The Greens Festival

While the Green Festival was happening South of Market, the Free Farm Stand was having it’s own “Greens Festival”, greens as in chard, kale, mustard, collards, and amaranth (and no green as in money). Here is the scoop. A field at Green Gulch Farm was about to get plowed under so a number of Zen students gleaned the greens and we scored 40 boxes of fresh, delicious and nutritious organic greens. I takes a lot of time and work to glean a field of greens and I am so appreciative of the work my friend Joanne and her fellow zen students do. I dropped off more than half of the greens at two pantries on the Friday and Saturday and a two boxes were distributed in low income neighborhoods in Oakland. We also had some chard that was gleaned from a former myfarm garden in the city (I think 4 boxes) and later in the day another myfarmer showed up with some baby chard and other greens. Because there were so many greens I postponed harvesting the many greens growing in two gardens right now. As you might remember last week, 14lbs of greens were harvested from just the Permaculture Garden and I think there are that many more ready to be picked now.

Our greens festival was very well attended and there were lots of things going on. Tom came in from Santa Rosa with a lot of different squash, including the huge and handsome blue Zappallo winter squash that was too big to put on the table. I told Lauren this squash was so beautiful I was thinking of sleeping with it (I didn’t). Tom wrote this little piece about this squash that I am sharing an excerpt with you here :

Iris and I collected the seed to grow this squash in the little
town where she was born in the Peruvian Andes. It was
grown by a friend of ours here in Sonoma Co. Like all winter
squash it can be prepared in many ways. I am including an
easy receipt for cream of zapallo soup in Spanish. …
the sharing of food and recipes amongst people
has got to be one of the most ancient and honorable ways to
build friendships and community. Sure this large squash is
intimidating, but think of it as an opportunity to share and to grow.

I have some seeds that Tom scooped out and I dried to plant next year. We also had some small kabocha squash from 18th and Rhode Island and a box of mixed squash and gourds from Green Gulch. Bryce scooped out the seeds of the squashes, many which were dark orange inside, and shared them with people to take home and roast and eat. At least one person took seeds home to plant. I told him that unless the flowers were isolated the bees will pollinate them and if other squashes were growing nearby they were cross pollinated resulting in something different from the parent. You might not get something edible, but maybe a decorative gourd like squash.

All the greens were given out except one box (people were taking home a lot of greens). I took the extras home and made a lot of baked kale, one of my new favorite ways of cooking greens. I had mostly Dino Kale (also called Tuscan or Lacinato Kale) which works best, but any kind will be good. I strip off the leaves from the stems unless they are thin and tender or I want more fiber and like to chew. I wash them and let them drain a bit. I put the kale in a bowl and mix with a small amount of olive oil (or olive oil with crushed garlic). Then I put them on a baking tray. I try to make one layer of leaves if I want crunchy “kale chips”. Or you can pile on more leaves on the tray and have baked kale. The oven should be pre- heated to about 300-350˚, the hotter the faster they bake but you have to watch them more carefully. You take them out whenever they are as crispy or chewy as you like.

I actually started eating large amounts of kale starting Saturday. I made kale salad for a pot luck, which is another good easy way to serve kale. I had some left over so I brought to the stand thinking it is a good dish to share with people and show them a way to use kale. Pancho served it right next to boxes of kale and talked to everyone about how it was made (I think he is a good saleman especially to the Spanish speaking crowd).

Here is the recipe:I just took 1/3rd cup of lemon juice, 1/3rd cup of soy sauce or tamari, 1/3rd cup of sesame oil (not toasted) and mixed with two bunches of curly kale that were washed and drained. Any kind of kale would work, but tender curly kale is our favorite. On top we sprinkle roasted pumpkin or sunflower seed. I also like to sometimes add ground toasted sesame seeds.

When the kale salad ran out Yasue who gardens in Treat Commons brought leftover salad that she had made for an event Saturday night. It was hands down the most delicious quinoa salad I have ever eaten and I must get the recipe from her. I actually didn’t know that it had quinoa in it, maybe I just scarfed it down too fast to notice, but it looked like coleslaw with red and green cabbage, carrots, seaweed in it and some special dressing mixed in. Earlier my friend Craig who has a taco truck with solar panels on it and plans to run a vegan restaurant out of it, came by and parked across the street. When all the salad was gone he pulled out another green salad with all kinds of things in it and that was soon all eaten. Then he cooked up some really yummy noodles with vegan sausage. Though it was getting towards the end of the day for the stand, somehow a lot of people came by and ate all the food. Pancho was surprised by all the local kids who were playing in the park coming by and asking for salad and then really eating it.

While the greens festival was happening, across the street there was something else going on besides the rockin' solar powered vegan taco truck. Someone had dumped the entire contents of someone's apartment in the parking lot and the site became an instant free store. Some of our shoppers went over and brought the stand more baskets to put produce in. I heard stories of good finds and saw some of the treasures people had dug up. It was a non-stop scene for hours of people picking through junk. I really believe every neighborhood should have a free store that is well stocked and taken care of.

On Saturday I went with some friends to Berkeley to attend the California Rare Fruit Growers monthly meeting. I was particularly interested in the topic for the meeting which was fruit tree propagation. Although I have had some luck grafting plums, pears, and apples, I really want to learn how to propagate avocado trees. It is easy to grow avocados by seed, but you have to graft them if you want to get reliable fruit of good quality. Also, if you want to have avocados year round you need to propagate different varieties.

This club that I am a member of is really the best resources for meeting pother fruit growers and learning the skills of growing fruit trees. If we are serious about growing more local food we have to learn these skills. I lucked out that at the meeting I was able to pick up a branch of an Bacon avocado tree and I am going to use that to try splicing or grafting it onto some young seedlings I have grown. I also got a personal lesson from one of the old timers there that has had success propagating avocados. I am going to have a very small workshop Wednesday afternoon at 1:30pm at my house where I will show a video about grafting avocados and then we will try it ourselves. I am interested in having people attend who are really serious about learning these skills so we can grow fruit trees and distribute them free to our neighbors.

Before we went to the meeting we stopped by the edible schoolyard and participated in a work day there. The school, MLK Middle School, is truly an inspiring place, and it is hard to believe it exists, it is almost surreal. Just the amount of land they have to grow food on for a school is amazing (apparently some of the land was formerly a parking lot). I was blown out that in the city they have a deer problem chewing the lower leaves of the espaliered trees. I also got to meet Wendy Johnson of Green Gulch and author of the fabulous book “Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate”. Wendy told me every public school in Berkeley has a garden though I don’t know if they take the garden as serious as they do at the Edible Schoolyard. We have a lot of catching up to do with Berkeley here in San Francisco and I think that will mean digging up some parking lots just to get space to grow gardens (I don’t think we are at the point where we can dig up streets). There are a lot of locals talking the talk like the mayor, but I am waiting for the walking part. It is up to us to make this garden revolution happen in San Francisco. I know of a number of people wanting to plant a garden either in a backyard or some other place or who need help maintaining existing gardens. People are often writing me because they are excited about the Free Farm Stand and want to help. This is the way to make the stand more real, by growing more food to share with those in need.

