Street

Supplies and refreshments provided
No experience required

#refuserefusesf #glenpark #sanfrancisco #keepSFclean @rafaelmandelmand8 @anhishere @danielluriesf @sfpublicworks @avenuegreenlight #avenuegreenlight
... See MoreSee Less

Save the Date! May 17th, Saturday 10:00AM - 11:30AM

Join us and help pick up trash & litter in the neighborhood! 
We’re celebrating 3 years of collaborating with @refuserefusesf and the @glen_parkmerchantssf of #keepingGlenParkclean and bringing the #community together!🙌🏽

Meet at Critter Fritters Pet Food and Supplies @critterfritterspetfood 
📍670 Chenery Street

Supplies and refreshments provided
No experience required

#refuserefusesf #glenpark #sanfrancisco #keepSFclean @rafaelmandelmand8 @anhishere @danielluriesf @sfpublicworks @avenuegreenlight #avenuegreenlight
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Glen Park Association is in Glen Park.
1 week ago
Glen Park Association

Yesterday was a great day at the Glen Park Small Business Stroll presented by the San Francisco Public Library’s Small Business Center and our Glen Park Branch Library!
Participating merchants were @bird.beckett , @perchsf , @theclarktechnique , @pebblescafesf , @glen_park_station_bar and Glen Park historian Evelyn Rose did a BART history talk at the Glen Park BART station.

📷: Photos courtesy of Bonnee Waldstein

@sfpubliclibrary #glenparksf #glenparksmallbusinessstroll
... See MoreSee Less

Yesterday was a great day at the Glen Park Small Business Stroll presented by the San Francisco Public Library’s Small Business Center and our Glen Park Branch Library!
Participating merchants were @bird.beckett , @perchsf , @theclarktechnique , @pebblescafesf , @glen_park_station_bar and Glen Park historian Evelyn Rose did a BART history talk at  the Glen Park BART station. 

📷: Photos courtesy of Bonnee Waldstein 

@sfpubliclibrary #glenparksf  #glenparksmallbusinessstroll
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Wonder what’s going on with the French restaurant on the corner of Chenery. It never reopened.

Blog Roll

Coyote Yipps
Friends of Upper Noe Recreation Center
Glen Park Neighborhoods History Project
Open SF History
Sunnyside Conservatory
Sunnyside History
Sunnyside Neighborhood Association
Tramps of San Francisco
Upper Noe Neighbors

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