I just finished sending out thank you letters to all the companies that donated food or money for food for our volunteer appreciation party and anniversary celebration.  The party was really sweet and wonderful and though I was planning to drink, I got drunk instead on all the wonderful energy in the room. I haven’t shaken all the thanks out of my pockets yet.  Zubin and Muiz from the Sufi house in San Francisco started us off with two dances of universal peace. It was such a great way for me to transition into the party from cooking and organizing to doing a dance of gratitude to the Mother Goddess. The dances were selected by Zubin and Muiz to have a theme of gratitude to the earth and nature. There is full coverage of the party including photos  at http://thefreefarmstand.org/.

Last week I read an inspirational article in a Sufi magazine put out by the Sufi Ruhaniat International which was founded by the spiritual teacher ( or “spiritual leader of the hippies”) and gardener, Sufi Sam, who lived on Precita St. here in San Francisco. Somehow this article resonated with my own thinking and experience and I feel like it is worth sharing  an excerpt from it (the article is online here http://www.ruhaniat.org/pdf/heartbeat.pdf).  ”My Grandfather’s BlessingsStories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

Restoring the World”

“In the sixteenth century the great Kabbalistic Rabbi Isaac Luria offered a profoundly beautiful cosmology of the world, a sort of mystical version of the Big Bang theory. In the beginning there is the Ein Sof, pure Being without manifestation, the infinite, absolute Source of the world. The world as we know it begins with the Or Ein Sof, an emanation of light from the Source. Rabbi Luria explains the fragmented nature of this world by postulating an accident of cosmic proportions: the vessel holding the Or Ein Sof shattered and broke open, and the light of God was scattered throughout the universe into an infinite number of holy sparks. These countless sparks of holiness are hidden deep in everyone and everything.

Like many other mystical cosmologies, this creation myth is based on an idea of service. The purpose of human life is to uncover these sparks of light and restore the world to its original wholeness. Everyone and everything we encounter is a shell or container for a hidden spark of holiness. It is up to us to help free the hidden holiness in everything and everyone.

We restore the holiness of the world through our lov­ing kindness and compassion. Everyone participates. It is a collective task. Every act of loving kindness, no matter how great or small, repairs the world. All those ever born have shared this collective work since the beginning of time.

The name Kabbalah uses for this collective work is Tik­kun Olam, we repair and restore the world. Everything in life presents us with this opportunity. It invests all our struggles with a deeper meaning and deepens all our joy.”

So this is what the Free Farm and Free Farm Stand are all about in a nutshell.  We are growing soil, growing plants, growing community, sharing the abundance and diverting the waste stream, and educating people about where food comes from and how to make healthy eating choices in our lives.  But it is really just trying to be kind and generous and compassionate. Planet Repair Service if you will.

Last week I attended a gathering of a number of great local non-profit  groups who got grants from the wonderful foundation called the Seed Fund.  It was another beautiful event I attended and I enjoyed running into a number of people I know who are doing such valuable work in the city.  At some point we were asked to tell everyone our name and in two words what our vision of the future would be.  Most everyone in the room was saying similar things, more green spaces, more bike friendliness and less cars (one was brave enough to say a car free city), more quietness, more school gardens,  basically the vision of making the city more livable.  I was actually thinking that maybe the first order of business would be to work on making things more equitable and livable for everyone.  That we have too many people going without…going without shelter, food, health care, services, love. We can start out with compassion and generosity were the words I chose, though I don’t think anyone knew what I was referring to.

I enjoyed the Free Farm Stand this week. The warm sunny day brought out the crowds and the lawn was full with people hanging out waiting for their number to be called. I especially liked that a couple of neighbors came by with some surplus produce to share. One story was that a neighbor got a lot of grapefruit from their neighbor and it was too much so she brought some to share at the stand.

Another neighbor brought some lemons. I was thinking about lemons because for the party we needed some Meyer lemons for the kale salad and the homemade lemonade with honey from the Free Farm. They were almost $3 a pound  at Rainbow (we actually did buy some, but then I got a donation of lemons from Veritable Vegetable…there were a few rotted ones in the box and they were pulled from inventory to give away). Then at the stand a neighbor told us he had two trees loaded with lemons and asked us if we wanted to harvest them (yes I hope to get them picked for the stand this week). There was also extra produce because while gathering food for the party I tapped into the generosity and abundance of wholesale produce distributors like Earl’s Organic and Veritable Vegetable.  In summary it was another glorious day in the park.

