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Harvested with a Kiss

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Sukuma Wiki

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

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

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

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


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

The F Word and the G spot

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

San Francisco Dreamin' ...

on a winter's day

This week we had one of the fastest free farm stands in a while. We set up and gave away what we had in an hour. It started to rain right when we started giving out the produce and there was a pretty good line. Fortunately people didn't have to be in the rain that long because the line moved ahead quickly and it never rained that hard. We actually had a good selection of fresh produce for a winter table. We had a lot of Meyer lemons that were picked locally and oranges from a tree growing near Sebastopol. I picked some White Sapote fruit from my backyard tree that I hope people have the patience to let them ripen (it is hard to know when to pick them and they might take a long time to ripen). Our friends whose mother lives in San Jose came by with more bags of really lovely citrus (lemons, calamansi, and tangerines)."Calamansi, calamondin, Philippine lime – this versatile citrus fruit is the secret ingredient to many mouthwatering Filipino delicacies".

There were also lots of greens from Potrero Hill and Mike and Ruth cut greens and beautiful oak leaf lettuce from Treat Commons right next to the stand just before we opened. How fresh is that? We also had boxes of Earthbound lettuce in plastic boxes and organic crookneck squash from Mexico, both that were very popular. I wonder if some people noticed the difference between the just picked lettuce and the "industrial organic" lettuce or how many people understand that we are trying to promote growing your own and eating local as much as possible.

I am still amazed that the local food growing movement remains so strong in the city. It really seems like a case of collective dreaming where some of us are dreaming the same things at the same time. For example the Hayes Valley Garden Project (for lack of a better name) is planning on building a greenhouse to propagate seedlings and trees to distribute to gardeners and wanna be gardeners (though I am not sure if they want to do this for free or not). That is our dream too. I also attended the California Rare Fruit Growers Scionwood Exchange on Saturday. It was great to see so many familiar faces and talk "shop". It is also significant that more people than ever are interested in fruit trees and fruit tree propagation.

I should also mention something amazing happening in the Mission. The city is in the process of buying the parking lot at 17th and Shotwell and turning it into low income housing on one half of the lot and the other half will be for a park or open space (1 acre!). They are open to the idea of having a new kind of community garden rather than the traditional garden with private plots. In speaking to the planning department I suggested the idea of a farm that is is run by a local a neighborhood non-profit group that grows food to feed low income people or grows flowers for a hospice or shelter. They seem open to any idea and on Saturday January 23rd they are having a public meeting to get input from neighbors. I urge lots of people to attend and suggest that the Mission needs a farm. See sidebar for more info (DATE: Saturday, January 23, 2010
TIME: 11 AM
LOCATION: Marshall Elementary School: 1575 15th Street (at Capp)

The coming rains and storms may slow us down in the next coming weeks, but we are going full speed ahead in planning and turning an empty lot into a farm. This is the most exciting project to come along for me since the Free Farm Stand first opened. A chance to grow food to combat hunger and get people inspired to grow more food in the city. Last Saturday there was the first workday at the site and it sounded like it was quite a success. I was there today and a lot was cleaned up and a dirt ramp has been built going down to the main farm area (it needs more work). On Sunday I got lot of inquiries from people that want to help. Right now Saturdays will be the main workday from 10am-2pm and eventually Wednesday we will add another workday. One of the main things we need right now are large amounts of organic matter. Aged manure or compost would be ideal. Free manure is easy to track down but we need a large truck, like maybe 20 cubic feet bed size, to go to where it is, pick it up, and deliver it. Please keep in touch as time goes on we will be letting everyone know what we are trying to manifest for our urban farm. Our what we need sidebar will have a list. Here is a website that has some information on the project with some more photos.: http://urbanshare.blogspot.com/search/label/St.%20Paulus%20Lutheran. We had a fantastic meeting today of our new core group, a collaboration of the nicest people I have had the privilege to work with so far, including Pastor Megan from Welcome Ministry who made the original outreach to get use of the land from St. Paulus Church. We still need a name for the farm and the front runners so far are the Free Farm and the New Digger Farm. All ideas are welcome. All dreams are welcome.

