Author: Tree

At today’s Free Farm Stand I got to display our official permit to operate from the Health Department. I never thought I would have to have a permit to give away produce and bread, but I am glad that we can continue for now.

I am continually grateful for the opportunity to live a life dedicated to service and for all the amazing volunteers that show up each week. Today an older man I know from the neighborhood who pushes a shopping cart around came by to get some produce and bread.  I actually don’t know what he took and if he has a place to cook, but  I love that we can be helpful to people in his situation who probably live in our neighborhood on the street.

I was pretty proud of our pea harvest this week. Over ten pounds of beautiful snap peas that were planted in October.  They are not as slug/snail proof as fava beans, but it surprised me that we got such a great crop despite losing a lot after we planted them. We also had the last of our our hot peppers also grown on our Free Farm.

lots of sweet kale from the farm too

I have no photo of the pretty chard brought from Pam’s garden

healthy greens means healthy kids

I love our volunteers

Here is the latest news about our Free Farm. St. Paulus Church who owns the land the farm is on has been so gracious in letting us use their land temporarily since 2010. They just signed the agreement with Maracor Development to go ahead with the plan of selling the land to them and having it developed for market rate housing and a new church building for St. Paulus. We now know we have 24-36 months until “entitlement” or when the city gives final approval for the building project. This will include an environmental impact report, community meetings with the neighbors, coming up with a design, and dealing with all legal and building issues. Once entitlement is reached the church signs the property over to the developer. If it takes longer for the project to be ok’d by the city the developer has 3 four month periods to extend the entitlement period, but the developer will have to pay a price if it is extended. Apparently Maracorp wanted in the agreement that we would be out 6 months before entitlement happens. St. Paulus had problems with that since  no one knows when entitlement will be exactly. I think it is in the signed agreement despite St. Paulus not liking it.

What that means for us is that we are now going to be more actively looking for a spot to relocate. Time goes by fast.  We are open to looking at all options that give us a permanent spot to move to. I myself would like to be in the Mission and have the Free Farm Stand be located on the farm (rather than having two Free Farm Stands as it is now). I also would love to find a place big enough to move our 20′ x 30′ greenhouse and have some room left over for a demonstration garden (I would love to have enough space for a big farm like we have now but that may be a lot to manifest). Anyone that wants to be on a committee to help us find a new home would be welcome. This could be an exciting new change and challenge.

There really isn’t much to report about the Free Farm Stand, it keeps rolling along. I loved the arugala, ruby streaks mustard, and other baby greens mix that can from the Free Farm hothouse, it was fresh and tasty. We amazingly harvested 15.5 pounds. This mix grows like a lawn and you can cut it and then in a few weeks cut it again, it is very productive, especially in our unheated hoop house where it grows in the ground and loves the warmth. See the greens in the basket below and also some red rocoto peppers a neighbor grew. Also, Bernadette is holding up some very handsome red mustard greens also from the farm.                                                                  Some type of  Brassica on the left and the Portuguese cabbage on the right

Kim from the Secret Garden came by with more greens

our fabulous volunteer crew

our newest helper…I forget names…Leah?

There is good news perhaps on the horizon about us giving out samples of homemade jams and vegan spreads, a cottage food bill was introduced in the California legislature last month: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/california-cottage-food-bill_n_1324829.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=1838604,b=facebook. This article is all about making it easier for people to sell their less dangerous homemade food like jams or pickles, but it should apply to groups like our who also make homemade jam and can’t even give it away.

I mentioned in an earlier blog (A Lemon in Every Pot) an article I read in the chronicle about a new campaign to make San Francisco lemon-self sufficient. After sending out announcements about the meeting yesterday to help design a new park (and I mentioned the idea of a food forest), Isabel Wade wrote me about the project she is working on called JustOneTree (http://justonetree.org/). It is a really an exciting place to visit and I like the their statement on their homepage that their project is to “encourage San Franciscans to plant one fruit tree to demonstrate that even in the densest city in the United States we can move toward greater local food self-sufficiency.” Their first goal is for San Francisco to become lemon self-sufficient. From reading the San Francisco Foodshed Assessment of 2008 (http://www.sagecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/san-francisco-foodshed-assessment.pdf) they figured out that we need 461 tons of lemons a year for everyone in the city to have lemons and not need to buy them. They also figure one tree can make 200 lemons so we need 12,000 lemon trees in San Francisco. One can go to their site and register their lemon trees so there is a map of lemon trees in the city. This project I must admit is as crazy as our Free Farm Stand project and goal of creating a network of neighbors growing their own food and sharing it, but they are beautiful ideas and should be supported.

