Author: Tree

The berries are ripening on Bernal Hill and yesterday on a warm sunny Sunday the line was snaking down the sidewalk for the Free Farm Stand, another sign of summer here. I counted sixty people in line just when we opened at 1pm and at 2pm there was still a line, but less people in it. We were running low on produce by then and around 2:30pm another huge delivery of leftover produce arrived and the line grew large again. Leftover produce doesn’t really describe the unbelievable amount and quality of the produce that Maureen and her sisters collect at the end of the day at the Stonestown farmer’s market. This week she told me how they might need help collecting it all there is so much. At the end of the day we served at least 150 people and all but a box of bitter melons was left (anyone know of a delicious recipe for these things which are actually beautiful to look at?).

We have already distributed over half a ton of produce that was grown or gleaned hecka locally and this doesn’t include the hundreds of pounds of leftover produce we collect and distribute from the high end farmer’s markets. And now we have a farm which is a lot of fun and it is growing a lot of food for our project. I must admit I am feeling good about all this, but at the same time it is a lot of work and I wonder how sustainable it is, especially for me. Sometimes I am feeling like I am running on empty or running on low. It really takes a community to run a free project like this that is all volunteer run. That is why I am always so grateful for the great team of helpers we have, especially this summer. The dream is that some of us will eventually pool our incomes and resources and start living communally together. I think that is the best way to run service projects, modeled in part on Catholic Worker Communities or kibbutzes or just old fashion karma yoga communes or ashrams. I see the question of sustainability as a big one, especially in projects like gardens run by volunteers.  Right now the Permaculture project at  18^th and Rhode Island is a good example of a garden that could use a lot more attention, but it seems to lack a stable group of people keeping it going at its full potential.

We had a pretty good summer spread this week. It always seems to be the story that we often get in the hundreds of pounds from the farmer’s markets of the same thing we get in the handfuls from some of our gardens. This week it was peaches. One of the peach trees growing at 18^th and Rhode Island was loaded with peaches (this is the second year in the ground for the tree) and I picked some that were a little hard on Friday and by Sunday a few of them were already soft. It so happened that we had boxes and boxes of organic peaches and nectarines that we collected. While I am talking about fruit I must give a shout out that we need some people we can call last minute who can come and pick up left over fruit that is soft and that needs processing (cooking into compote or jam or juice or blended and made into frozen fruit Popsicle or sorbet). We also need canning jars and lids. This is no joke , some of us have maxed out the capacity of our freezers and refrigerators processing some of the leftover soft and mushy fruit from the stand, plus it is a bit of work. Though the work is worth the delicious reward and good fruit is not wasted.

I harvested the first trombone squash from Esperanza garden and a lot of runner beans from 18^th and Rhode Island and Treat Commons.  We also had a lot of zucchini from the Free Farm (and other gardens as well), plus the last of the collards for now, green beans, a handful of the most beautiful carrots, and more potatoes. We had boxes of cherry plums gleaned locally by Produce to the People and their two summer high school kids.  Griff brought by a grab bag of produce grown at Holy Innocents Church, including a most handsome cauliflower, Elizabeth brought peas and herbs from her garden,  Kevin brought some surplus garlic from a garden on Russian Hill (he said he got the original bulbs from our stand), and a neighbor brought a bag of lemons from Bernal Heights.

Our peaches

Susannah wearing bitter melon vine (I am actually not sure what this vegetable is)

The Free Farm is progressing and more and more of the infrastructure is getting finished. We can really use more manure and continue to look for a large truck that can pick up a load or two for us. The free compost we got from Recology I think is less desirable than the manure which seems to be more alive with microbial activity. We may have a slowdown in our next harvest while the new seedlings continue to grow.

I returned July 5^th from my week in Illinois and am glad to be back. One of the highlights of the trip (which was primarily to participate in my yearly pilgrimage to visit in-laws and attend a family reunion) was talking to a family member who is a small farmer from around there who grows corn and soybeans with his father. He and a couple of others told me about “walking  beans” as kids growing up on a farm. That is where you walk down between the rows of beans a mile long cutting down weeds, and it didn’t sound fun in the muggy heat of the day. I was told no one does it any more, probably because of the chemical warfare the farmers use these days. Ah the land of corn and soybeans! When I was talking to this farmer he also told me how far apart they plant their corn (field corn is planted every seed 4” apart), and if I ever get a chance to grow a big plot of corn (maybe next year), I will plant it a lot closer than I thought you could. But then again they probably use lots of synthetic fertilizer.

I of course feel grateful that I had a lot of wonderful help running the stand while I was gone. We now have three summer interns and they are super helpful, especially dealing with all the summer produce that is coming in.