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.

Holiday in Vegetable Land

I loved the produce table this week with all the variety of super local fruit and vegetables on it. It was like taking a holiday in vegetable land. According to the book Cornocopia II there are "approximately fifteen thousand species of plants recorded in literature as having been used as food by man." The author of the book Stephan Facciola says that "most of the world is fed by approximately twenty crops...". Here at the stand we strive to grow everything we can, the more diversity the better.

We had Yacón root (more on that later), Jerusalem artichoke, Purple Sweet Potato (just harvested from the garden), yellow and green zucchini (this may be the end of the harvest though the plants are still alive and growing despite it being December), winter squash, pineapple guavas, four kinds of sprouts, including red quinoa, red clover, black beluga lentils, and wheat sprouts, sunflower greens, Rocoto peppers, kale, chard, collards, lettuce, and oyster mushrooms. The mushrooms were picked from the FARM garden next to California College of Arts. They were really delicious (I sampled them to make sure no one got sick…actually I cooked one by cutting it up and sauteing it in Earth Balance margarine ). I have never gotten into growing mushrooms or eating wild ones before, but now I am hooked (a friend picked some chanterelles for me a few weeks back and that is actually what first got me excited). Mushrooms are great for our gardens too.

The selection from the farmer's market was not bad either including grapes (where are they from this time of year?). We also had some industrial organic definitely not sustainable mangos. It was a nice day despite the slight rain we got and again the amount of produce was low and it wasn't off the hook with a huge line that never ended. We had a lot of great volunteers helping as usual which I am so grateful for.

I have been giving away Yacón root starts for a few weeks now (someone came by a while back with extra roots) and it is a good vegetable to grow if you have the space. Pam Pierce writes about this plant on her blog, which by the way I highly recommend as regular reading: http://goldengategarden.typepad.com/golden_gate_gardener_/2008/04/yacon-or-bolivi.html. It is a perennial plant and is in the same Daisy family as Jerusalem artichokes or sunchokes. It has both a storage root that is sweet that you eat and a propagation root that you plant to clone it. Wikipedia also has a lot of information about the plant, including other parts of the plant you can use (like the leaves) and information on its religious and medicinal connections. Yacón is also known as the Bolivian Sunroot and is another plant grown in the Andes region, like the Rocoto peppers we had on the table too. Both plants are great to have around for winter harvest (the Rocoto pepper is still growing and fruiting).

We should all be giving praise and thanks for the rains that came to town the last few days. Speaking of getting out into the elements, on Saturday I put on my rain gear and grabbed some shovels and headed to Mission High to participate in a fruit tree planting there. The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (http://www.ftpf.org/) donated 15 or 16 trees and berries to the school to plant with the students. I was amazed at the big turnout of kids on a rainy Saturday to plant trees. The people from the foundation and the staff at the school were great too. Planting fruit trees and berries is one of my favorite things to do (even in the rain). Can you imagine fruit trees growing in a high school, not just in a garden adjacent to the school, but in a court yard within the building? I can imagine romantic scenarios of two high school sweethearts kissing under a persimmon tree like in the Garden of Eden.

This local food growing excitement and interest in urban homesteading that is taking over right now is like a sort of sixties revolution all over again. It's a green love vibe, a red wiggler be-in, a sustainable and organic daisy chain, a local do it yourself tuning in (and a turning out of the compost). Time magazine just came out with an article on humane manure (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1945764,00.html), holy shit!

I pray that this current revolution doesn't get totally sold out, that we can focus our work on sharing and caring for others. I heard that the Homeless Connect garden on Octavia and Lilly St broke ground last week. I don't know what the vision for that project is, but it has to be good just in the fact that they are reclaiming some earth by pulling up a parking lot. I also heard that the city has ok'd putting in some kind of sustainable, permaculture oriented garden/farm at Laguna and Oak where the freeway has been torn down. As I understand it the land can only be used temporarily whatever that means (they want to leave open the possibility of developing the land). I also heard that the city is giving $50,000 seed money towards this project, some of which is going into salaries for people to manage the project. Part of the plan is having a farmer's market there for San Francisco farmers only. Another idea is to have all economic models represented at this garden. One the traditional capitalist model, one that is based on barter or a different currency, and one that is based on the free economy (I was actually invited to help set up another Free Farm Stand there). This could be an exciting project to see develop, but there are a lot of questions I have that I hope will be answered eventually.

