Glad Hands and Hearts

It’s nice to be reminded that many of the holidays we celebrate, like Passover or Easter, had some original connection to ancient peoples who were more in touch with their land and soil then we are now. A holiday for every season. Now we are entering the spring season (yesterday someone pointed out to me in the garden two lady beetles humping each other). Besides that kind of love fever in the air, it’s a time we should be planting. 50 days of gladness as our hands reach into hopefully loamy soft earth.

Yesterday I think a new record was set for the Free Farm Stand.  I filled up the van with more seedlings and plants than I had produce and bread. I thought I had brought more tomato starts than I could give away (and there were more I had left in the greenhouse at the farm), but in the end all starts of tomato and zucchini were given away, and most of the plants were gone (except for the Yacón root plants).

Besides the farmer’s markets not having as much left-over produce right now, it is really challenging to bring a lot of locally grown produce to our farm stand each week.  One contributing factor to our lack of produce is that now we are running two Free Farm Stands, one on Sundays and one at the Free Farm on Saturdays. This Saturday for example we had 23 people shopping at the stand at the farm. Plus we had 23 volunteers, some of whom took home produce too. I feel like running two big projects is not sustainable, but a not sure what to do about it, except be open to inspiration and fresh ideas. The other challenge we are having is growing a lot of food, despite the fact that we have a lot of space and that there are other potential gardens that could be growing more food to distribute to people in need. Farming and trying to grow a sizable amount of food on a regular basis is hard and it probably takes more than the two days a week we are doing it and with the few experienced farmers/gardeners we have to direct the many volunteers that want to help out.

So I am thinking about these things and trying to figure out if we should change any of our projects at all.  Two stands or one or a move-able Free Farm Stand?  How to get more help to run the show? Feedback is always welcome.

In the meantime one project that I have been working on for a number of years is moving ahead towards the finish line. On Mother’s Day Sunday May 8^th from 11pm-4pm we will be having a fruit tree planting the same time as the Free Farm Stand. If you know any musicians who would like to come play some music please invite them. We will also be having some vegan finger food.

Here is some photos of Mike climbing the flag pole at the farm and hanging an Earth Flag over the Free Farm. A reminder that we are all citizens of the Earth and we must take care of our planet (and the people living on it).

Here some photos of the seedlings and plants we had at the Stand…we still have more if you come to the Free Farm on one of our workdays.