Author: Tree

I feel good and all ready for the love holiday coming up this February 14^th. I remember years ago in the early seventies a beautiful man, one of my mentors, a poet, gardener, and visionary named Geoff Brown started probably the first free garden in San Francisco on South Van Ness Street near where I now live. He talked about delivering each lettuce he grew to fellow communards with a kiss. The Free Farm Stand and now the Free Farm is all about sharing the love in the same way. This week the love was mostly green and orange as we gave out lots of greens and gleaned oranges and tangerines (and some lemons). Tofutown folks came by with a lot of vegan fake meat that we handed out that sort of made up for the second week of no Acme bread. Steve brought by surplus collards from his plot at Portreo del Sol from seedlings he got from the stand. Hurray and right on! A neighbor brought by some sour grapefruit from her tree which I think can be used for juice. The oranges and tangerines were from Stanford glean. They were going to bring forty lettuces but they got rip off (ripped out literally) the day before they were picked. We were all out of produce around 2 or 2:30pm.

The Free Farm rocked this week as we began Wednesday workdays. Since others in our group are documenting this so well I suggest just going to their link for photos, writings, and even some videos: http://urbanshare.blogspot.com/search/label/St.%20Paulus%20Lutheran.
Here are some photos from the Wednesday workday:

I love working with this new group of people. I am not a Christian, but I relate to all good stories about feeding the poor and miracle making. I stumbled upon this beautiful writing last year by Megan who we are working with and her Urban Share project : http://queerbiblestudy.blogspot.com/2009/07/urban-share.html. She says “Jesus feeds 5000….But what if we could do it too?…using this model of Urban Share we are working on a community garden project to enable churches and other organizations to create gardens to grow food, learn about hunger and meet the need that is so much more than a need for daily bread. Working with local gardening activists we have learned that it is possible to create raised bed, sidewalk, rooftop and [vacant] lot gardens virtually for free by recycling materials that are common in urban environments.”

On Saturday I missed some of the Free Farm workday and the lunch which by all reports was fabuloso so I could check out the designs for the new park being designed for the parking lot at Folsom and 17^th Sts. In the Mission. One of the questions I asked is why does the city have to buy the land from PUC (thus the need to write a grant proposal). It seems it is state law and I couldn’t quite figure it out, just a crazy system, where the PUC has to protect it’s rate payers who also just happen to be the citizens who run the city government. Anyway if they get the grant they can go ahead with this project. I heard that they at least talked PUC down in price to two million dollars for the lot.

I ran into a number of friends at the presentation of the designs that was held under a canopy in the parking lot, so we could get a better sense of what we are talking about. Wow it is a pretty big space! And the abandoned chocolate factory next door isn’t even on the plan. Many of my friends that were there also were on the same page as me in wanting a design with the maximum growing area and supporting the idea of using the land to grow food for the community.

There were three designs presented and everyone was asked to put a label on the design they liked the best and got three stars to put on what design element they liked most. I had sent the design team an email with my ideas that included links to functional play equipment (like a teeter-totter that pumped water) and they used some of the photos in the presentation. The three designs are Revolution Park Concept, Mission Creek Commons Concept, Eco-People Park Concept. You can download the three designs here (at the bottom of their page) and also send them feedback by email http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=2273.
I liked the Mission Creek design since it seemed to have the most space devoted to farm/garden/growing food.
You can also attend the second design review tomorrow Feb. 9^th from 6-9pm at the planning department (1650 Mission St. near Duboce Ave 4^th Floor room 431).


Check out my links page on the sidebar…it is growing with new friends that are doing cool work. I forgot to mention my visit to the Hayes Valley Farm last week. Wow what a project going on there!

Yesterday was a Sunday that was a beautiful cool and cloudy winter day at the Free Farm Stand, with the sun poking out once in a while. It was one of those seasonal days where we didn’t have a ton of produce (like the week before) and the most we are getting from our gardens are greens, a little broccoli, and some lettuce. I was able to pick a few more rocoto peppers (they are our winter heroes, like our white sapotes, lemons, greens, and chayotes, though our chayote plants haven’t stepped up to the plate yet). It was a skimpy day produce wise and we had a huge crowd. Though we ran out of produce early we did seem to give everyone some good stuff. The thing I felt most positive about is that now the Free Farm Stand has a Free Farm. So it feels like we are doing the best we can to grow our own food and to encourage others to do the same and to share the surplus.

Fruit gleaning is going ahead and Stanford Glean and Page brought by approximately 20lbs of citrus from students who gleaned the trees at Stanford and the fruit that he picked from Holy Innocents. I got some lemons from our neighbor’s tree. Lyn grew some more of her wonderful black lentil sprouts. We got a bag full of greens from some kids gardens connected to Urban Sprouts. Treat Commons contributed about two pounds of greens and the majority of greens came from 18^th and Rhode Island. Right towards the end when we ran out of most everything, Clara brought by some greens from the Secret Garden.

