Author: Tree

 

I must mention that I also had a sweet time inthe Permaculture Garden on Friday. Our Friday workdays there are always a surprise, I can usuallyy count on one person that I know to show up and help; but often a new volunteer arrives and this week it was Ildiko. She had been on my mailing list and I recognized her name, but we never met. She helped harvest a lot of the greens and broccoli and then we planted more trees together. Bilkis inventoried all our trees that we have planted and I plan  to type it up.  I think we have planted 70 trees of all kinds so far. 

   Weeping mulberry 

 

 Two Plums 

  

  Contorted JuJube

I just last week watched two movies that were very powerful and reaffirmed to me that what we are doing is the right thing. One video was The Garden and the other was Food Inc. I knew that the video The Garden was going to be intense and depressing so I was hesitant to watch it for a while. I mean who wants to see a fifteen acre piece of land in L.A. that people have been gardening in for 11 years get torn down? Actually there is a lot of beauty in the movie even though it is sad to watch. I left reminded that a lot of us are all in the same boat. Growing food on land that is we do not own.  We put a lot of work and resources into the land we work on knowing that we are in a temporary position, kind of hoping that the landlord will like what we are doing and let us garden forever. Or that the economy will stay depressed and that people won’t have money to develop. I always go back in my mind to the original Diggers of England in 1649 who dug up the commons and planted corn and other crops for all to share. The lands were finally “bulldozed” or trampled and tore up by the government army to protect the landowners and their right to private property. So in this movie the land owner turned down $16 million dollars that was raised to buy the land for the people (3 times what he paid for it) just because he had the right to do what he wanted. That is not to mention the corruption of the politicians and other groups involved and how he got the land in the first place. The Diggers stood up and planted and what they did is really inspire us folks down the line in history.  That is why the Free Farm Stand and the Free Farm are free. To inspire us all to move away from the concept of private property and to encourage a more brotherly/sisterly way of living our lives.  Yes there are nice landlords like the one who is letting us use the land at the permaculture garden at 18^th and Rhode Island or the pastor at St. Paulus Church. Yet at the same time we must remember the reality that we can learn from movies like The Garden, that private property and the right of landowners rules, at least here. That no matter how evil a landlord wants to act, and bulldoze trees and crops, and destroy things that are very sacred to a people, that is ok as far as the rules go. So we must stand up in our lives and make a very strong statement and rejection of those twisted values, at least that is my humble opinion. I know we all have to pay our bills and they say money doesn’t grow on trees. But just now I was thinking generosity does grow on trees…at least that is what it seems. Every week as I keep repeating myself here, I feel so grateful for the generosity of so many people who are making this revolution happen and that is so precious.  

 Food Inc. is sort of a repeat of things I have read like Michael Pollan’s fabulous book Omnivore’s Dilemma. What was new to me was seeing all the graphic images of the meat industry. I know we all have our habits and we choose what we eat, but maybe those people who like to eat bologna sandwiches should at least understand better where there food comes from. I also guess if people only ate grass fed beef or chicken meat from “humanely” treated chickens before they were slaughter it would be better for us all. Though I can’t see myself wringing chicken necks like in the video or hunting a wild boar in Sonoma and eating or serving pork sandwiches.   

Please check out our new calendar as I am trying to put on there some of the fabulous events related to food growing happening in the area. Also, we are trying to manifest a lot of things now related to the Free Farm. Like bamboo poles to grow beans on, drip irrigation parts,  a shed, and large containers to grow food in on the cement perimeter surrounding the farm.   

As you see we have a new web page design  thanks (a big thanks) to Daniel who showed up at the Free Farm Stand  one day last year and offered to help me redo our blog page because I thought it was getting  hard to navigate as we grew. I think the new calendar especially will make it easier for everyone to see what free events and volunteer opportunities there are that they can check out. I am always open to feedback and being open to suggestions that will improve our work.  I don’t have the editing down yet so we will all have to be patient. (the photos seem too small unless you click on them). The web address is now http://freefarmstand.org and we won’t be using our blogspot site. (freefarmstand.blogspot.com).

