Tinkering with Tik­kun Olam

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.

 

 

Splash

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.

A Lemon in Every Pot

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