 

 

On Sunday the Free Farm Stand was met with a bit of wet weather. I think our eleven 55 gallon rain barrels are full at the Free Farm with the rain (it was wet but only rained lightly while we were distributing produce). I myself and I know others were feeling grateful for the change in weather. Because of the weather and I suspect the big football game that was coming up, our numbers were down and at the end of the day we closed up a half hour early and had produce and bread left over. We started off with little produce again and the most the farm contributed was some delicious kale and hot peppers from our unheated hothouse.  For a while I suspect we will continue to have less produce, not only from our farm but from other farmers who give us what they have left-over.

kale in wet weather

Dwarf avocado in rain

It is the time of year to be planting bear root fruit trees and reading seed catalogs. The Free Farm will be hosting a Tu B’Shvat tree planting on Sunday February 5th starting at 10am. It is “The New Year of the Trees” in Jewish tradition, when the dormant trees awaken and begin their new fruit-bearing cycle.

Talking about fruit trees. My excitement for the weekend was attending the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG) scion wood exchange. I always enjoy going to those yearly events not only to pick up wood for grafting, but to meet fruit growing friends and to talk shop. I usually don’t make the CRFG meetings because they happen on Saturdays when I am at the Free Farm.  If we want to grow our own food we must get friendly with fruit trees and fruiting plants and also learn how to propagate them.

I plan to be at the Free Farm this Wednesday and will be rooting some of the cuttings I got and also will start grafting some trees with the scions I have and will share what I know with whoever is around.

I just put up on our website a short video made last year by a visitor from Japan named Junko from CyClub, “an international artists collective transformational Gypsy Punk Band”. Look under the sidebar under Explore Videos etc. I liked this video and it really gives you the flavor of what the Free Farm Stand is all about. Junko and her band will be playing at our party.

This week it was colder than our usual  sunny summer weather in winter and I was bundled up because I felt like I may be coming down with a cold that has been going around. It was a fun day and at some point the sun did peek through the clouds.

Pam came by with bags of goodies including Bay leaves and arugula and she also brought five Yacón plants and some edible tubers. By the way she mentioned that city college is still looking for someone to replace her horticultural teaching job there and she said she would mentor the new person that got the position…seems like a great opportunity. You can see the job description here:  https://jobs.ccsf.edu/applicants/jsp/shared/frameset/Frameset.jsp?time=1326742016132.

Ruby Streaks mustard

Yacón tuber and plant

Last week I tried cooking the Yacón tubers by roasting them and my conclusion is I like them better raw. It was nice to give people a sample of the root to taste before they took a plant. We also gave out lettuce,kale, and calendula seedlings. A couple of neighbors brought lemons to share, it is that lemon season beginning again.

Since last week when I wrote about the town in Great Britain growing all it’s own vegetables and I suggested just one San Francisco neighborhood growing all it’s own vegetables , two similar ideas have floated to the surface. One is this idea that came out in the Chronicle, “Self-sufficiency in Meyer lemons is the goal of a citywide project supported by Friends of the Urban Forest, set to start early this spring…”(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/11/DDG91MLC5N.DTL). Of course I love this project and I am sure we all know of lemon trees growing somewhere (though I don’t see why they have to be Meyer Lemons). I can think of at least 6 trees I know of off the top of my head. No one will go hungry if there is a lemon in every pot. Actually I would also like to see us become self-sufficient in avocados (at least here in the Mission), then really with both lemons and avocados we can live off guacamole.

Then I read this post  in the Kitchen Gardens SF digest by Lynda Smith <lyndasmith55@gmail.com> Jan 12 04:32PM -0800

“Hi, everyone… I wanted to share with you a dream I have for my new neighborhood: To convert every available space to food gardens, a la this town in England:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034412_home_gardening_vegetables_civic_buildings.html.