Peak of Summer?

I wonder if we in San Francisco have reached the peak of summer harvest season yet. Certainly the Treat Commons Community Garden is looking pretty green and lush right now. We are getting a lot of scarlet runner beans and the yellow zucchini are producing some squash. Some tomatoes are just starting to turn red. My backyard garden, having been neglected for two weeks looks pathetic in terms of what is growing and needs to be replanted. The Secret Garden is look pretty good now with a lot of kale growing and in maybe two weeks it will be ready to harvest. And of course the plum trees and loquats there have masses of fruit (though the plums are mostly bland and tiny and the trees need a lot of pruning and thinning).

I know when you go to the farmers markets now they are overflowing with summer produce and I am starting to feel a little frustrated being an urban farmer and not having rows and rows of foods that I am growing at this time of year. Quite frankly it is embarrassing. I was thinking I should be an apprentice at some farm. I am really attracted to the work of John Jeavons who started a project called Ecology Action in Willits that has a mini-farm. He is famous for popularizing double digging and the biodynamic French intensive method of growing food. It is truly inspiring to me. His most known book is How to Grow More Vegetables. When I visited his place years ago I was impressed how seriously he takes food growing and also making his knowledge available worldwide, especially in poor countries.

The table looked good though despite all my grumbling. We had scarlet runner beans from Treat Commons and purple and green beans from my backyard. There was a ton of salad mix from my backyard and the Secret Garden, and some from Treat Commons too. There were beets from the Ferry Building Farmer's Market (I am pretty happy that beets are so popular!). From Treat Commons we also had a couple of yellow zucchini, some carrots (also some from my backyard), white sage (for incense), African Blue basil, a couple of cucumbers, some flowers, a few artichokes. I also harvested a lot of loquats and plums, and I brought some Cape Gooseberries from my backyard (see below). Also, Ariel (who put together the youtube video for the Bay Guardian) and her friend whose name I have forgotten brought by some herbs and some shiso seedlings that were a great contribution.

Kale from the Jail

I got a huge donation of organic kale from the County Jail Garden Project. Rita who runs the Mission Reading Program on 24^th Street was looking for someone to give a lot of zucchini and tomato plants away to and I was alerted by a neighbor about this. So I picked up at least 20 plants in gallon pots and I found out they were grown by the Garden Project at the San Bruno jail. I have wanted to contact them for a long time and mentioned it to Rita. Then she called me on Friday and she had two big boxes of fresh delicious kale (my favorite vegetable) for our program. I managed miraculously to put it all in my refrigerator (plus giving away some to friends and neighbors) and brought it to the stand Sunday. I may be on the lookout for a free or cheap working and energy efficient refrigerator if this keeps up. I still had a lot of kale left over despite having given away a lot. So I cooked up a bunch of kale the way I like it best. Chop up the washed kale small. Chop up about two or three big cloves of garlic. Heat some olive oil in a wok and when the oil is hot throw in the garlic. The oil will soak up the flavor. Toss in the kale and stir fry for about five -8 minutes until the greensare soft. I add a dash of tamari and serve. Anyone know the name for kale in Spanish?

Cape Gooseberries

I brought a basket full of a fruit I like a lot that I have always called ground cherries or husk tomatoes. I learned they have other names like Cape Goose Berry (Physalis peruviana).
They seemed to have roused a lot of interest among farm stand attendees. One thing about the free farm stand is I realize how much I have to learn because people ask so many darn questions about things. I know that these fruits are easy to grow and that they are delicious, that they are related to the tomatillo, that they seem to be perennial around here and they reseed easily, and are in the Chinese lantern family, because of the lantern look of the fruit with it's papery lantern like shell around the fruit. I looked up the fruit online and learned so much more.

http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/cape-gooseberry.html

The article mentions different cultivars that sound wonderful. I want to get seeds for them and try them out.

Good Neighbors

I really appreciate the opportunity to meet my neighbors and friends at the Free Farm Stand. It is hard to put it in words what community is and the value of it. But it certainly is a lot of fun and makes one feel good to get to know those people you live near and to have a chance to see friends in such a busy world. I liked getting the chance to hold Valentino yesterday, a tiny baby that is so cute, as cute as a cucumber. And it really is needed to feel positive in the city these days. For example, last week could have been a total bummer. Reading about some guy that was blasted away by a shotgun blast on Mission and 20^th St. and then my slum landlord neighbor for some unknown reason hiring a nice guy to chainsaw our beautiful stand of rare bamboo down in front of our building (plus he did in the bougainvillea, jasmine and trumpet vine tree). It may not be on his property (I now have to research the property line). It makes one angry and sad and if it wasn't for all the great neighbors who I meet over the years and my friends that I sometime get a chance to connect with, I would want to climb out of my clay shell and go somewhere else.

I also was so happy to work with Corinne again who opened the stand last week. I am really a guy who likes to work with others and not be a one man show, so it is great to slowly build a team to run this project. She is moving to the city and I think she may be looking for some great non-profit job. I would recommend her for sure. Hopefully her new job will give her time to continue working with the farm stand.

Here is a picture of two sisters that I have met relatively recently. Fillipa on the left works as the director of the clubhouse at the park and does such great work with the kids who go there for her programs. Andrea is her sister whom I am getting to know. Siblings like plant relatives are so much fun to be familiar with.

Gleaning

Fillipa suggested I put up a sign in the neighborhood saying that I am available to pick people's fruit trees. She knows of two neighbors with fruit trees that don't get picked. I think I will do that and let people know that the farm stand will take any fruit as well as pick it. I decided to wait on the berry picking on Bernal Hill until the berries get more ripe. Anyone want to join my fruit gleaning team?

A Busy Farm Stand

This week the stand was pretty busy, a lot of people came by. Most people that showed up were new, though we now have one or two regulars. One woman showed up pretty late and I was totally out of food.

