Hecka Local makes History

Yesterday is what I call a historic day at the Free Farm Stand. It is something I don’t think I ever imagined would happen. I had more produce that was grown hecka locally than the produce I usually get leftover from the high end farmer’s markets. By the way if I were ever to go commercial like my friends at Little City Gardens, maybe I would call our produce company Hecka Local or as someone suggested Hecka Loco.

Yes I felt like I had achieved the status as a real farmer or more like a farm manager, as the food grown and harvested was really a group effort. I had over ten boxes of produce we had grown, a total of 119 1/4lbs of produce: 57lbs of greens, lettuce, and kohlrabi from the Free Farm and 32 lbs. of produce from 18^th and Rhode Island (chard and fava beans). 16lbs of favas from Treat Commons Community Garden ( those were grown in a space about 4” x 6’ approximately). It just so happened that I didn’t get much left over from the Farmer’s Markets, so the hecka local table saved the day. Though in reality we are getting people lined up down the sidewalk and we ran out of produce quickly. I mean 13 pounds of Red Bok Choy was about 14 heads and 7 pounds of lettuce is really only about 15 heads of lettuce.

We also had a great plant give away table with lots of seedlings. Antonio led another free garden workshop that unfortunately I was too busy to attend. I think he is going to keep leading these workshops all summer at the stand which makes me happy, because he is a great teacher and I want the Free Farm Stand to have an educational component as well as helping poor folks to get fresh organic produce.

It was a Heck Local weekend in general. The Free Farm and the stand is getting so much press recently. The latest thing was we were mentioned of both the Free Farm and Farm Stand on KQED TV. Here is the link: http://www.kqed.org/tv/programs/thisweek/. Stephanie, who has helped at both the stand and the farm, did a good job explaining what both projects are about (you can slide the slider forward if you want to skip most of the TV show).  At the bottom of the page you can click on the link about Food Runners and Urban Gardens to read more.

I hope this publicity inspires others to make some news themselves. Pancho sent me a beautiful blog from a friend of his: http://dosomethingbeautifulthebook.wordpress.com/. I love the name of this blog, “Do Something Beautiful”.  I read about the author’s visit to Neem Karoli Baba’s ashram in Kainchi, India where the teacher’s only teaching was: Love All. Serve All. Feed All.  I second that and would like to adopt it as our message to the world too.

I thought about calling the blog this week Everyone’s Doing It! I went to the Arbor Day celebration at the Growing Home Garden (Project Homeless Connect Garden) on Friday and it was quite the scene. A truck load of trees being given away, some being planted by a lot of teens, and free strawberries and Dryer frozen fruit bars. There was a lot of excitement in the air and that is when it struck me that the whole town has gotten a sort of mass hysteria right now about gardening and growing things like trees and gardens. I think this is great and maybe this “farming in the city revolution” will have some lasting effect on making cities more green and sustainable.

I just uploaded Antonio’s  cartoon about Seed Saving that I like a lot…check it out on the sidebar under cartoons.

Also, the Free Farm is zooming forward. With the weather warming up we may need more help to water things…we do have some drip set up, but we have a lot of seedlings that need a lot of water  and other  areas that need special attention. This Wednesday I think a bunch of kids are coming to help out and there is so much to do.