Mister Thankful

I love this time of year, not just because I am a Scorpio. But because this is really the last big harvest time and it really is a season of thankfulness culminating in Thanksgiving Day. I get annoyed when people call it Turkey Day, because that is so much what it is not about. I was talking to a fellow gardener in the morning yesterday and I was telling her that I am always feeling grateful and that it must come from being a gardener for so long. We talked about the Free Farm Stand and she likes it because it brings people closer to the source of their food and thus closer to the people who grew it, and closer to the land and earth where it grew, and ultimately closer to the power of creation. That being in touch with that source of everything can't help us all feel a little bit thankful. That is why we celebrate the harvest. The farm stand is a spiritual celebration perhaps in disguise and a weekly chance to feel thankful (thankful for the food that grows, thankful for the farmers who share their leftover produce with us, thankful for all angels that pop into my life like the volunteers who help run the stand or pot up seedlings to give away, thankful for all the neighbors that come and get food and feed their families healthy food, thankful for those gardeners who share their extra garden bounty with us, thankful for people who bring their stories to share, thankful for friends new and old, thankful for the ability to be kind). And gardening and growing food and flowers gives us gardeners the excuse for being a bit crazy, talking to our plants, praying for rain or a good crop, keeping in touch with the plant fairies, and knowing that we are all blessed. A woman brought some herbs to the stand yesterday and I was admiring her t-shirt. It said " Radical Transformation", and it showed graphically the stages of a seed sprouting. That miracle of a seed coming alive is what it all about. I am Mister Thankful!

So yesterday I guess I was feeling kind of heady. I also enjoyed meeting a woman named Grace who had two children Generosity and Clarity. And another appropriate thing happened yesterday. I met Autumn who came by later in the day and played her violin while people picked up produce and bread.

I am getting very little from the gardens right now. I forgot to pick some wax peppers that were in Treat Commons and my backyard will have some mixed greens soon. But the farmers market saved the day again with loads of greens of all kinds (kale, mustard and turnip greens, bok choy, and stir fry mix). I also had a lot of organic celery. A woman who works at Marin Roots came by with a box of the most beautiful organic chard. She said her boyfriend who I met (he was an angel too and had the Om symbol sewed on his funky cool designer shirt) carried the box on his bike that he amazingly rode to the stand .

The chard was nice because Sara had written and printed out out a nice leaflet in Spanish explaining how to grow swiss chard on one side and how to cook it on the other side.

Marcus showed up with a two containers of tomatillos from a garden in a children's playground in Golden Gate Park (I need to ask him more about the location). He said the kids husked a lot of them and they looked pretty shiny in the sun. I also met his mother and his grandmother, and the mother is a gardener too.

Christy gave me some beautiful garlic that her sister in law grew in Marin and I got some pineapple guavas from a woman who grows them in Noe Valley that works with me at Martin de Porres on Tuesdays. I also got a bag of them from a man named Luke who sells them at the Alemany and Civic Center markets. He came to help at the 18^th and Rhode Island garden and I enjoyed working with him a lot. Corrine came by with the only lettuce we had that I think she grew at her plot in White Crane Springs Community Garden. I also had a small amount of the yellow currant tomatoes. I met a woman named Winter who called me who was moving to New York and was looking for someone to take her plants that were on her South of Market roof. I took all the plants and a couple of tomato plants had fruit on them which I harvested.

I picked olives from a neighbors tree with a new helper named Samantha and was lucky they didn't have the larvae from a olive fly in them. I met another man who went around to a lot of olive tres in the city and they all had larvae in them he said. I gave some away at the stand to people who said they would process them and eventually we will have some cured olives to give away. Our Mediterranean climate is so unique and it was pointed out to me there are only a handful of places in the world where we get this weather. And with the weather comes this season of figs, persimmons, olives, pineapple guava, and pomegranates (I haven't seen pomegranates growing here though I have rooted one and had another one growing in a pot that hasn't fruited yet).

We also had a huge amount of bread and at the end of the day I just had some tomatillos left (all the other produce was completely gone and the bread too). On the way home I gave some tomatillos to a woman with two kids who I recognized who was going to put the fruit in her smoothies that she makes. Ok.

Sheryl from church took home the funky apples and made delicious apple sauce which we gave away. I especially love sharing it with the kids.