Since we opened in April 2008 a lot has been accomplished in terms of promoting food growing and sharing. I would say there is a real network that has been formed of people growing food and sharing it in the city. There are a lot of successful gardens and urban farms and new ones opening. It also feels like people are getting to know each other and that we are moving towards sharing resources and helping each other out. Yesterday after the Free Farm Stand I walked over to the Secret Garden where Clara had organized a Garden Love day including some hands on workshops in biodynamic  double digging bed preparation.  I hadn’t  been to the garden in a while since Clara stepped up to being the Garden Anchor there. I was really blown out how beautiful things looked and what a great job she has been doing, in not only maintaining the garden, but attracting others to come in and help out. It was also great that the gate was open for people in the neighborhood to wander in and check it out. There was still a lot of activity going on there even though they started at 11am and there were a handful of people still working and also people stopping in and visiting. Monica,  who started a project of putting in a honeybee attractant garden in part of the Secret Garden has a blog with great pictures: http://thehoneybeegarden.blogspot.com/.

I was really surprised that we had what seemed like a smaller crowd yesterday and I am guessing it maybe because it was a holiday weekend. For a while I thought we were going to have a lot of left over produce, but by the time I actually got out of the park, I had given away the last two small bags of greens we had left to someone who showed up “late”. We were all done by 2:30pm (around 2pm we were closing up but still giving out produce to those who trickled in).  Again we had a great selection of greens on the hecka local table, 33 pounds of oranges from Stanford Glean,  30 pounds of lemons from a neighbor right next to the park (Page went over to help Jade pick more of them), 10 more pounds from another neighbor, a lot of kale from two guys who have two gardens in the Mission, one on 22^nd and Valencia (they were going to start a business growing stuff for restaurants but that didn’t continue).  I was taken by surprise and very happy when Lisa showed up and brought over some beautiful lettuce and a broccoli to share from her backyard garden on Guerrero. That is such a success story of getting together a team of people helping a neighbor  revive her dormant garden and some surplus produce being generated to share at the stand. I actually didn’t see the broccoli it disappeared as soon as it was put on the table, despite the fact that we had a lot of other broccoli to give away…it must of been beautiful.

We all have things that make our day. I think it is good to take note of those things maybe just before we go to bed.   One  actually made my day on Saturday…an Eatwell CSA box of produce arrived at my doorstep (this has been happening off and on for a while and I don’t know who drops it off) and it is such a beautiful gesture to share a surplus box of produce with those in need. On Sunday as I was loading the van to go to the park, Jess came by with a partial box of greens that she picked (or somehow she had gotten) from Green Gulch Farm. She was in a hurry and couldn’t talk; she just came by with the greens and a hug, but it did make my day and made me grateful for all the wonderful friends I have made through gardening and sharing food. Actually so many things make my day on Sundays it isn’t fair to state just one thing.

Saturday and Wednesday workdays at our new Free Farm are really exciting and each week you can see the farm grow. The labyrinth is getting laid out and a few plants were put in already. Two long beds were double dug, more compost brought in, a peach tree planted, a power outlet installed,  some signs painted, some stairs were cut into the hillside where the strawberries are planted, and some work on the compost pile was done. I also got to meet some new people that showed up to help and neighbors that came to check out what is happening. I got to meet some women from Stanford glean that came by to help and also to drop off some of the oranges they picked near their campus. I also met a woman connected with Glide and they are looking for land to start a garden for adults in some of their programs.

On Friday I also had a great day harvesting produce at the 18^th and Rhode Island Permaculture Garden and planting more fruit trees. We must have one of the largest collections of fruit trees planted in the city. There was talk about putting together a database of fruit tree collections in the city and I look forward to seeing that happen.  I met a man named Joe who helped out who is with St Vicente de Paul Society. He is putting in a garden in the Richmond for the shelter they run on 5^th Street downtown. There are so many gardening opportunities right now it makes me want to run out the door and get my hands in the soil.