Chard vs. Kale
I sometimes have the most wonderful meditative insights while simply working quietly in the garden. The other day, the Saturday before the last farm stand, I was thinking about a topic of discussion I have heard come up a lot, what are your favorite kind of greens to eat or grow?. I had just picked the most beautiful bouquet of swiss chard, the variety Bright Lights, that has a rainbow of colors (sometimes it is called Rainbow Chard). I have always been a kale kind of guy, I just love kale in so many ways (it grows well, relatively few insects bother it, it is nutritious because it is in the brassica family (once called the Crucifer family, meaning the cross family, because of their cross like seedling leaves). This family of plants that battles cancer with its armament of anti-oxidants, plus it has all the dark green leafy vitamins and minerals (but reading the latest Michael Pollan book In Denfense of Food I shouldn't get hung up with the nutritional aspects of these fabulous plants). Kale is not that popular yet at the free farm stand though, maybe because it isn’t a familiar food among Latinos. I don't even know the word for kale in Spanish. On the other hand, people like Chard more and I would love to grow a lot of it. Chard though is susceptible to leafminer and you basically can’t grow it except in the late fall and early winter (August and September or even later). Pam Pierce my garden guru writes about the leafminer on her blog
http://goldengategarden.typepad.com/golden_gate_gardener_/2008/04
/more-on-the-cha.html. As an experiment, a month ago I tried planting some chard, a variety I haven’t tried before called Perpetual Chard and so far it has been hit hard by that pesky leafminer and it looks rather sad.

Anyway, I was standing in the garden with the most beautiful two bunches of chard. They were survivors and had somehow avoided leafminer damage. Their beauty was something that left me in transfixed and I felt had to share this with the world. I tried to capture this experience digitally and below is my poor attempt:

I didn’t see who wound up getting the chard at the farm stand, but I hoped they enjoyed the beauty as well as taste.

Daydreaming Urban Farmer

I feel like I am slipping into more craziness every day. More daydreaming as I read seed catalogs. I am trying to order more lettuce mix seed and then I look at the cover of the seed catalog and see a woman harvesting beautiful lettuces standing in rows of lettuces that go on forever. Rows and rows of colorful happy lettuces with the blue sky and sun shining down on a farm somewhere probably in Maine (that is where the seed company is located). I day dream of cities having farms that I can work on, how joyous that could be. I am reminded that I am an urban farmer and that urban farmers don’t have farms (except there is the fabulous four acre Alemany Farm). I remember maybe 10 or 15 years ago there used to be a couple of commercial farms in the city which I visited, unfortunately they aren't here any more. Urban Farmers have at best mini-farms and gardens. Urban farmers like me may have to be mobile and go from garden to garden, and harvest a little here and a little there. It sort of works. And Free Farm Stands have to depend on Grace (we all do any way) and other gardeners and gleaners sharing their bounty.

More on the topic of urban farming

At the free farm stand this week a woman came by who is trying to find a neighborhood to live in. She had been investigating places to garden and checking out community gardens. She sort of complained that many gardens she investigated had waiting lists to get a plot, but that it looked like a lot of the plots looked like they were not really being used or cared for. I know about that from being the coordinator of our community garden. It seems people like the idea of gardening more than they have the time to garden (or make the time). I just hope that I can inspire people to spend some time gardening. It may be a selfish thing; I love the idea of hanging over a fence and chatting with a neighbor about gardens (I don’t do this yet with our my neighbors, though they let me pick their lemon tree and their kids came over when we were extracting honey). I dig it when I can work with someone in their garden or mine and have a good time talking and working. Last week I got a chance to work with Christy in the Corona Heights Garden where she has a plot, helping her get their compost bins in better shape. It was fun and sweaty.

Farming on roofs and edible parks?

Today I joined a bunch of Permaculture Guild people to do a site analysis of the Chronicle roof garden. A few students taking the ongoing urban permaculture class are going to redesign the garden on the roof on top of the Chronicle building downtown as their project. One idea is that the garden could perhaps grow food for the Free Farm Stand. I have never taken a permaculture class and was interested how permies as they are called approach gardening. I found the experience fun and educational. It seemed like the permaculture approach was a bit heavy on the scientific and technical approach, though I appreciate where they are coming from. Knowing the lay of the land and such. Maybe we should have all sat on the roof and meditated on what the space was saying to us all. There were two fruit trees that looked pretty happy in their pots, and they were for sure winking or smiling at me when I looked at them. I didn't share this with the group. I felt a bit disoriented up there and imagined myself traveling up the elevator with a wheelbarrow of manure. Turns out there were two roofs with the possibility of being gardened. The other roof was much higher up and was a larger space. It really felt surreal is all I can say.

Kevin told me some good news earlier, that there were some students that want to design the neglected space in the park where the farm stand is located. The idea is to expand the food growing area outside the community garden into the park (edible parks!). This has been one of my fantasies for a long time and I hope having a good design will help convince the city to try it out.

What was on the table this week

I wonder if some people are curious what we have to give out each week. I work at Martin de Porres Soup Kitchen on Tuesdays and go through the boxes of donated produce they get from the Ferry Building Farmers Market on Saturdays. It is interesting that I am harvesting some of the same things that the farmers outside the city are growing and harvesting now. This week the kitchen had extra beets and small onions that they couldn’t use so I brought some to the stand and added them to the few onions and beets that I harvested from Treat Commons. Christy brought rhubarb from Corona Heights and some big heads of lettuce, chamomile and rosemary. I pulled up a lot of baby carrots from Treat Commons. My backyard and the Secret Garden are really slim pickings now..somehow I managed to harvest some lettuces and salad mix, and some greens from all the gardens. I am still picking lemons from a neighbor’s tree. The table looked really good despite it being a challenge to find produce to harvest and give away.

Two photos from last week

The man in the middle shared with me his recipe for nopales...I haven't tried it yet.

Mark takes beautiful photographs!

Season of Pleasing

Summer is Rockin

For all those keeping track of how things are going with the stand in terms of what we are giving away, let me tell you the last two weeks have been totally exciting. As soon as I got to the garden to set up, my friend Greg came by with the most beautiful arrangement of baby lettuces that her grew in his tiny, somewhat shady garden down the street. Then out of the blue a woman who lives in Bernal Heights showed up with a lot of produce. She grew it in a garden in San Mateo in friend's yard there. She brought a lot of purple string beans, some tomatoes and chili peppers, and a few zucchini. I picked a number of green scarlet runner beans from Treat Commons, a few green beans from my backyard and carrots, and a few zucchini from Treat Commons and the Secret Garden, and a handful of tomatoes from all the gardens I work in. I also continue to grow sprouts and sunflower greens, partly to inspire people to grow them in their own kitchens. The selection looked great so I captured it with these snapshots:

I forgot the woman's name, but she stuck around to help me set up and the display was very summery and impressive. Beth with the yellow plums from last week came again with three bags full (they were very tasty), another woman brought green apples from her three trees (they may have been picked a little early), I brought probably the last of the loquats from the Secret Garden (I had to climb the 14 ft orchard ladder to get them), and small plums from there too, salad mix from the Secret Garden and my backyard, garlic from San Bruno Jail Garden Projects, some beets from the Ferry Building Farmers Market, and kale from my backyard and Treat Commons. We also had a few flowers to share, some sunflowers and bachelor's buttons.