I am leaving town Saturday December 19^th and will return Jan 4^th. When I get back I hope to have some fresh energy and clarity in the New Year. I sense that there will be even more food growing locally than this year. The stand this year has given away now 6200 pounds of hecka locally grown and gleaned produce (this is produce that I know who grew it or picked it within 100 miles of the city). Over 1000 pounds of vegetables were grown on the once vacant lot at 18^th and Rhode Island St. and that is only a year that we have been developing that garden.

Vanessa will open the stand next Sunday the 20^th of December and then we will be closed December 27 and January 4.

Look out for the blue moon coming up the last day of this month.

Free Standers

Last night winter was knocking on our windows and doors with a short burst of hail and later we had a small amount of cold rain. I thought about all the seedlings and potted young plants I have started and how I wish I could put more of them under cover, like in a green house. We did pull off another Free Farm Stand with cool and cloudy weather but it was dry, though we didn’t have as many people as usual. We are definitely in our winter season mode with less vegetables being harvested and less gleaning of left-overs from the farmer’s market.

We did have an impressive amount of greens that we harvested on Friday from the 18^th and Rhode Island garden. We also harvested a handful of small zucchini. I am really impressed with this variety called Soleil (though it is a hybrid) that produces non-stop, is easy to find and pick, and gets less mildew than other varieties. I hear tonight there will be a frost so that might do in the rest on the plants.

Mentioning 18^th and Rhode Island, we had a great work day on Friday. Mike a park director down the hill brought all these neighborhood 2 and 3 year old rug rats to help in the garden. I had seven varieties of potatoes that I thought it would be daring to try planting at this time of year. So the kids and parents had fun planting making tater towers until their attention span went elsewhere.

Jeanie who I volunteer with at Martin de Porres gave me a basket full of pineapple guavas that we gave out (it is always fun to turn someone on to a delicious fruit they haven’t tried before…especially kids). Lyn dropped off three bags of delicious sprouts that she grew. My sprouts are behind schedule because of my distracted mind. Being that we had relatively so little produce for the number of people showing up we ran out early like last week, like around 2pm we started getting pretty low on most things except bread. Then as we were closing up Clara and Bianca showed up with some greens from the Secret Garden and out of nowhere two people came by to take them.

Being the end of the year I am shifting to a more contemplative mode and have been thinking about all the garden/local food growing opportunities that popped up this year. People are calling who want help turning their backyards into gardens, schools are ripe with potential projects (there is a fruit tree planting coming up this Saturday at Mission High), new lots ready to turn into urban farms, existing gardens needing help, a fruit tree orchard itching to move into a park, etc. The bottom line is there a lot that we can do and a lot of dreams to be sowed and harvested. A lot of food can be grown to feed hungry people.

On Saturday I just happened to pick up the Bay Guardian, partly because the cover illustration and feature article caught my eye:” Out of reach: Organic, sustainable slow food is wonderful -- unless you're poor or a farmworker ( http://tinyurl.com/ycf4ejr). The illustration reminded me of my friend Lauren’s drawing on her web site Produce to the People. On hers there are arms and hands outstretched reaching for fruit in trees and some hands are holding the fruit they just picked. In the Guardian the arms and hands are reaching out for carrots that can’t get to. This article, especially the first paragraphs reflects some of my thinking and was one of the main reasons I started the Free Farm Stand: “Though organic grocery stores and farmers markets have sprung up on San Francisco’s street corners, it remains to be seen whether our current mania for sustainable, local food will positively affect the lower classes, be they farm workers or poor families.” I think we all do what we can to improve the current mess we have going now and I have always thought like Gerrard Winstanley and the diggers of 1649 that the “earth is a common treasury for all to share”. They dug up the commons or vacant lands and grew food on it to share with everyone.

