Avocado Dreaming

I realized last week that I have published 292 “posts” on this web site and  at the original at web site freefarmstand.blogspot.com.  I wonder how many words that is.   I am seriously thinking of cutting back on publishing these weekly ramblings and coming out less often.  There is really only so much to say and I don’t want to repeat myself talking every week about what we grew and what we distributed (or even how grateful I feel all the time).

Pam brought a lot of Yacón root and some beautiful Ruby Streaks mustard. At the Free Farm we harvested 7 pounds of lettuce mix from our hot house and two trays of sunflower greens that I grew in our greenhouse. It is interesting how so many people are not familiar with these odd vegetables, and I guess we get new people all the time who haven’t tasted Yacón  or sunflower greens which I have brought to the Stand a number of times before.

cutting the sunflower sprouts

Tom Thumb lettuce

Calendula seedlings

Hecka Local Salad mix and one cabbage, one bok choy

our beautiful “red” cabbage

Yacón roots

I just ordered a boatload of seeds and soon we will be focusing more on planting in our greenhouse on workdays at the Free Farm (Wednesdays and Saturdays).  Our goal is to not only distribute produce for free to low income folks, but to encourage more food growing in the city. So that is why we aim to produce a lot of seedlings to give away not only at the stand, but to other gardens, especially those who share their surplus with people in need. Anyone wanting to learn about growing seedlings in a greenhouse this is an opportunity to learn for free. Also, we can use more six packs to start seeds in.

A friend sent me this inspiring video of a project in San Jose I believe that is very inspiring and is something that I have wanted the Free Farm Stand to undertake since the beginning…helping neighbors start gardens in their backyards, not as a business, but as a free service. Here is the video of the La Mesa Verde – Sacred Heart Community Service home garden project:

Growing the seedlings for this kind of project of course is a first step. I also put a link in a previous blog to an article in the Chronicle about making San Francisco lemon self-sufficient. I suggested a neighborhood like the Mission becoming avocado self-sufficient. If we can learn how to propagate avocado trees we can give them away to neighbors to plant and it also would fit well with a program like La Mesa Verde project.