I don’t yet know who to connect with in Bernal about this idea. If you know of anyone, please let me know. I might start with the garden coordinators of the Dogpatch-Miller Community Garden and the Wolfe Lane Community Garden, which are four minutes away from where I live now. And if you’d be interested in joining me in this effort, please let me know…Lynda

I think it is amazing how a  ideas and dreams travel around in space and that right now a lot of us are envisioning similar thoughts about growing food locally.

Don’t forget the California Rare Fruit Growers Scion Exchange comiong up this Saturday January 21st  Saturday, January 21, 2012
 12 noon to 3:00 PM  at Laney College Student Center Bldg,  900 Fallon Street
, Oakland (1 block from Lake Merritt BART station). This is the way we become fruit self-sufficient!

More pictures from the day:

kale and chard from the Free Farm

my longtime friend Joe came by with extra calendars he
had printed with beautiful Maya Paintings that he gave out

our fabulous volunteer crew

 

It is hard to believe this is January with this glorious warm weather, though we are about ready to  get out and do some rain dances. Taking a break and slowing down was nice and I actually got out of the city. Among other things I looked up a friend in Sebastapol whom I haven’t seen in years. Yeti is one of the most wonderful farmer/gardeners I know who still goes barefoot everywhere, lives on very little money, eats right now mostly nuts and apples he gleans, and care takes a number of pieces of land in that area.   The work he did with land I visited that his intern was leasing  in Sebastapol was phenomenal, how gentle he cultivated it (all by hand with beautiful hand tools) and the growing beds were the ultimate in the art of farming. My photographs didn’t capture the  beauty of the space nor did it capture the blackness and feel of the soil he has grown over the years there.

all the beds were so uniform and I felt like I wanted to lay down in one
one of his compost piles with a roof on it built…

after they rot they become part of the new bed

The place he is living on now, Morning Star Ranch has a pretty famous history, which is documented at the digger archives online: http://www.diggers.org/most/morningstar.htm and also here http://www.diggers.org/homefree/hfh_int.html.

Here is a brief selection from those sites:

“North of San Francisco, across the mythic Golden Gate inlet, lay the rolling hills of Marin and Sonoma counties, golden in summer, verdant in winter. For many of the Haight’s denizens, suffering burnout, ennui or police heat, the siren call of the North drew their embattled souls to the land of the red-tailed hawk and live oak shrub. Morningstar was the first refuge with an open land policy. Founded by Lou Gottlieb, a former member of the folk-singing trio Limeliters, Morningstar was known as the “digger farm” in the Haight, supplying apples and other organic fruits and vegetables to the Free Food programs.”

“During the late ‘sixties, two open-door communal ranches existed in Sonoma County, California. Nothing quite like them had ever existed before, and people came from all over the country to live there. Together they rediscovered a tribal, neo-primitive way of life which consumed less energy and offered more freedom than our regulated, consumption-oriented Great Society could give. It was a magical five years until the Sonoma County authorities discovered they could use the health and buildings codes in a punitive manner to bulldoze the houses, expel the inhabitants and close down both communities. Their names were Morning Star and Wheeler’s Ranches.”

After Lou Gottlieb died the land went to his three children as I understand it and I think they want to sell it, though I think reaching consensus with them is not easy…maybe there is one of the kids that wants to retain the spirit of the once free land. In any case, my friend Yeti is living there as the caretaker and the place needs a lot of care, there is no electricity anymore nor water, and Yeti says it needs probably $25,000 worth of infrastructure repairs. In the meantime the asking price is apparently really high and who know if anyone is really putting in the effort to preserve the land for non-profit purpose. Anyone with lots of money want to rescue the place?

I am constantly reminded of this issue of private property and how in my opinion it really sucks. But fortunately there are beautiful people like Yeti who demonstrate an example of how we can treat land in a none possessive way.

