Plant Good Grow Good

Sunday we all caught some beautiful warm rays of the winter sun as they fell on our tables quite full with mostly vegetables and a small amount of fruit.  For me the highligh this week on the hecka local table were the avocados from trees a block away and 5 pounds of kiwis from a man I work with at Martin de Porres soup kitchen who comes to help once a month. I also loved having the bag full of Meyer lemons (23 pounds) that a neighbor dropped off. Also, some neighbor angel dropped off a jar of the most delicious local Meyer lemon jam. I get such a kick out of our bread table these days.  Every week there is something tasty to put on samples of bread.  And often, like this week, the bread table had some new items on it, like the lentils and rice, pasta, and tortillas that a food pantry had extra of and gave to me.   The line was part way down the sidewalk and we ran out of produce in about 45 minutes for the first round.

Someone came by the stand and asked about getting seedlings and I told him we are working on growing them. Our greenhouse has I think 45 flats now of different things, many of which will go to planting at the farm, and as the greenhouse gets closer to being finished we will start planting more seeds.

One piece of great news is that negotiations I think are finally over for the project I have been working on for over two years to expand the community garden in the park where the stand is and to plant more fruit trees. A notice is coming out soon to all the people that attended the meeting in October about the project and the next step will be to go to the Recreation and Park Commission in March. In April we should be putting up the fence, moving the compost bin, and planting trees. The only possible hitch in the matter may be that the volunteer contractor needs to have 2 million dollars in insurance to volunteer his labor to the city. I know he has insurance, but I don’t know if he has that much.

Pancho turned me onto a man who said”Serve all, Love all, Feed all”.  I am keeping that as my mantra as spring approaches. I also remember a man in India I met who said, “Be good, do good”. Also, how about my jingle, “Plant Good Grow Good”?