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I am back from my three day trip out of town. It was a totally surreal trip for me to spend time in the suburbs outside Denver. I am familiar with suburbs since I grew up in one, but I still felt like I was on another planet. I started a poem when I was there:

I missed the boat a long time ago to be normal

at an early age I got off the path

As soon as I got home I was anxious to get out into the gardens. First I went over to the Esperanza Garden where there was going to be a work day preparing the garden for the grand opening next Saturday May 9th. Like I said last week this garden might not be around in two months, but people are planting things in pots and annuals in the ground. I planted some lettuce and a yellow zucchini and will come back hopefully in the middle of the week to plant some pole beans. I think if we can get one crop of something edible out of the garden before it gets developed that will be great. At the opening I think I am going to be there doing a workshop on growing potatoes in towers and tomatoes upside down in pots. I then went over to Treat Commons and harvested a big trash bag full of chard and kale for the free farm stand.

Our greens

I guess it has been raining a bit which is great news. It was raining a little when we set up the stand, but for the most part the day was clear and we had another large crowd with a large amount of food that I brought over in a van from the soup kitchen where I work the first Sunday of the month. We are still in the season of garden greens which filled our table.
We again had large amounts of basil which should be out of season now and were probably grown in a green house since it is supposedly locally grown. Nosrat, our neighbor who lives around the corner and is an excellent cook, took a sample of the different things we had on the table, including basil, walnuts, young garlic, and some cilantro and went home and blended up some tasty vegan pesto. He brought it back and shared it with everyone served on some bread. Ashly came later and brought some fava bean spread made with curry that we put out for people to taste (the fava beans came from 18th and Rhode Island…I plan to go there Friday for the workday and will probably harvest more for the stand). Later a gardener in Treat Commons came by with her young daughter to bring some cookies to share. It was her daughter’s idea who just got some cookies from a new cookie shop on Valencia to bring some over to share at the stand. I didn’t say anything about them not being vegan and just gave them away any way becausethe gesture was so sweet (the cookies I am sure were too).

A couple of people came by with lemons from their trees or neighbors trees. One woman brought both Meyer lemons and Ponderosa lemons that are big and round and have a thick rind.

Can you tell which one is the Ponderosa Lemon?

Page and Margret came by with some offerings from their garden (actually I am not sure which garden things came from since they grow things all over, including a garden at Holy Innocents Church in Noe Valley, a rooftop garden where they live also in Noe Valley, and a garden in Stanford where they work). They brought one bunch of celery, a few carrot thinnings, some lettuce and arugula, and a bag of gigantic ponderosa lemons from a neighbor.
Page told me that the gleaning project he is organizing at Stanford is going ahead. Page teaches a course in sustainability there and has gotten interested in getting the fruit trees growing there (in the area where the faculty lives) picked by his students. Apparently they have identified 140 fruit trees and have them located with a GPS unit and have put them on a Google map. They are going to eventually harvest the trees and Page will bring the fruit in his truck to the stand.

I wanted to report that another reporter came by the stand who is doing a piece for KALW radio about farmer’s markets. He interviewed me for maybe five minutes and other people too. The popularity of local food growing continues. I just got a link to a four minute video made by students at City College about the farm stand and I have included it on the sidebar of this blog. My hope that what grows out of all this talk (especially on my part) is that we can find the energy and people with the time to grow more food so we don’t have to rely so much on the left-over’s from the farmers market (though it is itself a great way of gleaning organic relatively local food).

Every week I learn about some new cool local gardening event or project taking off. Here are two:

From an email:

“I just learned that the City of Lafayette formed a Sustainability Committee and that East Bay Municipal Utility District is allowing the City to utilize about 2 acres by the Lafayette Reservoir for their community garden sustainability project, which may interest you. The citizens there are very interested in this and you may find partnerships there with the many wealthier organizations in town. They are also building a gazillion dollar state of the art Library which will be completed I believe this year or early next year.”

