Our Lovely Free Farm

The land upon which we created our Free Farm has been sold for development.  We knew it was coming but the shock and sadness takes a lot of readjustment.  At the new year, the neighborhood friends lining up at 1 p.m. every Saturday to receive freshly harvested organic vegetables will be a memory.  In 3 years over 10,000 pounds of healthy nutrition has been distributed and it has been given with a sense of joy by a group of people who believe that to nurture the earth and to invite neighborhood participation is a positive way to live and to preserve the earth’s assets.

The people who volunteer on Saturday and Wednesday to plant, harvest, water and distribute come from all walks of life and from all over the wide, wide earth.  Yet we all converge with amity and joy.  We have a very good time.  People do not quarrel and do not feel negative.  We actually like and approve of each other.  It’s hard to be unpleasant amidst all the growth.  Our garden gives off a fresh lovely smell right here in the middle of the city.  At noon we form a circle and share our names.  Volunteers who prepare lunch serve it and we eat and enjoy each other’s company.

The short time I’ve spent as greeter at the farm has enriched my life enormously.  Good will and the company of people who really wish to make a difference is contagious.  In the new year as we find our individual ways to new projects we will take with us lessons in contributing and fellowship.

Joyce Liberman

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Here are some photos from our last work day at the Free Farm. Here is a shot of some of the volunteers who came by, including 10 high school youth from Bayview Live, a summer school program.20130727_ff_3958 (Large)

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Joyce with one of the  potatoes we grew
Here are more photos, these taken at the Free Farm Stand on Sunday. We also get volunteers and guests and visitors from all over the planet.
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a neighbor dropped off that large zucchini
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visiting from  Boston to share their new baby Max with his grandparents
Lolita and John, both volunteers
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Poppy with the vegan pie she made with leftover soft fruit and Julie
Poppy also made some awesome
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Lolita with basil
Thanks to the San Francisco Bar  Association we have good new. We have a pro bono lawyer who is going to help us possibly get a piece of property for our next incarnation of the Free Farm.  There are many hoops to jump through so nothing is in the bag yet, we have no idea where this is going.
A friend asked me about starting a petition on Change.org and Causes.org and campaign “(which later allows the admin to call people to action or send a message to whoever has signed in support) for the Free Farm in some way.” “what it is that you want to see? What is your fantastical image of what could happen?  What is your more practical desire?  What is a possible action plan you want to take going forward if you had more people to do the work?  “
I haven’t contact him yet, but this is a good question that I feel needs to address a larger audience.   I do not in any way support the destruction of happy and healthy, thriving farms, especially those that are serving the poor like ours. I think we should stop all new development in the city right now, fix up the buildings that are vacant and start housing those who are  living on the street or some version of that as a top priority (220 homeless families in San Francisco is a sin). We also need to start developing more services for people with mental and spiritual issues, including drugs and addictions.  And the more open space and gardens and farms when people can go, the better for our mental health.
However, I think that energy is better spent creating the world we want now rather than creating petitions and campaigns. There is so much good work to do now that I would rather see my friend and others who want to protest, put their focus on helping me and others do the grunt work you might say. I know Alemany Farm can use regular help harvesting their surplus produce every week (a lot of  the local harvest we have been bringing to the Free Farm Stand every week has been from them, and mostly thanks to one individual who is doing all the harvesting by himself). And we are the seniors who should be getting help from the youthful revolutionaries! 18th and Rhode Island garden needs lots of help and also the Free Farm. There are trees with thousands of plums falling as I speak,  we need gleaners! I am really happy that it seems for now we are getting enough people like Poppy and others who are taking our surplus soft and mushy fruit and doing something good with most of it before it all becomes compost.
In short, I would rather see those who want to protest the loss of a beautiful farm, first become a farmer  or gleaner or food processor or regular volunteer, then it shows how  serious you are about changing the world for the better.

 

Tooting our Tromboncino

The Free Farm Stand keeps rolling along and when it is summer and the sun is out everything seems most beautiful. When I am living in a city undergoing big transformation and I feel upset with the constant attack on low income people and trees,  like a friend just wrote, “it is like a bad dream over and over again”, the Free Farm Stand saves me from getting depressed. I love the fresh produce we collect and I love the volunteers and all the people who come by to be part of the weekly production.  You know in advertising and marketing they use the word sexy a lot. Our stand though is what is really sexy, just looking at the photos this week. I mean what is more exciting and stimulating than a purple potato or a tromboncino (trombone squash)? Vegetable porn.

