Garden Hoes-annnas

I would like to sing songs of praise to our abundant earth and to the gardeners who work the land and grow food and flowers for our nourishment. I am really appreciating farmers these days after trying to be one myself. The Free Farm Stand felt especially abundant today with hecka local produce. Several friends and neighbors dropped off surplus produce from their gardens. One neighbor showed up with 8 pounds of beautiful rainbow chard from her garden. Friends Pam and Dave brought quite the assortment of garden bounty, including New Zealand spinach, beets, cutting celery, mint, lavender, and bay leaves. Christy had cilantro and chard for us to share.  There were some lemons left from Produce to the People (most went to the other Free Farm Stand). The Free Farm gave away most of its produce to the  farm stand there on Saturday (again I must highly recommend you visit the Free Farm blog, http://thefreefarm.org/, there are great photos of the last workday and a lot of information).  We did give away some yummy kale from the farm though. I am also proud to say that I gave away some of our first greenhouse starts (scarlet runner beans). They were very popular and disappeared as fast as the produce on the table.

beautiful rainbow chard from a neighbor

While singing songs of praise I should mention our great volunteer crew that showed up, including some friends who live in a collective in Scotts Valley who came up today to help.  They took off before the second wave of food showed up, to go help a beautiful project in the east bay that is in the process of being born.

Further thoughts on Monday:

I have a new friend Arlen who is passionate about being vegan and he often sends me articles and information concerning vegan issues. Though the Free Farm Stand doesn’t hit you over the head with a vegan message, I do feel like I am trying to support the idea of doing less harm by eating an animal free diet (though I have given away honey and not all our bread is vegan).  He just sent me information about an event this Saturday March 19th (during our work day at the Free Farm) that sounds like it is worth going to if you are not farming and enjoying our vegan lunch for Free Farm volunteers.  It is a vegan Feed-In at the March and Rally to stop the Wars. It starts at the UN Plaza at noon.

We really should speak out against war, all wars. Violence doesn’t work as a way to build a more peaceful world.

I am slowing getting drawn into a new project. There are two sidewalks, one on Shotwell St. and the other on 23rd St. in front of the beautiful Kali Garden. The sidewalks have been tagged for needing repair and there has been some talk of covering up some of the sidewalk  garden that is there because it is so much work to maintain it. I am thinking of helping them improve the sidewalk garden there and then possibly helping them maintain it on a regular basis. What the sidewalk gardens need most is a low fence around them and I am looking for a volunteer welder to help us create something beautiful. Then I want to plant an artichoke/cardoon orchard as an experimental planting.  Please contact me if you can weld or know someone.

2 thoughts on “Garden Hoes-annnas”

  1. Hi, I just wanted to say hello, and that I had great time helping out on Sunday. (I came up with the Scott’s Valley crew). That’s me holding the chard :)! Anyways I can weld and would love to help if I can, I live in Santa Cruz so obviously I wouldn’t be the most convenient choice, but if no one local steps forward, I will. Amy can get a hold of me.

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