Plans are starting to get firmed up for the rest of this month. I am leaving town on Saturday December 19^th and will return on Monday January 4^th next year. So we will be open rain or shine December 12^th and December 20^th (I have at least two people committed to opening that Sunday I will be gone).We will be closed December 27 and January 3 I also am trying to focus right now before I leave on things other than gardening so don’t know how available I will be to work with people. The cold weather is not for gardeners, but gives much needed chill to our fruit trees.

Sunny and Sharing

I am still feeling an abundance of gratefulness as we swing into the last month of the year. Also, I'm am in a reflective mood as we head towards the New Year. Things are certainly slowing down produce harvesting wise and the fava beans are coming up announcing the coming of winter. We had sunny 70° weather at the stand yesterday which seemed confusing to say the least. Despite the glorious weather it seemed we had less people than usual (though there was still a line down the sidewalk for the first hour). We certainly had less produce and because we are a seasonal program we will be having less food for the next few months at least.

To boast the produce on the table, I have started growing sprouts and sunflower greens again and I am excited that I grew five pounds of red clover sprouts. This is with only two cups of seed approximately. I grow the sprouts in five gallon buckets, though they can be grown by anyone at home with a jar and some cheesecloth or plastic screen.

Sprouts!!!

We also had five pounds of greens that we grew at 18^th and Rhode Island, the main garden providing food for the stand at the moment. I did harvest about a dozen Rocoto hot peppers from Treat Commons, and both those sunny gardens are producing lots of the perennial African Blue Basil. We ran out of food early, though at some point towards the end, a woman showed up with a bag of Hachiya persimmons from her tree. I love Hachiya persimmons and I hope that everyone knows that they need to let the fruit ripen before you bite into them, unlike the Fuyu persimmons that you eat when they are firm. When we have free bread it is fun to see what shows up on the table. Autumn came by again with leftover olive samples from the farmer's market and there was a jar of plum jam left over from summer. I will be bringing more summer jam to share in the last week we are open before all the big holidays. Cristina shared some kale"chips" that she made Also, Sara showed up with a bag of figs from her tree that also needed some ripening. Since we were finished early and she came a little late, I wound up with the figs, some of which I gave away.

We need a campaign to plant more fruit trees everywhere in the city…really our parks and vacant spaces should be planted with fruit that ripen at different times and nut trees on the sidewalks. Can you imagine a time when you live in the city and people recognize the time of year when different fruit comes into ripening? We are now into persimmon season moving into citrus time.

I am still on my mission of trying to manifest two projects that will help promote local food growing in the city. One is getting the orchard/garden extended in Parque Niños Unidos and the other is trying to find sunny land to start a free neighborhood garden center. I remember years ago I had friends who would keep on their refrigerator a list of things they were trying to manifest. They believed that by just keeping things in mind and putting the thought out there that things would manifest themselves given time in their lives. I believe in that myself as hippy dippy as it sounds.

Please take note: From December 19th to January 4th I will be going out of town to visit the Midwest and the Free Farm Stand will be closed during those two weeks.

A Tsunami of Thankfulness

This year I have been feeling especially thankful. The Free Farm Stand has provided me with more opportunities than ever to feel appreciative and grateful every week. I am especially thankful for everyone that has helped make the stand a success, all the hours people have put into setting up and taking down the stand and giving out the produce, helping us grow food or pick fruit, people that have brought produce to share, farmers who share their surplus at the end of the day, neighbors who come to "shop", landlords who have let us use their vacant lots to grow food for the hungry, sunny skies, and neighbors who have been more than generous letting us share their water connection. I am also thankful for having the opportunity to help out in the world and for friends and family, for bees, for earth, for sunflowers, beets, and great harvests. Really this could be a non-stop tsunami of thankfulness.