Here is me trying to give away kale at the end of the day. I asked everyone what the name for kale is in Spanish and no one really knew. Vanya suggested I say " como espinaca o acelgas pero mas duro". Maybe there isn't a word in Spanish for kale. Anyway, kale isn't as popular as other vegetables at our stand, but at the end I had only one bunch left. Some people like it and I am thinking of handing out a recipe for my favorite way of cooking it. It is still one of my favorite things to grow.

Plums and a way to cook stone fruit

San Francisco must have a lot of plum trees growing here. They are easy to grow, are low chill (means will grow without a lot of cold winters), and are pest free it seems. I think we need to grow more plums here if we want a lot of fruit, but we need to grow varieties that are tasty. Luther Burbank had it right going with the Japanese plum, and I love his Santa Rosa variety and the Satsuma plum. I have also tasted some other great plums like the Elephant Heart kind. I like the cross between the plum and apricot where the plum is dominate called Pluots. The Dave Wilson hybrid Dandy and Flavor Grenade are fantastic.

Here is my plum story for the week. I have been picking these small cherry size plums in the Secret Garden for weeks now. They are at best ok and people seem to like them. There are millions of them now. I was thinking that I need a real plum tree with bigger tastier plums. I wrote last week about a plum tree in our neighborhood that my friend George told me about. I decided to give them a week more on the tree, because they were not quite ripe and they were not too flavorful or sweet. I hooked my ladder onto my small bike cart (so proud of my eco-friendly efforts) and happily rode down the street to pick my new found tree. When I got to Juri Commons where the tree was overhanging from a neighboring yard I discovered the fruit had mostly all fallen onto the ground or some was picked. The tree still had about a half bucket of fruit on it which I picked, but it was still not very sweet nor tasty, though definitely ripe. So much for that. I must admit while picking the tree I was sort of expecting someone seeing me reaching over the fence into the neighbors yard and stealing their fruit. Maybe I should ask next time.

What is funny is that I put the half bucket of these plums on the table with the yellow plums that were very tasty, and the ok small cherry plums. A man came by who didn't speak English who wanted some plums. I tried to get him to take the yellow plums, but he chose the ones that looked more familiar to him, the ripe, flavorless plums from the Juri Commons tree.

Allegra is a new friend that has a recipe for cooking excess fruit, especially stone fruit like plums that she wanted me to share with people on my blog. I am posting this with some comments. First, I think it isn't worth cooking fruit down for sauce if it doesn't have much flavor to begin with. I have made a delicious sauce with small a little larger than cherry size plums that were tasty, but I added sugar to make them less tart. The problem with cooking stone fruit is you have to get rid of the pit which is labor intensive. And how does she peel the plum skin?

This is very easy, delicious and economical!

Cooked Stone Fruit - Easy and Delicious!

Carefully wash extra ripe or bruised fruit (peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums)
I suggest peeling plums, the skin is quite acid especially when cooked. All the other fruit can be cooked with skins left on. Discard pits of all fruit before cooking.

Cut off portions that are starting to spoil (dark, mushy parts)

Cut fruit in chunks or slices - slices will cook faster than chunks

In large saucepan, add small amount of water - enough to cover the bottom of pan (about 1/8th inch depending on size of pan. This will keep fruit from scorching pan.

As the fruit cooks it will render its own juice).

Over LOW heat, add fruit to saucepan or large pot, simmer covered for about 10 - 15 minutes. No need to add any sugar, the fruit is naturally sweet.

You may add a small amount of ground cinnamon or ground cardamom for added zest. I find that the fruit has its own unique, natural flavor.

Make sure the fruit does not boil heavily or cook too long unless you want fruit that is very mushy (think apple sauce consistency).

Either way you can eat this wonderful fruit compote warm, chilled or you can freeze it. Use yogurt cups or other heavy plastic cartons

(no glass as it could break when it freezes) to freeze in batches to be enjoyed long after the summer season... when you are "craving" those tastes of Summer!

The Secret Garden

Robert has finished his summer program of art and gardening with kids and the garden is looking pretty good with the work he did getting in some new double dug beds. With the seedlings we got from the Victory Garden across from city hall and the ones I grew, most of the beds are planted. I have already begun harvesting lettuce and kale for the farm stand. In the next week or so I want to organize some work brigades to do some pruning of the plum trees overhanging and shading the beds, replanting at least one of the raised beds, and cleaning up the composting area. I can use some help and will have a big work day on Saturday in the afternoon. Early in the week I will also work there, probably Tuesday morning, maybe Wednesday afternoon, or Friday. If anyone is interested please contact me for exact days and times. I am somewhat flexible with days and hours I can work.

A prayer for Sister Pat

This isn't really about the Free Farm Stand, but a beautiful and intense experience I had last week. I learned last Wednesday that a woman I had worked with for many years at Martin de Porres Soup Kitchen had collapsed suddenly while walking on Valencia Street and was in the hospital unconscious on life support. I learned that she didn't want to be on life support and later in the afternoon she was going to be taken off the machine. When I got to the hospital all her friends from Martin's and the nuns from the order she was a member of were there. I walked in the room where she was in bed and everyone was singing and many crying, including myself. It was such an emotional scene, both sweet and powerful. I can't really put it in words. She obviously was a wonderful person that affected so many lives and was much loved. She seemed to have a very peaceful transition and I think we all were glad that she suffered so very little in her leaving this world behind.

I just learned that another person I know has pancreatic cancer and is going to begin chemotherapy. Life can seem at times so short. Let's pray that we can appreciate life and all its mysteries and miracles. That we stay connected with our hearts to our friends and families, and that we may use our time here in positive ways.

PS

I forgot to mention the neighbor who lives across the street who brought a shopping bag full of organic melons ( watermelons and honeydews). Her house I think is a drop off point for a CSA (I can explain what a CSA is another time if people don't know...Terra Firma was the CSA) and she had a bunch leftover that people didn't pick up. They were given away in a blink of an eye. I had thought of snagging one for myself, but no chance.