I have also included some  pictures from the Free Farm…I have been taking pictures of the trees to record them for our inventory lists which we are currently making.  People ask me what is happening with the Free Farm and finding a place to move. The only place we are investigating at the moment is a vacant piece of land owned by Union Pacific Railroad and after 7 weeks we are still trying to get a free real estate lawyer to help us. The pro bono attorney that we thought we had lined up, thanks to the SF Bar Association had to drop out because of conflict of interest. So they are trying again. We also got a visit to the Free Farm by Assemblyman Phil Ting last week and he offered to help us, so we have word out to his office to see if they can help. In the meantime, we are making an inventory of everything at the Free Farm and will soon be thinking of how to find good homes for everything, especially getting things to people doing similar work in helping out those in need.

 

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Trombone squash fashion model (also our wonderful ticket taker)

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You can grow these too!

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IMG_2939 IMG_2946 OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOur hero Alex harvested around 60 pounds of these plums from the Secret Garden.

There are hundreds of pounds of these still on the trees and they are perfect for picking!

Summer is here and we need gleaners…apples and pears coming up next, but now there are plums

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we like to teach people how to use the excess soft fruit we get

…smoothies made  by kid pedal power

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 beautiful volunteers and guests who drop by

20130713_trees_3944 (Small)our first avocados at the Free Farm…

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peaches at the Free Farm

Growing Gratefulness

It seems a while since I wrote an anything about what is going on at the Free Farm Stand these days.  Since I want to write something about the Free Farm too, which for right now is another blog at thefreefarm.org/, I am going to keep this short and tell  the story mostly through photos that I have been collecting and not publishing.

One thing I can’t help repeating  here is that I continually feel so grateful for all our volunteer crew. We have a very consistent group of helpers that mostly come every week to set up and break down the stand, schlep  produce and sort it,  and put in on on tables to make a beautiful display.  Plus everyone that volunteers and  the people who come to shop are really sweet and beautiful in their own special way.  It is these people that give me the energy to do my part in this food  theater production we put on every week and why at the end of the day though I may get tired, I feel high and happy. I know I am repeating myself here, but the message is important. One needs inspiration and good vibes these days as  the city becomes ( I think) a bit meaner and sad place. Just as I was leaving  the park today, I cried a bit when I found out that one of our great volunteers is getting evicted from her apartment where she has been for over thirty years.  This eviction trend may not end soon, but at least we can come together as friends and support each other. Sure the landlord wants to pay her off to move, but where can she go where she can pay about $600 a month in rent, which is what she can afford.

The other part of my gratefulness is for the true heroes and heroine gardeners who grow food in their back yard and bring some of it to the stand to share. Yesterday a  friend I know from church brought me three small bags of some lettuce mix  he has been growing. He told me “we are up to here in salads the last two weeks”. I find that totally inspiring and such a sweet and grand gesture to share a little of it with others. Another friend brings me a little something every week from her garden to share and she only would like seedlings if we have them  (she turns down produce). Today a woman I know only from recognizing her face brought me a small bag of lemons. She only spoke Spanish, but she communicated with her smile how excited she was to share something with us.

We are at the height of summer produce season and the amounts of  plenty we have been getting  has really picked up. Plenty of summer squash, plenty of stone fruit, plenty of farm fresh produce from Alemany Farm and the Free Farm.

IMG_2942Neighbor Janet  and her husband with some samples from their garden to share

IMG_2952Malabar gourd (Cucurbita ficifolia) or Chilacayote from 18th & Rhode Island garden.

I never thought this member of the melon family was that edible, but recently I discovered it is very popular with people who are from Latin America. It is used mainly as a dessert, boiled and then sugar and milk added. Last week a woman from Guatemala talked to Lolita and I about it and this week I handed it out and discovered that the Asian people that come to shop also like it a lot. I learn something new everyday.

IMG_2937boxes of stone fruit from Knowle Farm

IMG_2963Goldy zucchini in Treat Commons next to the stand

IMG_2938carrots from the Free Farm

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAzucchini galore.from last week…when I was handing out produce yesterday

I told everyone where each item was grown: plums from  a backyard tree in Novato in Marin, winter squash from Sebastopol,

zucchini from the Free Farm and Alemany Farm

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAon Pride Day we made smoothies with frozen soft  frozen fruit

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAthe dad had to petal because his son couldn’t reach the pedals…Mike  found a smaller bike that kids can ride and we will change it.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAthere was music too by some of my favorite friends

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAone of my new excitements is planting cardoons on the sidewalk

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This is a thumbs up to our comrades in Fruitvale (how appropriate a name) who continue to share surplus produce on Sundays in front of Casa de Paz at their Free Farm Stand. I visited them recently and they have one of the most beautiful backyard gardens around and they are slowly working on creating a farm on a vacant lot down the street. I love how we can pollinate each other!

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We need gleaners! Cristina brought us apricots from the Mission from a tree that needs picking and there are so many plums too at the secret garden.

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