From the permaculture list serve:

food forest for food first

Posted by: “wildseed christopher” wildheartgardens@yahoo.com wildheartgardens

Sun May 3, 2009 9:40 pm (PDT)

Who wants to help create a mini food forest at Food First?!
Our goal is to create a high profile permaculture garden that will be seen by hundreds of visitors who come to Food First from all parts of the world. The food produced on site will supplement the lunches that FF provides for its staff and interns. The installation will be only us volunteers so please come out and help if you have a few hours to spare over the weekend – It will be a lot of fun!
The plan:
We will remove much of the existing ornamental and invasive bushes and shrubs, create rainwater catchments, earthworks with swales and infiltration basins, spread a heavy layer of mulch, and plant a bunch of food producing plants, natives and insectaries.
Where:
398 60th St. at Colby (near the Oakland/Berkeley border)
For those of you unfamiliar with the organization, Food First is an amazing Non-Profit organization working to change the global food system. “The Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First shapes how people think by analyzing the root causes of global hunger, poverty, and ecological degradation and developing solutions in partnership with movements working for social change.” Check it out at http://www.foodfirst.org/
When:
May 8-10 (Fri, Sat, Sun) 10am -5pm
Come whatever day(s) you can for as long as you want!
Please let me know if you are interested in bringing this project to fruition so I can organize enough tools and materials.
Vegetarian lunch will be provided :)
Thanks,
Alex
510 717 1299

I find things like this are very exciting. Wish I could get involved in everything!

I was feeling a bit of excitement when I came to the Free Farm Stand a little late today. I just arrived from Martin de Porres soup kitchen where I volunteer and had gotten the lucky chance to hear the Dalai Lama speak. Here is an article in the Chronicle about it: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/26/national/a200532D22.DTL&tsp=1. The thing that stood out in my mind is that he seemed to have a simple and clear message of compassion and respect for others (especially the poor) and other religions and faiths. And I was surprised how accessible he seemed, though I guess it took two years for this event to happen, it seemed amazing that such a celebrity would even visit a place like Martin’s, and once he was there he was also surprisingly real and human. I do feel that he gave off a human glow and energy that truly spread joy and peace around him. I guess that comes from his commitment to “the promotion of human values such as compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline”.

I didn’t take many pictures of the stand today, partly because I was not all there. I could use someone who can take good pictures to document the scene. Though one could argue that I have taken enough pictures already to get the idea of what is happening. Beautiful people and beautiful vegetables and fruit.

I just love the people who have been coming out and helping run the stand, which has left me free to talk to people and to work a little with people that want to garden while the stand is open. I got busy for a while working with my young friend Zeus who loves to garden, so we planted some scarlet runner beans. I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to talk to everyone and I know some people came that I wanted to say hi to. Also, I keep meeting people that want to help. There is so much gardening to do and seedlings to propagate. I am hoping that I can help enlist some of the gardening energy that is out there so we can grow more of our own produce.

And that ties into this other thought. I would still like to get a good garden information booth set up that can help people with their garden questions and can encourage people to grow their own (in English and Spanish). We have been giving away a lot of plants, but it could be better if we gave out information on how to care for them and if we could set up a garden support network.

Well those are some random thoughts. We seem to be getting a lot of greens the last few weeks. Because I was so busy this weekend I didn’t get a chance to harvest all the greens (mostly chard and kale) in the different gardens that are ready to pick. But we got so much from the farmers market there was no shortage of chard or arugula or lettuce. And we hit the jackpot with fava beans. At 18^th and Rhode Island we harvested 15 pounds of beans and then I got a box more of them from the farmers market. I wrote an update on the Potrero garden on the18^th and Rhode Island website. The ones we picked were larger pods with bigger beans. The ones from the farmers market were young and much smaller. A woman came by the stand and told me that the young favas could be covered with a light sprinkling of olive oil and a shake of salt and roasted in the oven in a pan (she might have also suggested garlic) and then eaten pod and all. I got excited with that idea because I have been having pretty good luck roasting other vegetables that way like cauliflower and asparagus. So I went home and tried it, but was a little disappointed. They were edible, but I didn’t like the flavor all that much. I think others who have some immature fava beans should try this out and maybe add garlic.