The Pride Day Free Farm Stand

Someone at the Free Farm Stand yesterday asked me why I started this project and I stumbled around for words to answer her. Last night in a bit of a sleepy state I remembered one of my first inspirations for the stand was harvesting a lot of kale in my backyard and washing it and tying it up with an reused organic label wire. I was thinking how exciting it was to grow that large amount of kale; and to be able to give it away in a classy and beautiful manner to people that could use some free healthy produce. Peace Pilgrim spoke about us all having a personal calling in life and that we just need to look inside ourselves and figure out what our calling is and start following it. I know I have always had a calling to deal with food, to give it away in some manner or growing it. So my early inspiration for the Free Farm Stand was to grow a lot of beautiful food (and flowers too someday) and give it away as a gift to those in need.

I was reminded this week that I have been having a hard time fulfilling that original dream of growing a lot of food and giving it away. Last week I visit the Pe'ah Garden in the Home of Peace cemetery in Colma (it is really an acre farm). I have written about this farm in the past that grows food that is donated to the San Francisco Food Bank. Also, Jonathan has been teaching free gardening classes every Sunday out there that I having been putting on my events column for the last month. I knew I would be totally jazzed visiting this farm and I wasn't disappointed. I tell you something is genetically wired in me to get excited when I see large amounts of food being grown to feed the hungry. Thinking about it, I could see some possible improvements that could be made there in terms of the way they were growing things, but all the same there were rows and rows of beautiful organic broccoli, chard, tomatoes, and a big strawberry bowl with sweet strawberries ripe and ready to pick. I was literally overjoyed and feeling a definite pull towards that project. Plus Jonathan has use of a fabulous greenhouse. While I was there we planted two big trays of lettuce for the Free Farm Stand.

I started thinking that with my current situation of working in a number of small gardens, it is challenging to grow a lot of food like that (at least for the numbers of people that are coming these days…see below). I must constantly remind myself it is ok to not grow massive amounts of food. That I am doing the best I can with the space I have. And I have gardens that are small but still need a lot of attention (like my backyard that I have been trying to focus on recently). Anyway I am still meditating on this and am thinking about whether I should take Jonathan up on his offer for me to do some farming there at Pe'ah Garden or to stay more local. The advantage to gardening in the Mission or even Potrero Hill is that I can get volunteers more easily (Colma is a little harder to get to or at least more expensive if you take Bart which is only blocks from the garden/farm).

People lining up for produce seems to be the normal thing at the Free Farm Stand these days. It got really busy fast and I realized how spaced out I got. Fortunately we have some great volunteers that have been helping and I think things ran pretty smoothly, though it gets very hectic at the beginning.
On the local table I had 21 pounds of sweet purple plums that Erin and Asher gleaned in the Mission on Saturday. They also picked some lemons. I picked some lettuce and kale from the Secret Garden and yellow zucchini (also kale and zucchini from Esperanza Gardens and I think someone else brought some). From 18th and Rhode Island I picked about a pound of African Blue basil (which I left in my refrigerator hopefully for next week) and some chard. Page brought by a cauliflower and some spinach and a few artichokes from Holy Innocents. A woman brought some mint from her garden. The farmer's market table was loaded with produce and the bread table which we moved further away from the produce table had more than the usual amount of yeasty delights. The plant table was a little skimpy though we did have some seedlings to give away. I still would like to see us have one person to staff that table and be able to be there full time, offering garden advice and information. I am thinking I could do that if I could just train someone to take charge of the produce table. What happened this week is that we had a lot of helpers at the produce tables, but no one person taking real charge and making sure all the food was being put out. At the end we had a lot of basil left that fortunately Maggie took home with her to distribute somehow.


On Saturday night I happened to be walking near Dolores Park where I ran into the Free Tea Party Bus (http://freeteaparty.org/). I met Guisepi who started the project and a friend Sarah who was helping (she had come in from out of town). They had been serving free tea all day and were packing up (it was a busy day with the Pride Weekend bringing a lot of people out in the hot sun). Whenever I see something like a free project I like to check it out. It turns out that they had just heard about the Free Farm Stand by people who came by to get some free tea. I thought it was a beautiful project and then he offered to come by the Free Farm Stand and serve tea. When I got home I looked up their website and found it also very inspiring and it seemed we were on the same wave length. Here is some of what they say on the tea party web page:
MISSION:
The Free Tea Party cultivates community and encourages dialogue about peace, environment, and health through actions like serving free tea.

GOALS:
To bring people of all classes and colors, shapes and sizes, political beliefs and philosophies together in order to foster a connection between those who normally would never have connected in conversation. In this way valuable ideas can be shared and a human face can be put on people who one may have never related to before
They did show up and serve tea and it was very wonderful. We also had a preview taste of apricot jam from the apricots from last week, served on bread. And the herbal tea was not only cool and refreshing on the hot day it was, it tasted great. I gave them some fresh picked herbs and some honey for further tea parties. Can you imagine meeting a young man who realized that his calling in life is to serve free tea? It only confirms my belief that the "times they are a changing" again. That there are a lot of great things happening all over the world and we all need to continue the revolution/evolution by doing what we can to beautify the world and serve the poor.

Here is a good news flash. The project of planting fruit trees in the park where we have the Free Farm Stand is moving forward. I met with three big shots from Park and Recreation today and they ok'd a plan to fence off the unused and neglected part of the park for the mini-orchard (extending the garden into the park). And they will support me in applying for a grant that is coming up to put in the fence. I do believe that any urban revolution must include planting more fruit trees. I was really happy this Friday to see a small round avocado fruit on the Lamb Haas tree we planted at 18"th and Rhode Island.

The Free Salad Bar,albahaca, water, and more

Free Salad Bar

As I was washing the salad mix Saturday night, I was thinking I should have called this project the Free Salad Bar. If I can provide people every week with the fixings for a locally grown organic healthy salad I am doing good, really good. Anything else is extra exciting and wonderful! Some lettuce or salad mix, baby greens, a few edible flowers, maybe some herbs, and some home grown sprouts or baby sunflower greens and there you have the basics of a nutritious meal right out of the garden.