18^th and Rhode Island report

Friday we had the best workday ever! We had fifteen people come by to help us move about thirty yards of chips and a thousand pounds of cardboard. And it is nice we take a break to eat lunch together and we get to know each other. The whole site is now almost finished being sheet mulched and the berms done (we had another workday on Saturday and a lot more of the mulch was moved off of the street where it was dropped…though we didn't finish). We have canceled the next Friday workday though Saturday starting around 11 we hopefully will be doing something there, maybe planting.

Spare Change

A farm stand friend sent me an email that said Obama is asking for your input...It read "share with us [the Office of the President –Elect at change.gov] your concerns and hopes]. I thought wow, do we got some spare change available? Are we really entering another time in history like the sixties perhaps that we can imagine anything in our heads and go out and try to make it happen? Like the crazy idea of starting a Free Farm Stand and creating a neighborhood where there are gardens everywhere and no vacant lots growing weeds and collecting trash. And neighbors helping each other growing food and sharing it with each other and all the ignored fruit trees hidden in backyards getting picked.

Or how about this wild dream, a wild foods CSA? I met a man named Iso at the stand yesterday from a company he is trying to start called Forage (a wild foods co-operative). Yes you can dream up anything and try to make a go of it. He was hitting up the stand for any food that might be available for a dinner he is organizing to get local forages together (foraging the free farm stand I guess). I would just encourage Iso to step aside from the business model and make Forage a free thing, sharing the abundance of this earth freely rather than look at it as something to sell or barter and make a business around it.

Our November weather was so gorgeous and warm at the farm stand yesterday and the week before too (maybe this is global warming?). It seemed to bring a lot of people outside into the park. The farm stand was bustling with people not only getting food, but a lot of people wanting to help out in some way. Volunteers were shelling walnuts, running the stand, potting up baby seedlings, and talking to people with questions. And then some of them later in the day ran over to the All in Common Garden down the street to help out there! I can't say how appreciative I am of all the help I have gotten recently and especially some of the helpers who have been coming regularly and during the week as well. We still need Spanish speakers to show up regularly to help explain things, like how to cook the greens we are giving out, to answer garden or plant questions, or to find out what people need to start their own garden.

The produce coming out of the gardens I am working in is coming to a trickle. I was able to harvest some kale and chard, a few hot peppers, and a few tomatoes, mostly green. It must be true with other gardeners, because I am getting less produce from them also. A woman at church Sheryl gave me a handful of tomatoes from her garden in Berkeley and she knew the name of all the varieties. She said the Black Prince tomato was a good one. Later in the day a friend came to the stand and then left and brought back some tomatoes from his garden, mostly green ones. I told a woman who was there about them because I knew she liked green tomatoes, she likes to fry them up. One sad thing is that I got a lot of pineapple guavas from a woman who brought them to Martin de Porres where I volunteer. I took what others didn't want to bring to the stand, but I forgot to bring them. A neighbor Fred brought over a big box of Eureka lemons, some that were gigantic.

I got a lot of different kind of greens from the Ferry Building Farmers market, mustard, kale, dandelion greens, and tatsoi. Also I scored a box of Hachiya persimmons and various winter squashes.

One other nice thing that happened at the stand is that Jamie who rescues the bread and brings it to the stand had the day off and came by. She told everyone what all the different kinds of bread were...there were so many I am not sure if I will remember them all.

A Fig Tree Story and a Fruit Picking Report

Last week at the farm stand Gina told me that I could come over to her house the next week to pick figs that were ripening on her tree. Thy wanted to help, so we decided to pick on Thursday. Thy and I carried the 14' aluminum orchard ladder about a couple of blocks away from my backyard. When Gina opened the gate to her back yard and I saw the fig tree and the green figs on the tree I immediately felt a connection with it. Like I was meeting someone I had known already.

Years ago a neighbor named Tony, an older Italian guy gave me a fig tree that he liked a lot, he said it was a Genoa fig and that he grew it too. Tony gardened at the Potrero de Sol Community Garden and he was one of my garden teachers. He really had gardening in his blood and was fun to talk to. I knew he also lived nearby and I may even walked by his house sometime. Anyway, as Tony got older his family got concerned about his health and safety and he wound up moving back to Italy. My fig tree has never produced very good figs and unfortunately I never talked to him about why, they get big and soft, but are not sweet and nor flavorful.