Another crazy idea that I was trying to support is planting an edible park or food forest in the Mission. Yesterday I attended a meeting hosted by DPW architects, Recreation and Park, and PODER at Marshall Elementary. There was also a woman from the Art Commission because every new park gets 2% of the construction costs going to art). There are so many cool urban agriculture projects happening in the country these days and I have been hoping that we can get something happening here that is outside the box. Unfortunately it seems I quickly learned that the current design is basically set in stone, based on the comments from previous public meetings. The drawing below is pretty much the way the park will be with some design tweaking allowed.

There will not be a food forest in the new park, it will have three areas: a community garden, a gathering area, and an exercise area.  I pushed for all the landscaping to be edible and habitat for beneficial pollinators. Fortunately there were others in support of that idea, but I also learned that some people thought the lawn was too small while some of us were saying the lawn was too big (and that it shouldn’t be a lawn anyway but maybe a meadow). The discussion about the community garden was interesting. In the group I was in we all pushed for the idea of not having individual plots, but having a model like Alemany Farm (also on Recreation and Park land) where people garden or farm together and give away their produce. There was talk about forming a garden group that would run the garden made up of different groups in the Mission of something like that. Marvin Yee from the department said that Alemany Farm was an anomaly and I think Recreation and Park is still trying to figure out how to deal with that project and how to explain it. Our group was also advocating for not having boxes but letting the gardeners decide the bed location and plant directly in the ground (they are planning on removing the top two feet of soil and putting in new dirt on top for removing any potential toxins). I do not know how this will be decided and what the other groups comments were on the community garden.

Since the land sits on a creek and low spot at earlier meeting there was talk about having a water feature in the park, something interactive that kids could do like pump water to irrigate the park. Though there are restrictions on using the water to irrigate the community garden. So there were talks about that part of the design and what that would look like.

I was skeptical of need for playground equipment, but there are neighbors that wanted it for older kids and adults. So they had equipment there that people could try out and it was kind of like outdoor gym equipment to exercise on. I like the idea of people getting more exercise and think this kind of equipment was pretty nice. I also suggested that in the gathering area have the concrete stage be replaced with a large wooden deck or platform to do yoga on. I also thought there was a need for a tranquil area where people could sit quietly and be surrounded by nature.

If you have any design ideas to improve this design you can email Andrea Alfonso (andrea.alfonso@sfdpw.org) or John Dennis (john.dennis@sfdpw.org).

Everything is about connections. Perhaps this sounds like something from the Godfather movie, but I love knowing how the plants have their connections with the soil and to the life growing underneath our feet. That we are connected to the soil too and how we can get high from our backyard  compost pile (http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/how-to-get-high-on-soil/251935/). That trees talk or communicate with each other in a forest.  That we are even connected to the stars and that we all share billions of years of history with each other… yes we go way back as friends.  We are all connected to the divine and we walk on Holy Ground.

So when two neighbors walked into the park  yesterday with a basket of oranges to share at our Free Farm Stand, I had to run over and take their picture, because  they capture so much what I am thinking about here.

I only took 3 photos yesterday, but they capture the connections I am describing. This is what the Free Farm Stand and Free Farm are all about. A neighbor and his wife have a huge orange tree in their backyard and want to share some of the harvest with their neighbors who could use some free produce. They come by the Free Farm Stand with their bounty.  Those neighbors turn out to be friends with Clara and Jay and their lovely children. I used to work with Clara at the Secret Garden before she and Jason moved to Oakland. They showed up at the Free Farm Stand yesterday too and  hung out with their friends that brought the oranges. It was a warm sunny day, a day for making connections. There was even a small picnic on the lawn and another friend was sharing some of their homemade hummus with other neighbors.   I brought some sweet potatoes that we grew in the hot house at the Free Farm to share and also I brought a flier about a new project I am excited about in the neighborhood (see below). So it was a full day of sharing and making new connections and strengthening bonds of friendship.

one of the girl twins who is so adorable her sister is behind her

sweet potatoes from our farm

Last week I got this email about the progress of the new park down the street from me:

Dear Community Members,
Since January 2010, the City has been working with the community to develop
a park on a portion of the parking lot at the corner of 17th and Folsom
streets. Concept designs were developed with the community and submitted
for a State grant in 2010.
We’re excited to announce that we have received this grant and have funded
the development of this site! We will be hosting an upcoming community
meeting on March 11th 2012 to update you on the status of the project. At
this meeting, staff wants to finalize the concept design and begin work on
the details of the design.
Stop by to get an update on the process, help us further design the park
and test out some of the exercise equipment!
When:
SUNDAY, MARCH 11th 2012
3:00PM to 5:00PM

Where:
Marshall Elementary School
1575 – 15th Street (cross street Mission St.)
For more info, contact:
Mary Hobson
San Francisco Recreation and Park Department
(415) 581-2575
mary.hobson@sfgov.org
Please subscribe to our email mailing list
to continue receiving project updates
on the 17th and Folsom Street Proposed Park!

