Blog

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.

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!