Protecting the Victory Garden from too much Love

After Slow Food Nation, I stopped volunteering at the Victory Garden. Even though the organization decided to keep the garden open through November—I assume, in response to the intense pressure from visitors who asked, every time I was there, why it would be coming down right after the food festival—I had not been expecting it to stay open, and my schedule wasn’t going to allow me to get there.

As a result, I didn’t get back to the garden until Saturday night, when I was walking through Civic Center to get from my bus stop to BART. I was heading home from spending the day in Golden Gate Park at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and while I knew that San Francisco’s LoveFest was underway that day, I had not really clued in to what it entailed.

But as I disembarked from the bus, the pounding of drums and thick layer of bass made it clear: LoveFest was still going on. And what it was, by that point in the night at least, was a solid ring of 18-wheeler-based floats around the edge of Civic Center Plaza, each one pumping out music so loud I felt it up through the ground and into my shoes. People danced in every available space, and there were costumes like I could not believe, even though I had, in fact, ridden BART in earlier that day with a guy wearing a one-piece head-to-toe hot pink unitard and carrying a unicycle.

People, this is LoveFest. It is all about building community through odd fashion choices and killer music. Do not judge.

As I wandered through the crowd soaking up the atmosphere and wishing I did not have an immense backpack full of difficult-to-dance-with bluegrass festival supplies on my back, I noticed the giant fence that had been around the Victory Garden when it was first installed was back up. It occurred to me that this was a good idea, because it appeared that Love Fest was all about freedom of expression, and I could imagine someone expressing themselves right into the middle of one of the perfectly manicured beds.

I stood there for a moment, looking at how much the garden had grown in the month since I’d last seen it, when I realized I was next to a guy in an red security services jacket. Since the rest of the Love Fest security patrol seemed to be wearing yellow jackets, I leaned over and shouted in his ear, “Are you the security guard for the Victory Garden?”

He smiled broadly and nodded.

“How’s it going?” I yelled.

He shrugged, and yelled back, “They’re leaving it alone.”

“This must be a more interesting night for you than usual, huh?” I yelled.

He nodded.

“Do you mind if I take your picture?”

He shook his head. Really, there was no point to yelling any further, after all.

I took his picture, thanked him for doing what has to be, on most nights, one of the most boring jobs in America (guarding…a garden…really?), and headed off into the crowd, satisfied the garden was in good hands. And that the plants were, um, well-entertained, even just for one night.