Last week someone had left a bucket full of tree collard branches in the garden. This week Mike potted them up and we gave some of them out. I really appreciate these plants and I think all gardens should grow them. Last year Pam Pierce turned me onto growing collards which she prefers over tree collards. I actually like them both a lot. A beautiful traveling farmer from Nebraska wound up at the stand this week who saw the tree collards and got very excited according to Pancho. This young farmer who was taking a break from the cold winter in Nebraska said that he was in Kenya (or somewhere in East Africa) and saw this vegetable. “”Sukama Wiki is the Swahili for “pushing out the week”. Most households grow it (especially in Kenya) if they have the space, and it is also cheap to buy, highly nutritious and delicious. If there is no other food in the house, sukuma will be there until the next payment comes in. This is awesome! I was looking for a sukuma wiki for a long time (it can only grow from propagation) and now that I’m going back to Nebraska it would be perfect of our gardens!”. I looked this up on the web and one place (http://www.allthingskenyan.com/food-sukumawiki.html) had a recipe and said the same thing about the name “sukuma wiki means ‘to push the week’ implying sukuma wiki is a food used to stretch the meals to last for the week.” Us poor folks on tight budgets need foods like these. Pancho also had the impression ” that it was an “up lifter”, I guess it is a synonym of “pushing out the week”. That is what is going on here in San Francisco in a spiritual sense…a green uplifter.

The news that is most exciting is that on Saturday we had the greatest work day at the Free Farm. Some of our core team started early by picking up some compost and bringing it to the site. We decided to start each work day with having a huddle and talking about what we planned to do that day. Since this was our first really highly organized day we came up with a list of responsibilities that needed taking care of on a regular basis and people volunteered to help. One neighbor who has lived near this empty lot for ten years offered to keep his eye on the property and be a security person. He expressed how grateful he was that we were putting the lot to good use finally. Then we went to work and the entire lot got totally cleaned up. A number of people moved all the stray bricks and rubble into a neat pile, compost piles were started, garbage bagged up, and construction materials put together in neat piles. I was impressed with how many syringes and needles that were found especially along the edges. I had two flats of strawberries that got planted and our first rows for vegetables were staked and laid out. At previous meetings we decided we wanted to serve lunch to our volunteers so every week a different person cooks and brings it to the farm. I really believe that besides growing a farm together, we are growing community, and taking a break together and sharing a meal is one way that helps with that process. At the end of the day we put away our tools away and held one last ceremony. We walked around and checked out what we accomplished and thanked ourselves. I think we all felt pretty high when we left. We don’t have a website just for this farm yet but check out Welcome’s blog on this project http://urbanshare.blogspot.com/search/label/St.%20Paulus%20Lutheran


I also had a wonderful workday on Friday at the 18^th and Rhode Island garden. We planted more fruit trees and it looks like we are going to eventually have a food forest there. 

On Saturday I attended a meeting held by the San Francisco Planning Department (in conjunction with Park and Recreation and PODER) the purpose of which was to “envision a new open space in the Mission”. The city is writing a grant to purchase the parking lot on 17^th and Shotwell/Folsom Sts. So the meeting was all about neighbors designing their ideal park. One thing I found funny is that the planning department gave a power point presentation offering some different design possibilities and I noticed that they had used a photo from the Free Farm Stand blog. Then the guy mentioned a food sharing project in a park in the city. I guess the word is out about our project. I must admit I am just a dreamer and don’t know if my dreams can become real. Which comes to the F word. At the meeting everyone broke up into break away groups and we each had the responsibility to come up with our design for the space (.74 acre in size). Of course the problem with these meetings is that everyone comes to the table with their own agenda (including myself) and what they want. I don’t know how the planning department figures out how to get everyone’s ideas included in the design, when there is only so much room to have things happen. It doesn’t always work like at Treat Commons that I helped work on. It became a children’s playground more than park with lots of trees and nature. Anyway, I suggested in my group the idea of putting a farm there to feed people in the neighborhood. This is the idea I have talked about before where neighbors work together to grow food to combat hunger or to grow flowers to give to shelters and soup kitchens. What I think of as a collective or family approach to land use. I use the F word here for farm as opposed to community garden (which reinforces private property and individualism rather than community). I love gardens and the word garden (green G spots), don’t get me wrong, but whenever people talk about having space for community gardens, which everyone is all for, I think of a few rectangular raised boxes like at Treat Commons Community where I garden with an impossible waiting list. So there were a lot of great ideas out there and a some conflicting ideas (the people who want more playground and an emphasis on sports and athletic activity and making it a place for children and those who want more green and gardens). I think my idea of a neighborhood farm that served the Mission might have got lost in the shuffle, though everyone wants a community g spot. Is shoveling shit as much exercise as tossing basketballs and running around a court or climbing on monkey bars? Can we change a culture that has nature deficit disorder? Climbing a tree vs climbing a play structure? I suggested in my group that we try to think outside the box. Like designing a swing set that pumped a well since the land is sitting on a creek. If anyone has creative ideas on how to get away from what we normally think of as playground and can come up with ideas for incorporating kids getting exercise into real work that can also be play, I would like to hear them and pass them on to the planners. There are probably people doing this somewhere in the world already, designing innovative playgrounds that could be integrated into a farm. On Feb 6^th they are having another meeting at the site. People can stop between 11AM and 2pm and drop off their ideas anytime.