Again greens ruled the day at the stand. Another field at Green Gulch got gleaned before it was plowed under and the farmer's market had tons of different greens left over too (I had left over arugala and one box of greens that I took to the food bank this morning). Also we harvested eight pounds of kale and chard from seedlings that we planted that were donated from Green Gulch and are now happily growing at 18^th and Rhode Island. The other gardens are pretty shady now and are not producing much. We also had a fair number of zucchini and basil that has been growing uninterrupted for over a month or so. Pretty crazy growing these things so late into the year. Pam brought by the last apples on her tree (I still have a couple on a tree in my backyard), some salad mix, and a few herbs. I especially like the Mexican tarragon she brought: you only only need a leaf or two cut up small in a salad to give it an interesting taste. I am looking forward to the new edition of her book Golden Gate Gardening that she said is coming out in February (with a lot of changes and updates). Molly brought some fresh picked cactus fruit that looked yummy and nopales that look dangerous.

the big Zapallo winter squash that I fell in love with last week

I also gave away small jars of honey from our backyard hive and that was very popular. I like sharing the honey with everyone, it is really a taste of the Mission neighborhood we live in and it seemed like an appropriate special thank you gift to give to everyone for the holiday. Not everyone read my comic that I had posted explaining why a vegan is dealing with bees and giving away honey, but I guess we do the best we can.

As we were closing up Jess came by with the bike cart and tools I loaned her for the garden work day at the new garden on Dolores St. She said it was a successful day, enough people came by and they mulched and made a bed and planted some different things.

I haven't heard from any ex-myfarm folk this week. Here is a blog about one woman's experience with myfarm that is interesting: http://brynnevans.com/blog/2009/10/28/the-failure-of-myfarm-good-intentions-poor-execution/.

In contrast to the myfarm model of promoting local food growing, last Saturday I attended a small meeting of friends who are all on the same page about growing food to feed hungry people. We actually met to talk about fund raising, but didn't get far in that regard. The exciting part of the meeting for me was to just hang out with some beautiful and inspiring people that basically want to do the same thing together: distribute local grown organic produce to feed people in need, glean fruit trees that need picking, and helping people to start new gardens to grow food as a way of feeding ourselves and others (be they neighbors with backyards or vacant lots, shelters, soup kitchens or churches that want to have gardens). It is a breath of fresh air to focus with friends on the idea of tikkun olam or repairing the world. Believing that "the world is a common treasury for all to share" like the Diggers of England taught us.

Our first project that we want to work on together is to set up a free neighborhood garden center that I have written about before. Sort of like the Garden for the Environment with a greenhouse that will provide a place for us to propagate seedlings and trees to distribute to all the gardens in the neighborhood that need them, a demonstration garden, free garden supplies, a seed library, a place to drop off compost rather than putting it in green bin to be shipped out of the city, free worms, and a garden educational center.

Our first step is to find someplace (in the Mission is our first choice of location) to house such an operation that is visible from the street and would hopefully be easy to drive into to drop off garden materials. We are on the look out for land that we can use or rent temporarily until we find a place to eventually buy. If there is anyone that wants to help research or scout out places, or has some ideas please contact me.

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.

Parking Lots into Garden Plots

Recently people with backyards have been showing an interest in growing gardens and sharing their surplus with those in need. There was a lot of garden activity this past weekend and I loaned out a lot of tools and distributed seeds, garlic, and seedlings to help support backyard and vacant lot gardeners growing food. I have been thinking for a long time that we need a free garden resource center in each neighborhood, where there would be a greenhouse growing seedlings to give away, manure, compost, worms, seeds, supplies, and tools to borrow. Also, there would also be a demonstration garden that would show people the possibilities of what grows in their neighborhood and to inspire people to grow some food. There are a lot of things people are getting rid of including redwood lumber, pots, straw bales, that could be collected and given away to people wanting to start or maintain existing gardens. Finding the land and then acquiring it for this dream is the challenge.

It is an inspiring time for me as a long time gardener and person interested in fighting hunger and food insecurity in our world. Projects are popping up all over and people are dreaming big. Already in this city more people are gardening and also talking about redesigning our cities. Making them less car oriented and more people bike friendly. So can you imagine Market Street being closed to car traffic and not only having places for people to stroll, bike, hang out and sip tea, but also to garden and grow food to feed poor people?