Getting back to the weather, it has been ideal for workdays at the Free Farm and the Free Farm Stand. Check out this week’s blog entry http://thefreefarm.org/ for lots of sunny farm photos and men with bare chests in the beginning of January. We had quite a crowd too at the Free Farm Stand, though not much produce to share. We actually had a good amount of produce from the Free Farm because we hadn’t harvested in a couple of weeks, including a lot of sald mix. We harvested more Yacón root  which  is always exciting and Robert bought 12 pounds more of Sunchokes that he harvested from the garden he runs in Berkeley. I think of the plants as sisters. I also brought some lettuce and calendula flowers seedlings and most of them were taken.

so sunny our volunteers got creative with head gear

I guess there is some hardwiring in me that just loves giving away food and I keep repeating the mantra that the Free Farm Stand is more than just giving away local organic produce. It is hard for me when neighbors come to the Stand hoping to get some good produce and we have so little. I was handing out the tickets and reminding people that this is a seasonal project.  I collected two interesting online articles during the break that reflect some of the things I have been thinking about when it comes to addressing hunger in our neighborhood during the winter season when there is less growing. The first “Organic Agriculture May Be Outgrowing Its Ideals” from the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/science/earth/questions-about-organic-produce-and-sustainability.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss . It reminded me the importance of not only growing own produce, especially here in San Francisco, where we can grow greens in the winter, but saving some of the surplus summer produce like tomatoes and drying or canning them. I feel pretty good that at the height of the summer at our Free Farm Stand, I saved a lot of soft tomatoes that “shoppers” passed up on and I made lots of tomato sauce for the winter. I also think our gardens can be growing more winter squash that can be saved and eaten during the winter, so we don’t have to be getting food from Mexican deserts.

The other article from the Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2072383/Eccentric-town-Todmorden-growing-ALL-veg.html, the title saying it all  “Carrots in the car park. Radishes on the roundabout. The deliciously eccentric story of the town growing ALL its own veg”.  A shorter version of this story is in Natural News http://www.naturalnews.com/034412_home_gardening_vegetables_civic_buildings.html and I like their title too: “ British town grows all of its own vegetables, witnesses improved civic life and reduced crime as a result “.

I am ready to move in this direction, how about one neighborhood growing all it’s own vegetables, are we ready for that? Or growing all our own fruit?  Coming up is the fruit grower’s event of the year and the Free Farm Stand will be there  (anyone want to come along with me?):

2012 Year of the Heirloom Fruit’Golden Gate Chapter Scion Exchange

WHEN:  Saturday, January 21, 2012
 12 noon to 3:00 PM  WHERE: Laney College Student Center Bldg,  900 Fallon Street
, Oakland (1 block from Lake Merritt BART station)

EXCHANGE DETAILS:

Find the best varieties for growing your own fruit; discover local favorites and near-forgotten heirlooms

• Hundreds of varieties of budwood for grafting: apple, pear, quince, plum, peach, nectarine, apricot, cherry, and more

• Cuttings to root: grape, fig, pomegranate, kiwi fruit, mulberry, and more

• Rootstocks and grafting supplies 
 • Grafting class and demo at 12:15 and 1:00

• Custom and assisted grafting of your selected variety onto a rootstock 
 • Plant drawing; silent auction

• Questions answered, secrets revealed, beginners welcome

• Bring your list of desired varieties, plastic bags, a pen, and tape to label the scions you take home

• $4 donation suggested (no one refused for lack of funds)

for more information see the Golden Gate CRFG Scion Exchange webpage, here:

http://www.crfg.org/chapters/golden_gate/scionex.htm

including a list of all the Northern California CRFG Scion Exchanges,

Making the Best of the Scion Exchange – What to Bring, How to Choose Varieties, What to do with the Scions, and more.

Here are a few videos that will get you ready for the exchange:

http://cornucopiafoodforest.wordpress.com/videos/

Because I am feeling so grateful these days for all the wonderful volunteer help and all the people that contribute to make the Free Farm Stand and Fee Farm a success, and to celebrate our 5^th year of running the stand and entering our 3^rd year of the Free Farm, we will be having a dinner party on Saturday January 28^th at St. Mark’s Church on O’Farrell St near the Free Farm.  Soon I hope to have more information and a flier, but I wanted to get the word out. We have at least one band lined up and are looking for more and for others that may want to help out in some way. Please contact me if you plan to come so we know how many to cook for and also if you wish to help. I think there will also be an interfaith ceremony at the Free Farm before the party and dinner and  if you want to help participate  let me know too. And I have some bands and musicians lining up to play.