People are still coming by the stand and making contributions. Two people brought lemons from their tree and another woman brought the most beautiful peppermint from her garden that I had to take a photo of it. A woman brought a nice bunch of chervil that she grew. It is an herb that is not as commonly grown that has a sweet licorice taste. Dave brought me some sad looking vegetable starts that came from Rainbow that they couldn’t sell, but were still alive and I am sure will grow.

Today is the one year anniversary of the Free Farm Stand. I started this blog in May of last year.is here. It’s a time that I can look back and say wow not only did time go by quickly, but so much has happened since I began. Here is a picture of the table at the time I first opened.

I actually had room on the table for plants. I was also able to transport the food to the stand with my bike cart. Now the produce from the farmers market is overshadowing the produce that we are growing. I usually have about a wagon full of produce that I can haul over, but yesterday I wound up bringing the produce not only in my wagon, but with a van (I had about three wagons full of produce plus flats of seedlings I had grown). I also now get one day old organic bread (maybe twenty bags this week) and a lot more people coming by. I think a lot of people are from our neighborhood, but people are coming from all over.

When I started the Free Farm Stand I had a some ideas about what I wanted to do, like to grow a lot of food and give it away and to promote local food growing in our neighborhood. Since we started a lot has been accomplished that I feel great about. A community has been growing and a lot of networks of people have been formed. The Free Farm Stand has been a good place for people to meet each other and share interests together. We have a new gleaning project started and we will see if it really takes off this year. New gardens have been popping up and there is plenty of gardening to be done.

One crazy thing about me is that I can think up a million great projects to do and I can set out doing them, but without people whom I work with closely that can help curb me a bit, at some point I get overwhelmed and over extended. The “free nursery” idea is one of those projects for example. This year I have grown hundreds of starts (with a lot of help too) and have started distributing them at the stand and brining them to the different gardens I work at and giving them to other gardeners I meet. At this point I feel I have to either get someone to help take over that project or cut way back on how many seedlings I start. I didn’t realize how much space and time growing seedlings can take. One central greenhouse and a lath house would help, but the plants would still take a lot of attention. I would also like to start growing sprouts again, something I did at the beginning of the stand, but I have temporarily stopped doing because I am focusing a lot of space and time on the starts.

Another thing I am thinking about is that I remember at the beginning of the Free Farm Stand I got so excited about is being an urban farmer and growing and harvesting food that I could give away. I still share that excitement. All the free local organic left over farmers market produce I collect will never make me as happy as the food I am able to grow myself. Or fruit from an urban tree that I picked. At the same time I love to be able to help people have access to free organic healthy produce and it is hard to turn down all the wonderful produce that I get, even though it makes it seem like I am running a regular food program instead of a program to empower people to grow their own food if they can as a way to provide food security. People tell me all the time how much they appreciate the stand and the food they get. Yesterday at the stand I brought some non-local probably non-organic apples that was at the bottom of a box of produce and they were so popular. At first I thought about not bringing the politically incorrect apples (and some endive and onions I also got accidentally), but I figured that it was better than the stuff getting composted. Well I will have to continue thinking about this and perhaps cut down on the amount of free produce I collect and bring to the stand, hoping that we can grow more food to give away.

Yesterday was a great Free Farm Stand day in spite of the heat and the crazy amount of greens we had (a lot of lettuce, baby beet greens, bok choy, mustard, chard, and kale) and the big crowd. I was really excited that at least three maybe four people showed up with lemons from their trees. Christy also brought chamomile from the Corona Heights Community garden (it is growing everywhere up there) and people really enjoyed it. Another person brought the most handsome red celery plant. Another thing the stand does is introduce people to the world of vegetables. We get so many things that people are not familiar with and often they come away liking a new food. Like last week we had stinging nettles. This week there was endive and fava beans. The 18th and Rhode Island garden is at the peak fava bean harvesting season now. We picked 12 1/2 lbs on Friday workday and then on Saturday a woman in the permaculture class harvested probably 12 more pounds of beans and brought them to the stand. We also brought some more fava bean leaves which have become popular.