Just today I read a short fabulous article "Plowing Detroit into Farmland" in the NY Times: http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/plowing-detroit-into-farmland/?partner=rss&emc=rss.

"Already, Urban Farming, an international outfit that has made Detroit its headquarters, is said to boast some 500 small plots under cultivation to supply free food to the city's poor." I looked up the organization Urban Farming, Inc. ( http://www.urbanfarming.org/index.html ) and discovered they have similar goals as the Free Farm Stand: "Urban Farming's mission is to create an abundance of food for people in need by planting gardens on unused land and space while increasing diversity, educating youth, adults and seniors and providing an environmentally sustainable system to uplift communities." I say right on!

I don't know if I want to grow as large as that organization and have such a grand advertising presence as they do, but maybe that is what is needed to get land to grow more food in cities, especially in San Francisco where there is no excess cheap land like in Detroit.

Here is a funny link along the same lines that a friend told me about that is about a proposal for Farmedelphia: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/farmadelphia.htmlhttp://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/farmadelphia.html

I like these images from this site:

I think it is worthy to day dream about these things, especially in context of the Free Farm Stand. Yesterday we again had a long line , but this time not so much produce, maybe because it is a seasonal thing and we are moving into winter. While dreaming this up I should include the creation of a neighborhood canning center so we can preserve some of the abundance of summer.

I was pretty excited that we did have 14 pounds of greens that we grew at 18^th and Rhode Island. We also harvested the I missed last week's work day there and in just that short time the greens had really grown a lot. They are the vegetable for most of San Francisco and all gardens here should grow some. Spike brought by some mustard greens from her garden and Steve came at the end with some beautiful collards that he had grown with seedlings from the stand. It was a green day.Here are some photos from that garden taken on Friday before the Sunday stand. At the end of the slide show is a picture of the harvest on our table:

We also had very little bread and it was nice that Danny of Sour Flour brought two of his beautiful and delicious loaves of home baked bread. He is teaching bread making classes for free and from my talking to him he knows a lot. I am always picking up tips from him, like how he gets the pattern on his round loaves, by putting the dough in a floured round basket to rise.

On the sidebar under Volunteer Opportunities and Upcoming events there are lots of places that need gardening help. It is a way you can be more than a consumer and help grow some of the food we are sharing.

Kissing Cousins

My original idea for writing a blog was to keep in touch with people and let them know what is happening each week with the Free Farm Stand. I have been documenting my experiment with promoting local food growing and to give a report each week of what is growing in our gardens, how much we have been harvesting, and what is happening in general in our city with the local food growing movement. At this point it is starting to feel like I am repeating myself when I'm publishing photos of the same stacks of beautiful organic locally grown vegetables each week or describing what happened at the stand.

So I only took a handful of photos this week (if I do document this weekly event with photos I need someone with fresh eyes to do it), but here are two photos that are different. As I was hanging out at the end of the day in the garden, totally exhausted, an intense orange butterfly decided to hang out in the garden too (maybe she was tired too). I called some friends over to check it out and we all were amazed at how beautiful she was.

Then someone else pointed out another handsome (though destructive) visitor to the garden, chewing happily away on some parsley.

This caterpillar I know will turn into a monarch butterfly and that they like to live in parsley patches before their transformation.

We have all heard this said before, but when I was just chilling in the garden at that moment with all my animal and plant friends I felt a real connection with them all. If anyone got a chance to see the PBS documentary last week on TV called the Botany of Desire (a video version of the book) they might have been inspired like me, for it really made this point clear. That there is a relationship between man/woman and plant and non-human animal and that relationship goes both ways. We are kissing cousins.

So the point being that we need to learn to live in harmony with each other, we've got to work it out. The Free Farm Stand itself is an experiment in trying to build the networks that will sustain us as neighbors and community.