Our farm stand seems to have taken on a new incarnation. First we set up at noon and give out produce at 1pm. We have both a hecka local table and also a table with left-over from the fancy farmer’s markets. Yesterday we had 15lbs of green beans, kale, collards, onions, and lettuce from the farm. We harvested zucchini, runner beans, and ground cherries from the 18^th and Rhode Island garden and my backyard yielded a pound of baby lettuce mix from my lettuce lawn.  Produce to the People supplied us with about 93lbs of fruit, mostly small cherry plums. We also got a donation of cured olives that we put out the bread table (it looked like an olive bar with all the samples of olives), Susannah brought a pot full of homemade fruit compote that we put in small cups for people to sample, and Cynthia who works in the garden brought some of her homemade Kombucha drink (she has a business I think called Mission Culture). From 1pm until 2pm there was a continuous line for produce and then a lot of the produce was gone and there were few people left. Around 2:15pm the second load of produce arrived and it was like bringing the farmer’s market from Stonestown Mall to the Mission.  The quality of the produce is outstanding and there has been a lot of organic summer fruit. We tell people to line up as we put all the produce we can on the two tables (and this week I put boxes of things on the lawn because we ran out of table space).  At the end of the day the produce was mostly gone except for soft fruit  which Susannah took home to cook down for more compote. If there are any folks out there that want to make compote, jam, or pies to give away please keep in touch either by coming by at the end of the stand or contacting me.

While I was away most things at the farm went smoothly, though the bees swarmed and there seemed to be some emotions that were stirred up as well. I have been thinking about the work we do a lot and realize that we are more than just trying to make sure everyone has access to healthy local organic produce.More than trying to promote a local gardening movement, more than addressing the issue of global warming, or peak oil. More than educating people about making healthy food choices. More than encouraging people to share rather than buy, sell, or barter. We are working on our relationships and connections with people and our community. We are also working on our relationship or connection to the spirit within and without. In his Restorative Justice work Dominic Barter talks about what Restorative Justice is restoring. He says that what is restored “are connections within people, between people, and in community.”  So our work is similar. We are doing preventive maintenance work in a sense, learning to work and worship together to keep our connections going strong and deep.

Some of the beautiful harvest our volunteers picked went to the stand we set up at the farm.

Someone in line yesterday at the Free Farm Stand told me coming to the Stand was their favorite thing to do during the week. I think we put on a pretty good act. It starts out with a bang and now ends with a bang. The tables this time of year are more than overflowing when we open at 1pm. Then we get a huge crowd and a line down the sidewalk.  We usually run low on most produce by 2pm and the stand sort of fades to a close. Now with our connection to the Sunday’s farmer’s market at Stonestown, we basically start over with a new crowd of people. A new line forms and we refill the table with fresh produce straight from the market. It is a little unreal and this week must have been a peak of produce. Although at the around 2pm there isn’t a lot of Hecka Local produce, it is from Marin and super fresh: boxes and boxes of nectarines, peaches, apricots, cherries, strawberries, squash, lettuce, kohlrabi, and greens. I am so busy hauling produce and setting up the table I don’t have time to photograph it and I wonder if a photo can capture the excitement in the air when that kind of show goes on.

Some new produce was on the Hecka local table this week. We started harvesting the potatoes at the farm and brought 42 pounds of the spuds. They looked beautiful. We also had green beans and some radishes from the farm. Of course we are still harvesting collards and the last of the lettuce lawn was cut and harvested. I brought garlic from the Secret Garden and some kale from Esperanza. I had about 2lbs of yellow zucchini from 18^th and Rhode Island garden. The Secret Garden and the Permaculture Garden are to me sad places to visit these days. The Secret Garden has been put on hold until Robert teaches his summer class there that lasts I think 6 weeks. Then I don’t know who will garden in the space. The 18^th and Rhode Island garden I have stopped working in and just go there to harvest, when there is something.

I don’t think I can repeat myself too much in this weekly blog how grateful I feel for all the people that make this project so great. We now have two new summer interns Jacob and Susannah and a third one will be coming on board soon at the Free Farm, and their help and positive spirit elevates me so much.

Someone recently sent me an email with a quote at the bottom. I liked it and thought I would share it:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.
Rabindranath Tagore

This really sums it up where I am at these day.  I am happy just quietly working with those fellow karma yogis, feeding all serving all. At the end of my work day though usually exhausted I feel joyful. Like yesterday there was a ton of left-over soft and squished fruit. With two friends who were visiting from out of town and had just come back from the Gay Pride march, we cut up all the fruit for making jam. I was really running on empty, but I had such a great day at the stand, meeting all these great people, and giving a lot of food away to people in need, it gave me the energy to do a little more later in the evening.

I am going away to the Midwest for a week, but thankfully the stand will be open next Sunday July 4th. Also, the regular workdays at the farm will continue.