Two other great contributions to the stand this week was a man named Brady brought some homemade Ancho Chile jam to share (inspired perhaps by the strawberry jam Molly brought the previous week). It was very popular and he sent me his recipe. I suppose if one were to grow any kind of hot peppers they could duplicate this recipe though the smoked chilpote peppers gave it a good taste. And Nosrat brought some of his homemade vegan pesto for me to try out and I shared that too with everyone on bread. Both the jam and his pesto were delicious (the pesto was made with basil that Nosrat got from the stand last week).

A woman who had hip replacement surgery hobbled over to the stand and was really excited about getting the chamomile and other things. She wanted to help so we set her up potting up tomatoes and giving them out. She seemed too be good at giving out garden advice and she seemed to really have a good time. We gave out a lot of seedlings and still have many more to share.
Talk about sharing garden produce there is a lot of talk going around about the SF Victory Gardens project called the Garden Registry. Here is a link in the Sunday’s Chronicle someone sent me http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/17/HOL1170KIS.DTL&type=homean and here is the link to the Garden Registry gardenregistry.org . And here is another group that is promoting yardsharing clubs, an idea I am fond of http://hyperlocavore.ning.com/.
The idea of “yard sharing” is something I have been working to bring about alnmost since we started, but it hasn’t happened yet. The idea being people form a club or group and work together in their neighborhood growing gardens and sharing the produce. The website is I guess an organizing tool for these clubs that are forming worldwide. These clubs would share their labor and resources and everyone helps each other grow food.This would certainly help me out with all the gardens I am working in. I still think it is funny that all these groups are working towards the same goal, but we seem not to be working with each other exactly. I wonder if I should sign up in the garden registry?

This lead me to another topic that is related. I was just turned on to a piece of land that is owned by the city that is vacant and gets a lot of sun. The neighbor contacted me about growing food there. I would share the water from her house to water the garden. The only hitch is that it is in Bayview, which isn’t that far away, but not within wagons distance. Maybe if there was a yard sharing club we could include this property as one of the gardens. Here I go talking about being over extended but thinking of these new projects.

Tater Tower updates: On Saturday I went to the Esperanza Sustainability Center garden on Florida and 19th St. with all the stuff to plant some tater towers. We planted four towers and tried out the two different styles. The most fun experiment we tried was planting some spuds in a beautiful basket I found at the free estate sale a few weeks back. We hung it up against the concrete wall next to the garden.

We also planted two lasagna method wire mesh towers and then planted some taters in a black 15gal plastic pot. There is so much heat in that garden due to the concrete wall, it will be fun to see how they grow. All the other tater towers are rockin. All spuds have sprouted and some are growing lush amounts of green sprouts that we are covering with mulch. I can’t wait for harvest time. I still have more spuds and stuff to grow more taters.

On a related note, on Tuesday the Jamestown kids and I installed the first I hope of several hanging upside down tomato plants. At first we built a tripod but it wasn’t tall enough so we hung it on an already existing arbor. We filled the two and half gallon buckets with soil (I had poked a hole in the bottom already and put a piece of newspaper in the bottom to hold the plant). I also punched two holes at the top to make a handle with scrap electrical wire. I pushed the tomato seedling into the hole after cutting the newspaper open a bit. It seemed to work and the tomato is still in the bucket. It is has started growing upwards as someone told me it would. If this works it is a great space saving way to grow tomatoes.

The thing is you need some place in the sun that you can hang the buckets from. A very tall tripod might work like the one we tried to build out of rebar.

Over at 18th and Rhode Island on Friday we planted more seedlings and a few more trees. Like I said we harvested a lot of fava beans and there are more coming. It is a pretty hot site and with this hot spell I hope things get watered well. I think with gardens all over we need to set up drip irrigation systems. If anyone knows where to get tubing and parts for cheap or free let me know.