When I saw the tree in Gina's backyard I recognized it as being the same kind of fig that I was growing and after questioning Gina about it, I figured out that this was the tree that Tony had planted and this was his former home. I felt his vibe coming out of the tree communicating to me! It turns out though that his figs were really delicious and had a beautiful red color inside, where my fig is white or light amber inside with little sweetness.

On left my fig, in basket Gina's fig, Black Jack fig grown in Now Valley

Unfortunately the tree was in a pretty shady spot at that time and a lot of the figs were covered with the white/grey fuzz of mold on them.

We picked a lot of figs though, some were ripe and others were firmer.

Gina said they would ripen. I added the ripe ones to a fruit salad I was making for a bunch of people because I knew they wouldn't last until Sunday. And as it turns out some of the figs rotted by Saturday, though we still had a lot to give out at the stand.

On Saturday Brother Max and I went apple picking in Noe Valley. Thanks to Cynthia who turned me on to an ad posted on a parents group email, I connected with a couple that had an apple tree loaded with apples in their backyard. They had more than they could eat or deal with. This time when I saw the tree I made no psychic connection, but felt an excitement seeing how many apples there were. I soon realized I underestimated how many empty crates we would need. There were apples all over the ground and the woman said they had fallen about a week ago.

Picking apples with a view

We spent about an hour or so first just picking up all the apples on the ground, separating the perfect ones, the ones for sauce, and the ones for compost. We were surprised how most of the apples on the ground were in pretty good shape. And they tasted good, I am guessing that they are Jonathan apples but I am not sure. In about two hours we had a lot of apples. I need to get a scale so we can document how much food we are collecting each week. Besides the figs and apples we gave away, I made apple sauce and gave some away at the stand, and again it was very popular. As I was closing up I still had some apples and a woman came over and got some and then came back for more to make some sauce with. She said her son hardly ever eats apples, but loves these and has eaten a couple already.

One thing I have learned from picking fruit trees for the free farm stand is that most of the trees need pruning. I am in a dilemma because I somewhat feel a responsibility to help take care of the trees I have picked. But that is a lot of work and right now not only do I not have all the equipment to make it possible to prune the trees, I am not sure if I have the skills (like getting to the top of really tall trees). And it would be a lot of work and a big time commitment. Even if I had a crew of volunteers, just organizing a a pruning event would take time to figure things out (including dealing with the pruned branches). I wonder what other gleaning or fruit picking groups do?

Free Farm Stand gets a donation

I just got an anonymous donation of $3,000 to support the Free Farm Stand. I want to sometime form a non-profit group, but for now I am working with a friend who runs a non-profit group called CORE that will be my fiscal sponsor. I don't have any immediate plans to spend the money, but there are two connected projects I am working on that could possibly use some funds. One project that I am working on with some people is to extend the mini-orchard in Treat Commons Community Garden into the park (Parque Niños Unidos). I just heard that Jared Blumenfeld the interim Park and Recreation director is interested in creating more sustainable parks and now would be the ideal time to contact him about this idea. I would love to purchase trees soon since it is bare root season in less than a month. If anyone wants to help make this idea of an edible park move forward please contact me soon.

Permaculture Forest Garden report

Last Friday was a good workday at 18^th Street and Rhode Island. We had two more loads of chips and composted chips dropped on the sidewalk and we brought in one more bale of cardboard. A number of volunteers showed up and we got more sheet mulching done, plus another berm built, plus we raised the level of the other berms. We also had a meeting and talked about the goal of building a "forest garden" (according to Wikipedia, "a food production and land management system based on replicating woodland ecosystems, but substituting trees (such as fruit or nut trees), bushes, shrubs, herbs and vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans. By exploiting the premise of companion planting, these can be intermixed to grow on multiple levels in the same area, as do the plants in a forest. "After the meeting I am a little more comfortable with what we are doing, mainly because we will be planting lots of fruit trees (and again maybe some money can go into purchasing trees soon for this). I must admit I still want to do some farming the more conventional, organic, double dig way, but will continue to work on this project since I am learning more about Permaculture and the food will go to projects like the Free Farm Stand. A lot of neighbors came by and one woman with her child wound up making it to the farm stand on Sunday and wants to get involved. We still have wood chips on the sidewalk that we have to move and perhaps next Friday we will start planting. Check out the website for more information (link on the right side of this page).