It’s interesting that this week while thinking of the F word, I talked to two people that visited Cuba and visited the “community garden” scene there. Apparently there are urban gardens/farms everywhere in Havana and elsewhere. The Cubans call them organiponicos. From what I understand from talking to my friends who went there, the government pays a few people to grow food for the neighborhood which they sell at a very low rate. Maybe we could have a variation of something like that here. There are certainly a lot of people needing jobs and plenty of people wanting to be helpful and would probably volunteer. I read online that some neighborhoods grow 30% of their vegetables. Another thing I read is that “the Rotunda de Cojimar organiponico received an award for producing an average of 4.5 lbs. of produce per square foot at the 1.5 acre market garden. Levels near this were not uncommon elsewhere.” My friend said the gardens grow food really intensively to maximize yields and they are mostly all organic. Here is a photo of one such Havana garden my friend Bob took:

Talking about farms and big projects happening around town Hayes Valley Farm has just opened (http://www.hayesvalleyfarm.com/index.html). They had their first work day yesterday. I have been out of the loop with this project except I saw on the Permaculture Guild Volunteer Dashboard a place to sign up for their newsletter. I didn’t know they had a website until Clara who is the Garden Anchor for the Secret Garden told me she was surprised that a photo of her and a man who occasionally visits the farm stand was on their web page as a design element. I also noticed another photo from our blog too. I am glad we are available for great snaps.

I always wonder where the food goes when I visit or hear about a farm or garden. It seems that with this project it isn’t quite clear yet (and it may be a while until they have some harvest), and maybe that is something they are still working out. In one place it says “A portion of the produce grown on site will be donated to project volunteers and local meals programs.”. So maybe the rest will be sold? As I get it all the things they plan to charge for like classes and fruit trees that they want to propagate and sell will go back into the project, which I assume will also go into paying salaries to keep the core staff running the project. I hope they at some point start saying “no one turned away for lack of funds” and keep the door open and hassle free for the person with empty pockets that comes by that wants to learn something or wants to plant a tree. I find it exciting that this project is happening and can’t wait to see how it grows. They have a list of their workdays on their website and I notice they don’t conflict with ours which is great.

Last but not least in the world of farms, our small partnership of non-profit groups have named our new farm at Gough and Eddy the Free Farm. I must say that one of the thing that excites me most about this project (just like the Free Farm Stand) is that I just love the people that I am working with. I feel so lucky to have a group of people that I can work and grow with. We had a nice workday on Saturday. We don’t have a website up yet, but you can read about what goes on there right now by checking out this blog and or the Welcome/Urban Share Community Garden blog (http://urbanshare.blogspot.com/search/label/St.%20Paulus%20Lutheran). The Free Farm has the same mission as the Free Farm Stand and it is pretty simple and the same as the mission of Welcome. They say it is a “communal response to poverty”. I would also say it is about growing food (and hopefully flowers) and sharing the wealth with those in need. Creating community along the way and having a joyful and prayerful time in the process. Below are photos from our last workday (a lot of photos of moving dirt to create a ramp and to level out the demonstration garden. You wouldn’t know it that it had been raining on and off and we eventually got rained out). Please come out and join us and share lunch to boot (Saturdays 10am-2pm).

I haven’t said much about this week’s Free Farm Stand. It was truly a miraculous day! I had come dressed to the teeth in rain gear because of the 90% rain prediction. And it did not rain a bit (maybe a drizzle at the start). We had an abundance of produce including a record amount of greens and broccoli from two gardens, grapefruit from Stanford Glean and huge amounts of left over produce from the farmer’s market. Wendy came by with some produce from her Urban Sprouts project. We also had a huge crowd and I must say I love all the people that come…it feels so friendly and community to me. I have become friends with two relatively new attendees to the stand. The last two weeks they brought citrus from San Jose, and this week they brought the most delicious fake chicken patties from a business they run importing these things from Germany (Tofutown).Boxes and boxes of the product. They had enough to share some cases with my friend Wayne who was visiting who works with Food Not Bombs who will use them in their soup or something. I think they were a big hit (and I didn’t complain that it wasn’t very local).

I also want to mention that the Access Cafe gave us their left over organic vegetables to hand out too. I unfortunately forgot to mention on last week’s blog that this donation based café reopened on Saturday. I had met Kristen when I was first starting the Free Farm Stand in April 2008. She was one of the main organizers of the Really Really Free Market and had the idea of starting the donation based Access Café. She was brutally murdered in New Orleans after starting the café and now it is resurfacing again. I heard that it was pretty packed and that it was really lovely (flowers on the table and waiters), and that they didn’t hit you over the head about making a donation (a jar on the table for donations). When I went to pick up some of the extra produce I saw the big sign they had made up and read that some of their inspiration came from the No Penny Opera with which I was involved years ago (and is still in existence as a non-profit that runs the Free Farm Stand). Although I am still mostly an old school free devotee, I respect everyone that is trying to make the world more beautiful and is interested in food justice and serving the poor. Donation style may not be the way I would do things, but hey it still seems to inspire people and they serve up a good thing with love.