Ye of Little Faith

That is me plain and simple. The Free Farm Stand is helping me cultivate faith and grow hope. So again it seems to me the gardens are pretty sparse these days. Things are growing slowly and I am behind in planting with all this blogging on my part and other distractions of trying to do a big project. So once again I was in my corner worrying about what I was going to have to harvest. I repeated my mantra that things will work out. And they did and this week’s free farm stand was a big successes, I am truly amazed! First off, I heaved a big sigh when I heard that the MVS House (Mennonite Volunteer Service House with five volunteers) had grown too much lettuce and baby greens and was going to bring some over for the stand. Then I picked fava beans, a few green onions and some kale from the Secret garden, mint, kale, pansy and nasturtium flowers for the salad, a few leeks and carrots from Treat Commons. From my backyard, I was able to find some more lettuce and kale to harvest. I picked big funny mutant lemons from my neighbor again. Then Lyz brought some arugula, lettuce, mint, and parsley from her garden on Potrero Hill. And a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time showed up with a couple of Meyer lemons (I am not sure how she heard about this). Christy came through again with produce from Corona Heights garden (a couple of artichokes and some rhubarb from her bed and extra lettuce from Dave’s bed). And Margaret who I just met yesterday on the Neighborhood Empowerment Network tour (NEN… more about this later) came by as she said she would with extra oranges from her tree. All the amounts of stuff people brought were small, but put all together and it was impressive. And I had enough to give out food to at least fifteen or more people. I was too busy to count. And a lot of seedlings were given away on the free plant table outside the gate to the garden.

Albahaca

That is the new word I learned a today. I still could use help with someone who can speak Spanish being at the stand, I think it would improve things a lot. Anyway, this morning I was helping at Martin de Porres soup kitchen and they got a big bag of organic basil donated from the Embarcadero Farmers market on Saturday. They didn’t think it would be used, so they said I could have it for the stand. Whoopee! It was really beautiful fresh basil, all types, lemon basil, regular basil, and Thai basil. People were happy. And I asked a woman in my poor Spanish what the word of this vegetable is, and she didn’t know, but her friend did. Albahaca. When others came to the stand I was able to show off as I offered them basil.

Feeling less alone

When I got to the stand a number of neighbors showed up and helped me set up. A few of them just moved into the neighborhood and live together. Here is a group picture just before we opened:

Water

I have been thinking about water recently. It started when a friend who lives in Oakland came over two weeks ago and mentioned that water rationing began there. Then I was interviewed by another friend who is making a film about water and wanted me to talk about my digging a well with the people I lived with in 1975 during the drought we had in San Francisco then. But things really hit home when a third friend brought over a bunch of nice seedlings for the Free Farm Stand, tomatoes, flowers, and some other things. She had gotten them from the edible school yard in Berkeley. She said they were giving them away because of watering rationing there. She is down to two showers a week and mulches her in Oakland garden and waters carefully at the base of each plant. She is supposed to cut her water use by 19%. I have started getting worried that it may happen here and have started saving non-soapy kitchen water in a plastic barrel I got from Urban Ore and watering the garden with it. Too bad they don’t give you a break on water use if you are growing food. What I need now is a deep stainless steel sink with a drain board to wash all the vegetables and sprouts I am growing and harvesting that I can put in the garden, so the water goes right to the plants.

NEN Clean and Green Summit

Saturday I had signed up to attend the NEN Clean and Green Summit at Cesar Chavez School, right across the street from the Treat Commons Community Garden. On Friday I was asked last minute if I would be a host for the neighborhood tour that was part of the summit and talk about Treat Commons and the Free Farm stand. I said ok and spent the whole day talking really fast (being given 10 minutes to talk about the garden and the stand and show people around). I got to put in my pitch about planting nut trees on sidewalks and fruit trees in parks, among other things. And I met a lot of great people, including Margaret who came by today and not only brought oranges, but watered the garden.

One of the best things at the summit sounded like the talk on rain water catchment that my wife Angie attended. She thought both women who did the workshop did a great job in explaining how it can be done rather simply. She and Dave (who lives next to the Secret garden) think we should collect rain water for that garden.

Honey

I forgot to mention that I gave away some of the honey we took from the bees (I had brought about 20 4oz jars). I still need help putting the rest in jars. I must admit I still have mixed feelings about being a bee keeper. I became a vegan probably 30 years ago because I thought it is best to do as little harm and violence to other creatures as possible. So if we don’t need to eat animals then don’t. Being a bee keeper it is impossible not to harm bees every time you open the hive. I try to be gentle and am organic in my practices with the bees, but still I wind up squishing bees or killing bees. And then there is the question of whether you are stealing the honey from the bees or whether they make more than they need. If you have a hive and you don’t take their honey, the bees won’t have a place to store more honey so they will divide and half will take off and swarm. In cities you ideally don’t want that to happen.

Bees though are wonderful to have in a garden just to watch and see them work. They pollinate our crops and trees and as we know they are in great danger now. There is also the issue of trying to have our own sources of local food. I am definitely not into raising my own meat (which takes probably feeding them grain which needs to be grown else where on land that could be used for food for humans). I don’t think I could learn butchering, though I do kill rats and mice and snails and aphids.

The bottom line I guess is that I feel comfortable raising bees right now and am willing to take on the karma of beekeeping. The problem with having bee hives is they make so much honey and so my solution is to share it with others.

An interesting and beautiful story

One of the best parts of the Free Farm Stand is how it is becoming a place where people can meet and talk. A place to meet new people or connect with neighbors, ask questions and learn something new. Today I enjoyed seeing a friend that lives near me who came by towards the end and we chatted. She told me about a Jewish Synagogue that she recently visited who owns a chunk of land in Colma in a cemetery where they grow food and give it to the San Francisco Food Bank.

One more photo

Breadbasket Case

I am back at last from Peoria Illinois and am really appreciative of our non-frost climate (though before I left I did lose some delicate plants in pots to cold). Coming back I found the gardens growing happily with kale and fava beans and white sapotes on my backyard tree. I heard that the farm stand before Christmas that I missed went well and learned that I can get away sometimes and others can take over for me. Hooray! How many times should I repeat myself for the thankfulness I feel for not only having the opportunity to be of service in the world, but to get the chance to meet such great people in the work I do. It really makes it all worth it.

I have been back a week and already I have been caught up in a whirlwind of activity. Some things are going fast forward as I will explain later. There was a great work day at 18th and Rhode Island on Friday. Last week David and Kevin planted a lot of new fruit trees and that made me happy. Apples, pears, jujube's, and persimmons. Plus Golden Rasberries. There are lot more trees coming and I think the plan is to have 100 trees planted total, all planted close together and kept small. So Friday was the day to plant two cherry trees and a pomegranate. Besides our adult volunteers we have been getting now a number of parents with kids showing up. I enjoy working with them and especially getting a chance to plant a tree with a young child. It is a real blast. The gardens were growing fairly lush and hadn't been picked in a while and we harvested 25lbs of kale, chard, collards, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli. The broccoli was so sweet I think due to the cold weather.

I also picked 5lbs of the most beautiful and tender kale from Esperanza Garden. And delicious.