Misc. photos from Thy

I love these photos so much that I just got from Thy I am posting a lot.

the pumpkins were grown in a couple of local gardens

Whenever I open the garden gate at Treat Commons I get a lot of helpers

Walnuts from my backyard that we gave away

about a month ago

Photos from the Free Farm Stand Side Show

A beautiful table full of local produce

Beautiful VolunteersChild laborCamilla and her brotherNice hands and nice radishesA bag of local applesGranny Smith apple
The plant standThe Cooking Demo

The Free Farm Stand Side Show

This week's Free Farm Stand was a bit overwhelming to me and it seemed a little over the top with the crowds. First of all, Antonio brought by all these bicyclists from his 2^nd In Search of Good Food Bicycle Tour. There might have been 30 or more people who showed up and the plan was I was supposed to talk to them about the stand. I am starting to feel like it is a mistake to host these tours, because it is too much for many reasons. I started feeling like I was more of a performer than I really wanted to be, like I was in some kind of side show act. "Step right up and see Tree and his Free Farm Stand Act." Also, I wound up being busier than I like and having a hard time talking to people who were coming to the Free Farm Stand not only for the tour, but to get food, etc. I hope I inspired some people to go out and garden and grow some food at the bare minimum. I spoke in favor of abandoning our current ways we think about our economic situation and how to tackle it…moving beyond the tired ideas of building a green economy and providing social justice work, or hiring homeless people to learn skills like growing food. Can't we just grow food and share the surplus and have fun meeting all our neighbors and new friends who come by our gardens? I was just reading the blog for Forage Oakland http://www.forageoakland.blogspot.com/ and her October 28 manifesto is an example of something I am writing about, a model of doing something that is beautiful, fresh, and exciting. She was writing about a passion fruit vine with fruit on it in her neighborhood that she showed her friend. Then her friend went to a restaurant to show them the fruit and to see if they would want it for their pastries (without consulting her or the neighbors whose house it was growing at). "I found it alarming that the immediate reaction was to commodify the passion fruit." That is the problem there in a nutshell, that a lot of people want to commodify everything in our world, and that was what I was trying to explain at my talk which I am not sure I got across.

After my talk to the bicyclists I did meet a couple of nice people who I talked to directly and it felt better talking to them one on one.

Fortunately I continue to have a great crew of people who are helping me set up the table and run the stand so I am more available to talk to visitors. By the way, I didn't have a camera this week to document the scene. People are supposed to send me photos so until they arrive you will just have to use your imagination to see things.

At the very beginning two kids Camilla and her brother helped me set up the stand and put things on the table. They seemed to be around through most of the time the stand was open and it was fun having them around. The young boy told me at his school they have a garden and he seemed to know a bunch of stuff about worms and compost, etc.

The Secret Garden is getting less sun every day, but I still harvested small amounts of broccoli, chard, lettuce, kale, and one zucchini. I harvested the kohlrabi leaves as there wasn't enough sun to get it to make kohlrabi and the aphids were moving in. In Treat Commons I harvested some more yellow peppers, a few rocoto peppers, basil (the perennial African Blue Basil is still growing strong and the other basils are about over for picking), some kale, and a handful of cape gooseberries.

At the permaculture guild meeting on Wednesday Tara brought a small amount cherry tomatoes (three kinds) from her garden in Visitacion Valley. On Friday at the work day at 18^th St. and Rhode Island Christy brought some apples from her CSA box that she couldn't use and some small pumpkins, a bunch of chives, and the end of the tomatoes from Corona Heights Garden.

I got a lot of left over vegetables from the Ferry Building Farmer's Market. A lot of salad mix, shelling peas, some beautiful red speckled beans for shelling, green beans, beets, radishes, and chard.

My new friend Marcus showed up with the last of his beautiful peaches. He mentioned that they were dirty and should be washed. I noticed this too when I picked peaches near Mclaren Park. He takes the cake for being a saint, just dropping off some peaches and not taking anything for himself. Another new friend dropped off some tomatillos and a small amount of Aloe Vera. There were also a bag of figs that showed up and a new neighbor came by with a bag of apples from her trees. Granny Smith and Fuji.

