Be Praised!

Since the Free Farm closed last year, I have once again centered my activities in the Mission where I live. Last week I met an inspiring farmer named Ron Ferrel from Oklahoma who writes an online blog for Mother Earth News (here is his latest one).  We quickly saw how many of our ideas meshed. One of his lines was “don’t invest in Wall Street, invest in your street. “ We both are interested in inspiring our neighbors to grow food in their backyards.

The 23rd street Garden is a project that will help us with our goal of encouraging more food growing in our neighborhood. This week we began using the wood we rescued from the Growing Home Garden to build raised beds that we will grow vegetables in.

We could really use help not only building more beds, but we have a lot of carpentry work to do fixing garden benches, fixing the new compost bin, and setting up our hoop house that we saved from the Free Farm.  We also need help with plumbing and installing drip irrigation.  In general there is a lot of work to do to make the 23rd Street Garden a good resource for our neighbors. Please drop by during our Saturday or Tuesday work days or contact me by email.

I want to share a video that Pancho sent me that picked my spirit up. There is so much sad news these days and this is the message we all need to hear to get us up on our feet so we can walk the talk. I want to share a video that Pancho sent me that picked my spirit up. There is so much sad news these days and this is the message we all need to hear to get us up on our feet so we can walk the talk. What is said in this video reflects our thoughts and feelings too. Canticle Farm is truly our sister project in spirit.

This week at the Free Farm Stand I was so happy that we had a great selection of produce.   Pax and I helped harvest 250 pounds of fresh vegetables and fruit. It is a lot of work, but we so appreciate the free produce to give away. We also could really use help harvesting at Alemany Farm right now when there is so much summer bounty. We are there around noon on Fridays . We only had the energy to pick some of the cherry tomatoes that were there last week for example.  On August 9th I won’t be available to go there myself to harvest, so on that day especially we could use help.

Here are some photos of the beautiful vegetables that we had:

P1010001 Michael grew these in his Potrero garden from Rocoto pepper seeds

from the Treat Commons Community Garden pepper plant. Also Janet brought more from her garden

P1010012she also brought pineapple sage leaves that make a mild herbal tea

P1010007

P1010003cucumbers from Alemany Farm

P1010004I brought samples of the white sapote fruit that  I grew in my backyard for people to taste

P1010015I also brought lemons from our backyard
P1010009plums Kerry brought from a neighbor in San Jose

2014-07-27 12.47.35a neighbor brought nopales from his garden to share

2014-07-27 12.48.24

I don’t have a photo of the new Vegan Information booth at the Free Farm Stand that Pax set up, but it is a welcome addition to the Stand that is much needed. If you have any questions about how to go vegan ask Pax. If we are moving away from the non-sustainable culture and economic system that is so prevalent today, then we need to move away from eating habits that contribute to the violence against animals.  Like St. Francis sang “Be praised, my Lord, through all Your creatures”.

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