I posted this notice at the Free Farm Stand (I was thinking we need a bulletin board that we can put up every week that has local news on it or other things) and added a note from myself:

Hi friends and Neighbors,

Does anyone want to see something different than just another regular park at 17th and Folsom? This is our chance to express it.   I am hoping to find people like myself that are dreaming of something that is new in San Francisco for a park, a park dedicated to agriculture and food justice, rather than a park with mostly lawn and play equipment and a few token  individual garden beds (a community garden with a long waiting list) or a  few fruit trees.  Would you like to see a park/ farm that grows food like we give away here for people in need? A park that teaches our children where their food comes from and have a small farm in their neighborhood where they could be farmers and serve their community?   Please share this with anyone who may be interested in these kinds of ideas and would express them at the meeting. Thanks Tree

Here is a proposal I wrote about this idea:

RECREATION AND AGRICULTURAL PARK FARM

The idea of the Recreation and Agricultural Park Farm would be to  showcase an edible, community landscape in urban park intended to achieve the following goal for the Mission Neighborhood:

• ·Food Justice: To provide healthy food to people who otherwise cannot afford it.
• ·Education Outreach: Working with the land, neighbors both children and people of all ages can enjoy the sense of security one earns while growing food that will sustain communities. Educational activities in the Park Farm will be centered around urban agriculture. General areas of learning will focus on the environment (including info on where our water comes from and the importance of conserving it, learning about waste and reuse and recycling), food and where it comes from, the connection between diet and health), soil and why dirt matters, gardening and how to grow food, including how to grow both fruit and vegetables, the animal world including learning about pollinators and creating habitats.
• ·Tranquil Space: Green spaces filter out the chaos of urban environments, providing much needed serenity for people and animals
• ·Sustainability Lifeboat: A repository of perennial vegetables that are rare and otherwise difficult for San Franciscan’s to get that grow well in the Mission (to be freely distributed to Mission Neighbors)
• ·Building Community: An ecological resource to be proud of. A green space for needing souls to linger. Returning surplus to those who need it most.

Some of the features of the park could be interactive recreational activites relating to agriculture: teeter-totter pumps for children to pump water for the farm, solar panel energy stations like at Hayes Valley Farm, observational beehive, beds to plant and grow food in, chicken and duck care, vertical farms, and container gardens to demonstrate ways of maximizing urban space for food production,  plant propagation in a greenhouse, composting and worm stations, swings and bicycles that generate electricity, meeting space and kitchen to offer classes and workshops for urban agricultural programs, including healthy cooking and food preservation, habitat for pollinators and birds and other animals (there could be special habitat for attracting, bee, and butterflies, one for humming birds, a pond for tree frogs, etc.), a small nature preserve, a small orchard and edible landscaping area, a free farm stand for run by neighbors to distribute produce and flowers grown on site for low income neighbors.

The Recreation and Park Farm would be run by a non-profit or a collaboration of non-profits and all workshops and events would be free or at least by sliding scale and no one turned away for lack of funds to make the farm as accessible as possible to all neighbors, especially those with low incomes.The long term benefits of a Recreation and Park Farm:

Increased food security

Beautification

Community Participation and Connection

Decrease in violence and fear in our neighborhood by engaging adults and kids of all ages in service learning activities that benefit the whole community

This may all be a crazy dream I have, but I thought I should put it out there to see if there are any people, especially neighbors around the potential park and parents with you kids that would be interested in making this happen. I also know how things work in the city. I helped work on the creation of Parque Ninos Unidos and we got a pretty nice playground for children, but there are few trees to shade park goers on hot days and there isn’t a tranquil spot in the park (the garden there isn’t even very inviting as a spot to sit in and enjoy the space or to hold a gathering in). I guess it is what the community came up with at the meetings. What is ironic too, is that the community wanted a clubhouse and now we have one which was quite expensive to build, but I just got word it is closing because of lack of funds to staff it. A group that is renting the space will continue to use it, but in my opinion what is happening with the cluhouse is the privatization of our public spaces. I am not sure what the solutions are, but I know they are structural.