Cooking Demonstration

I put up a sign about a cooking demonstration that Nosrat had the original idea of organizing. At around 2pm Nosrat showed how to make a vegan pesto using what we had on the table. He brought some garlic and olive oil, and we had basil from the garden there and walnuts from my backyard tree. He set up a blender and whipped it up and put it on the bread we had (again we got a large amount from our Acme angel) that he sliced up. Sara translated the talk into Spanish and there was a good turnout. Then I showed how to cook the greens we had on the table (a mix of kale, chard, and mustard). I used the wok I brought and put it on the nice portable stove Nosrat brought. Again, Sara translated. People seemed to like the greens, and it was great to see all the kids try it out. It seems with the kids coming to the stand, if you it make it like a party with food they want to try it.

Plant Stand Expansion

Earlier in the week I spoke with some new friends that go to SF State who are eager to get involved in gardening and growing food and want to work with the farm stand. I talked about the part of the Free Farm Stand that needs work on which is outreach to neighbors to help them set up gardens and grow food in their backyards if they have space. I talked about my desire to improve the plant stand area and to have it be a place where someone would be there staffing the table, taking to people about the plants we are giving away, answering people's garden questions, providing garden advice, and offering support for people that want to start a garden. Sara made a nice sign in English and Spanish for the table and a number of people potted up seedlings and labeled them. I also saw some kids get involved in planting the seedlings into bigger pots. I think we have a ways to go with having it work out more smoothly, but I thought it was a good start.

Kier from SF State brought his hand drum and at one point got the attention of people in the park by drumming, and Skyler joined in with the flute. Kier told me he started a Free Farm Stand at SF State by giving away the produce from their garden on campus.

18^th and Rhode Island Progress

The last Friday workday was pretty successful. A lot more people showed up and we got almost two more berms installed with 20 plus yds of chips laid down on 2 thousand pounds more of cardboard. There will be another work day on Friday and a workday on Saturday perhaps. We have been talking about having a workday every other Saturday maybe alternating Fridays and Saturdays. But this week we want to finish sheet mulching the entire site

Finishing the 2nd bermCardboard sheet mulching team

Ready for wood chips

Moving huge amounts of compost

Finished for the day

News about the Victory Garden across from City Hall

I just got this email about the Victory Garden closing down and what is happening to it. A couple of weeks ago I heard about the city giving land to Project Homeless Connect at 16th and 7^th St. (I think about an acre!). Right now there is concrete there. Here is the email:

Hello-

I want to begin by thanking all of you who have been involved in the Victory Garden project over the past few months. The garden has been a huge success and we could not have done it without the amazing volunteer support from all of you!

As many of you may know, the garden is being removed from Civic Center Plaza beginning on November 23rd. While it will be sad to see the garden go, we do have exciting news about its future! All of the materials are being moved to another site in the City where Project Homeless Connect will create a permanent educational food garden for the homeless community. We are very excited about this garden, and are grateful for the opportunity to donate the Victory Garden materials to such an amazing new project.

Between Sunday 11/23 and Friday 12/5 (excluding Thanksgiving weekend) we will be needing volunteer help as we disassemble the garden and move it to its new location. We will be potting up perennial plants and herbs, taking apart the straw wattle beds and fence, moving soil, hauling materials, disassembling irrigation, and more. This will be hard manual work, but should be fun and rewarding. Many of the tasks will require heavy lifting (35+ lbs) and as there is a lot of work to be done in a short amount of time we ask that volunteers commit to their scheduled shifts, and show up on time and ready to work.

If you are able to volunteer on any of the days listed below please let me know. We will be working from 8:30am-4:30pm. Full day and half day (8:30-12:30 or 12:30-4:30) shifts are available and lunch and other goodies will be provided for volunteers!

Sunday 11/23
Monday 11/24
Tuesday 11/25
Wednesday 11/26
Monday 12/1
Tuesday 12/2
Wednesday 12/3
Thursday 12/4
Friday 12/5

Thank you again for all of your help over the past months. We could never have done this project without you!

Best,
Anna Fleishman
Victory Garden Coordinator
Slow Food Nation
609 Mission Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
415.369.9950 T
415.369.9951 F

Talk about the homeless and Slow Food Nation, someone sent me a flyer with information and guidelines for staff and volunteers when they had the Slow Food Nation event in September across from City Hall. She was somewhat upset with part of what she read: "Handouts: Please do NOT give food, samples, or leftovers of any kind to any homeless person, at any location, under any circumstances. Word will spread of free food and we will soon have an encampment…" I wonder if the people who wrote these guidelines are going to be working on the new homeless garden?

I am excited about another garden springing up in the city and hope it can become a beautiful oasis in an industrial freeway dominated landscape.