Author: Tree

The Free Farm Stand was open on Easter Sunday and it was a small crowd and we actually didn’t have the usual tons of produce.  There isn’t a lot to report.

Thanks to our fabulous volunteer crew I am spending more time gardening when I come to the park on Sunday. I brought a lot of vegetable starts to give out and also some plants to put in our newly mulched mini-orchard next to the community garden. Gardening always bring me happiness, especially when I get my hands in the soil. I know people love “shopping” at our farm stand and get joy out of the experience, but I wonder if they would like me have a religious experience growing, harvesting, and eating some of their own produce?  It is such a miracle to plant a seed and have it grow. I was thinking of a line in one of my favorite songs they sang at church for Easter,  Were you There. My lyrics would be “Were you there when the seed was planted?””Were you there when it rose up from the ground? Were you there when it was harvested? Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.” Were you there when the seed was planted?”

I have been overwhelmed with the activities at the Free Farm this spring (check out this weeks blog http://thefreefarm.org/). We have been more than successful in getting our seedling production going and I am realizing it is a job in itself to distribute free vegetable starts. Please spread the word that we have plenty of trombone summer squash and Tahitian melon squash available and also we will have some tomato seedlings, cucumbers, and probably kale too. They are available free for anyone not going to sell their produce and hopefully will share their surplus with someone in need. I am also looking for long lengths of 3/4″ electrical conduit or 3/4″ pipe to make trellises to grow our climbing squashes like the ones mentioned above.  Also, please join us in preparing beds and planting our seedlings and planting seeds in the greenhouse.

Here is a picture from the end of the day when we had put away the tables thinking there wasn’t going to be a second drop off of produce from the Stonestown Mall Farmer’s Market.  To our surprise a second load did come in and we were so happy to offer vegetables to those who missed out  from our earlier offering.

Give us our this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses. This was a banner hanging on the  building on Turk St, behind the Free Farm. The building  owned by the Catholic Church that has been an eyesore in the neighborhood for years was appropriately Occupied on Sunday by the  SF Commune with the idea of creating a  community center and also a place that shelters the homeless (ironic that the archdiocese has ignored the homeless  people camped on the sidewalk next to this building for years). By Monday afternoon the police  with the request of the Church cleared everyone out and I read arrested 75 people. The police in their enthusiasm to get rid of the “trespassers” cut the chain and lock of the Free Farm and invaded our sanctuary and place of peace.

This doesn’t directly have much to do with the Free Farm Stand, but I am super inspired by the “Commune” and their ideals and actions. They are the true and beautiful Take Over Artists even if only for 24 hours!  I have looked at those vacant buildings for the last two years while working at the Free Farm and have myself dreamt of them being a house of hospitality  Catholic Worker style or an urban kibbutz so that free farmers could live next to the farm, take in stranger for dinner, house a homeless family, and give meaningful work to people, growing food to feed those in need.  These folks took the courageous step of Occupying so called private property and made a bold statement saying vacant buildings, especially those owned by a church, should be put to use for the common good.  We  at the Free Farm have been lucky so far to have a church that supports our goals of feeding the hungry and letting us use their vacant land temporarily to do that.

I am not sure what it will take to get our neighbors who own that property to get real and see the crisis we are in, to hear the message the artists are putting out their. In the meantime, any constructive program we can undertake these days to make the better world we want is going in the right direction.

The green abundance is upon us and I had the almost more bread and produce than I could fit in the van on Sunday. One highlight for me was the 81lbs of oranges that my friend Bilkis gleaned with her mother from a neighbor in Marin. The fruit tree is a symbol of hope in that it can provide so much for us to feed on. I also brought a lot of seedlings to give away (and I still have a lot left over).

misc. greens from our farm

impromptu music jam…I loved it!