The Free Farm Stand was another lovely event. Someone has been dropping off an Eatwell Farm CSA box at my house every week and that is such a beautiful gift to share with people. We also continue to get a shipment of "industrial organic" left over produce from Veritable Vegetable that this time of year is especially welcome…organic organs, mandarins, avocadoes, and mangoes. Though the amounts of produce are decreased, we had a nice selection, including some handsome Brussels sprouts on their stem. A woman came by with citrus from her mom's trees in San Jose including Calamansi (the Philippine name for Calamondin fruit) and tangerines. It is a small round orange or lime like fruit that tastes mostly sour, with a touch of sweetness in the skin. She said her family uses it a lot in cooking, throwing it in everything and also making juice with it. The tangerines were very sweet and juicy. Nosrat who lives right around the corner came by with a bag of Rocoto hot peppers from a plant I had given him and some sorrel. I really get tickled when I find out that a plant I gave away is growing happily in a new home and then to get some surplus produce from that plant is double the excitement and really what the stand is all about. I noticed when loading pictures this week how man kids there were. Wayne and Cristina who took the photos did a great job, and especially Wayne captured all the cute babies I can't help but share.

We also had a fairly good plant give away table and Mike showed up and took over potting up seedlings and giving them away. We mostly had lettuce and chard seedlings (the different colors of chard came from seed that another neighbor gave me from his father in Sebastopol. He actually came by later in the day and I told him I was giving away plants grown from his seed. I am looking for people that may like to grow seedlings for the Free Farm Stand and the gardens where we grow food to give away. Please contact me and I can provide seeds, soil, and some lessons and seedling care.

The best local garden news is that the Free Farm Stand may have a farm in the city. On Saturday I looked at a vacant 1/3 of an acre lot on Gough and Eddy Sts. that is owned by St. Paulus Church. Megan from Welcome Ministry and Case who is a Lutheran Service volunteer are working to develop the site to grow food for people in need. They have a 3-5 year use agreement from the church and there are plans to talk to them further about their plans (none for the lot right now). They have invited us to help them out to grow food to give out at the stand and to people in the neighborhood (mostly seniors and low income families). I am working with several people to see if we should jump right in, even though it is not in the Mission. It seems like an opportunity not to be missed especially since it seems so far like we are on the same page together. On Saturday we came up with some preliminary plans and they have already begun some volunteer work days on Saturday (this weekend they will be making a ramp to access the garden area more easily. I won't be there but probably in coming weeks I will be shifting some of my time there). One great thing is that there is a lot to do there and we can employ a many volunteers who want to learn how to grow a lot of food. We will also be in need of a lot of things like tools, wheelbarrows, glove, plumbers, electricians, handy persons, etc. Here are some pictures of this lot that has so much potential:

This lot is not far from the Hayes Valley farm that is supposedly moving ahead. This is the vacant lot at Laguna and Oak (where the freeway was torn down). I have heard they (I know some of the people involved but I don't know if they have formed a group yet or have a non-profit organization) got approved for a big chunk of change from the Mayor's Office and they will be building a greenhouse and developing an educational site (permaculture oriented?), besides growing food eventually. I was told that there are different ideas of having some sort of Farmer's Market there. One idea is having a conventional farmer's market there the other is an alternative market of some sort (I even heard the idea of having all economics represented). Sunday I was asked what I thought about setting up Free Farm Stand Two there.

There is also a Homeless Connect Garden that I is being developed on Octavia and Lilly (http://www.nowpublic.com/health/sf-garden-communities-octavia-lily-st-garden-sf-homeless-p). So that part of town may soon become a breadbasket of the city.

King Cole

It is hard for me to believe I am able to grow anything in the gardens where I am working that are in so much shade right now. For this week's farm stand I harvested some lettuce and mixed greens from my backyard to make a lettuce mix. And the Secret Garden had some kale, broccoli, and chard that I picked. The Cole family rules! Over in Treat Commons where there is a lot of sun, the baby greens and the lettuce grew much bigger and I was able to harvest enough to make my salad mixed look great. In total I had one big bowl full of salad mix all from the three gardens. I also harvested a number of yellow wax peppers and some Rocoto peppers, a few snap peas (I am not impressed with the dwarf snap peas I grew, Sugar Ann variety, that grew well but the peas were pretty small compared with the standard tall variety Sugar Snap and not so productive). Sheryl from church gave me the last cherry tomatoes from her garden in Berkeley, yellow, red, and dark reddish black kinds with different shapes too. I had some left over tomatillos from last week from Marcus's children's garden at the botanical garden in the Golden Gate Park. The ferry Building Farmer's Market supplied us again with most of our produce: broccoli, Brussel sprouts, many kinds of greens including mustard, collards, kale, bok choy, and chard. We also had some winter squash, turnips, and various herbs like cilantro and parsley. And there was a lot of bread too. Ellen came by with a few bunches of grapes from the farmers market where she works.

This is the man who pushes one of those ice cream carts

who has been coming regularly to shop

our latest gardener convert

Update on the Food Forest Garden on Potrero Hill

The weather has been crazy warm as we enter the month of December and I am excited that I have the opportunity to work with the San Francisco Permaculture Guild in creating an experimental garden to grow food for projects like the Free Farm Stand. The guild is having its 1^st Wednesday of the month meeting at the Red Victorian Peace Café (1665 Haight St. near Cole) this Wednesday the Dec. 3). It starts it starts 6:30-7pm. That is where a lot of talk about that project goes on and other projects as well and if you like the meeting aspect of permaculture, I would encourage you to attend. On Fridays and Saturdays we are having a workday at the 18^th and Rhode Island site. The work day on Friday starts at 10am and goes until about 3pm or longer and Saturdays it starts at 10:30-11am. http://18thandrhodeisland.org/ is a website dedicated to the project and the last update was nice in that it included what is going on astrologically which I rarely cover here. Not that I don't believe in it. After ready David's explanations of the heavenly influences on us now, I think it is all true. It is a glorious time right now and getting connected with the earth underneath our feet and the activity above our heads is such a great thing for us to all to do. Especially during this season when the days are shorter and it seems more dark, cold and dreary.

The garden got its first write up in the Potrero View newspaper in the December issue that can be picked up in Potrero Hill stores and coffee shops. The article is online and you can read it here at http://www.potreroview.net/news10102.html . Newspapers often don't do a great job covering something, but I thought they did a good job with this. There is an interesting interview with the doctor who has offered his empty lot for this project and an explanation of the plan for the space. By the way, we were thinking up some new names for the 18^th and Rhode Island garden (it is little cumbersome writing that all the time). One night I had a stream of names come to me in a sort of dream, including (do) No Harm Farm or No Til Hill, Bermed Out Farm, and Potrero Urban Food Farm (PUFF), but some more serious permaculturists among us thought those names wouldn't do. Maybe it will be the Potrero Urban Farm Project (PUFP) so we won't be associated with pot or dragons. I guess we are still searching for good names if any permaculture poets are out there.

We had our first planting on Saturday and we got a lot planted. I brought seedlings for chard, lettuce, and some kale, and seeds to plant a mostly lettuce lawn. Then a lot of fava beans and red clover was planted everywhere. It is a major first step and we will see how things grow in compost and wood chips. I have been gardening for about 28 years, but have never grown a garden exactly like this. It is also exciting because the site gets so much sun and a lot of space! I have just sent off a letter asking a wholesale nursery for a donation of trees, but soon we might order some as well. Flash! Stephanie just emailed me and said she on the way back from San Diego she picked up some 2 Pineapple guava plants and a Dwarf Banana from Exotica Nursery! How she got them in her small car is a miracle.

garlic and lettuce lawn planted

I am also working with a few others on planting fruit trees in the park where we have our farm stand. Can we really imagine a San Francisco that has fruit and gardens growing food in our parks? Talking about creating more sustainable cities, the farm stand was featured in an radio show put out by the National Radio Project . The program was called Food For Thought (http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2008/4808.html). Someone yesterday told me the heard it on KPFK. I am not really impressed with the interview with me, it seemed edited too much. I mainly agreed to the interview to talk about a possible alternative to "My Farm" style of local food production (the urban Community Supported Agriculture model). The interview with Kevin is really great and unfortunately the vacant lot we are currently transforming wasn't a reality then.

Flower Child vs Farmer Dude

Yesterday’s Free Farm Stand was a real whirlwind of activity. Besides a number of close friends that showed up for the first time, there were at least five other first timers that came by either with produce to share or to help. Plus there were a lot of people with a lot of different questions. I certainly wasn’t free enough to take many pictures let alone talk to everyone that I wanted to talk to more in depth. A lot of people came by to shop and by the end of the day we were pretty much out of everything.

The biggest harvest this week was the 62 pounds of loquats and 18 pounds of cherry plums that we picked on Saturday mostly from one tree next door to the secret garden and the plum located in the Secret Garden (read about that later). We also had some lemons that I picked from our Meyer lemon tree and I think Clare brought some too. We had two pounds of mustard greens from 18^th and Rhode Island (and a handful of fava beans) and two pounds of kale from the Secret Garden. I harvested 25 Baby Gem and Spreckles lettuce from the Esperanza Sustainability Center Garden. Page’s son Forest, who is temporarily taking over Page’s garden and gleaning responsibilities brought by some artichokes, and then he stuck around to help. Margaret brought by some produce from Holy Innocents Church including carrots and rosemary (I am not sure what else). Maggie brought by some beautiful kale from some garden and at some point we had more fresh lettuce (I forgot who brought it). My friend Michael who is in a wheelchair brought mustard greens from his garden. Christy brought some chamomile and a lettuce too from Corona Heights Community Garden. She also came by with a woman named Ania who brought a number of extra broccoli seedlings and some jars of produce she canned too much of, including pickled carrots, green beans, and jam. Ania just sent me an email about a group she is involved with called transition (http://transitioncalifornia.ning.com/group/transitionsanfrancisco). This is another group trying to achieve the same goals as many other groups around including the Free Farm Stand (“Local Self-Reliance for a Post-Petroleum World”). Though I am not sure if I believe we will ever be in a post petroleum world. Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by all the groups out there doing the same kind of work? Is it possible for more groups out there to merge or does it matter?

Molly came by with some nopales growing near her house that she prepared and put in plastic ziplock bags. That was a lot of effort! As we were closing up at the end, a man and his young daughter came by to get some food and he got some of the leftover braising greens mix and some rosemary and loquats. Then a neighbor showed up with a few nice lettuces she just picked and he got some of that too.

I was walking down the street the other day and I saw a poster in a window that said “Hope” with a picture of Obama. I do think there is a lot of hope in the air, but for me it mostly doesn’t come from the top down. These days it comes from the exciting people I am meeting like the woman Binal, a naturopathic doctor that Pancho brought over Sunday. She helps run the free or gift-economy Karma Clinic in Berkeley (http://karmaclinic.org/). Binal has such a warm and beautiful presence and I think we share a lot of similar dreams (like forming a household/community dedicated to healing and service and doing things with no charge). We looked at the garden together and she knew a lot about some of the herbs we were growing there.

On Friday at 18^th and Rhode Island we had a good turnout to work in the garden. We have been planting more food including basil, tomato, and edamame seedlings. I also was excited to plant some sunflower plants for cutting. I think putting in a long row of sunflowers really made my day. I love planting flowers and I would love to plant more in the future if I ever had unlimited amounts of growing space. I do believe we need beautiful gardens to stroll in, places in the urban environment to heal our soul and senses, places to let our spirits roam free, to smell the roses and to tip toe through the tulips, bamboo groves to meditate in, flowers to talk to and wear in our hair. Not just farms to grow huge amounts of produce for the people. We need the flower child as well as the farmer dude.

On Saturday we had just enough people to pick a lot of fruit. David who lives next to the Secret Garden let us in his backyard to pick his 30 or 40 foot loquat tree that was loaded with perfectly ripe fruit. We carried in the 14ft tall orchard ladder and the extendable pole pruner. Dave got up on the ladder and picked by hand all that he could reach and then he clipped the fruit off with the pruner. Below Clare, Renae, and I held a plastic tarp out and caught the falling fruit. This method worked out pretty good. Later others joined the fun and we had Erin, Julia, Nave, and Pancho picking cherry plums, loquats and harvesting lettuce and kale, and planting more lettuce. We wound up picking 62 pounds of loquats from two trees though most came from Dave’s tree (and there are probably another 50 pounds on the tree and hundreds of pounds of cherry plums that are not ripe yet).
On Saturday there was also an event that I wrote about last week which was a queer bike tour of gardens in the Mission ending at an art gallery in SOMA where there was a Free Farm Stand set up. I actually gave them a little extra produce and some basil plants. I heard is that on their tour of the different gardens, gardeners would give them some surplus vegetables for their stand. I wonder if there are any pictures out there of the event, especially of their Free Farm Stand? My friends told me it was really great. I love the idea of having a regular bike rider or two visiting community gardens on Saturdays and connecting with gardeners to see if there is any surplus that could be picked up to be given away. I have a bicycle cart that could be used for this purpose.

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.