I must mention that some really cool things happened imho this week at the stand. One thing is a neighbor showed up with a big bag of meyer lemons that he just harvested from his tree and then later he came back with more of them. I also was tickled by a woman that brought some beautiful Granny Smith apples (and some red ones) from here tree just down the street. Another great thing that happened is that a woman sent me an email saying that she had spent $1500 to get a garden installed in her backyard by My Farm. Then that business folded and she had this big backyard that was overgrown and there was a lot of produce that could be harvested. She was feeling pretty lonely working in the garden by herself and she didn't know what she was doing. She wondered if we had people that could work with her and share the surplus at the stand. I really lucked out seeing that I knew two people that lived near her. I thought they might want a bigger space to garden in since they just had tiny plots in the community garden in that neighborhood. So I contacted one person and she contacted the other and now I think they are working together and rejuvenating her backyard garden. What surprised me the most is that she showed up with a few bags of greens to share right when we were getting a little low on super local produce. I think she told me there were 50-100 My Farm backyard gardens and that a lot of the people that paid for the service are in the same boat as she and that they may want help too. Plus there are all the people who signed up a year ago to get a free Victory Garden in their backyard that never got one. I am overwhelmed thinking how can we get all these places growing food and sharing the surplus?

I just realized that what was wrong with My Farm right from the beginning is the name My Farm. I think we need to move away from "my" this and that, because that is such a hoax and brings false security. On Sunday at the stand I also met an ex-myfarm gardener and he was also aware that there are a lot of gardeners that need volunteer help, that the gardens are all setup with drip and good soil, but the gardens need garden care and maintenance and guidance.

The work day in our backyard on Halloween was mostly a bust. I did wind up gardening mostly by myself, though Christina showed up to help me get all the palm fronds I pruned into green bins. Maybe I didn't get the word out or just because it was Halloween no one was available. Well this Saturday I will be extracting honey from our hive and maybe if enough people show up we can also get some gardening in too.

Here is a link that I got from the permaculture group called What's on My Food: http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/food.jsp?food=RI . It is helpful in getting us to think about the choices we make when purchasing organic or non organic food. It also made me appreciate the organic produce we have at the Free Farm Stand. How lucky can we be that as bottom feeders we can eat a little more worry free.

Squash Appreciation Day

Now is the season to enjoy winter squash, planted in the spring, grown in the summer, harvested in the fall. The table at the Free Farm Stand was heaped high with winter squashes (and some of the last summer zucchini), some grown at 18^th and Rhode Island garden and some grown by my friend Tom in Santa Rosa. We should sing an ode to winter squash because they are so wonderful!

We should strive to be like winter squash
they are a humble vegetable
like the lowly pumpkin squash magically transformed into
a high class carriage to take Cinderella to the ball
they are rock steady and patient
as they grow sometimes to large proportions
they are one of the three sisters
whose righteousness comforts and nourishes us
they feed us their fleshy insides and also their blossoms and seeds
they can be who they want to be and choose to be different
in sizes and shapes and colors
though their sexual expression is dependent on our friends the bees
the luffa squash scratch our itchy backs like good friends do
the gourd can play sweet music and is a multi-talented artist
Winter Squashes, Pumpkin, Hubbard, Delicata, Sweet Dumpling, Golden Nugget, Buttercup, Kobacha, and Turban
we love you all and think you de vine

Besides the squash we had more apples from the gleaning trip two weeks ago and others brought fruit too. Christina got some grapefruit from San Jose, Pam came by with apples, and so did Lauren who also had local figs, and lemons came from some local anonymous harvester. It just goes to show that one can keep their eyes open and find fruit growing everywhere that potentially could be harvested. Someone told me they saw pomegranates growing on Dolores St. near 20th St. that I would like to check out. Towards the end Clara came by with a lovely basket of vegetables from the Secret Garden, including some delicious figs that were finally ripe. When we were almost out of apples, someone came by with organic apples from Whole Foods, all with their organic label on each apple. They disappeared pretty quickly. Also, Danny showed up with a baguette and a loaf of sour dough he baked (he is the guy from Sour Flour who is into baking bread and giving it away). I talked to him about making a whole grain loaf and he is working on it. We also had stacks of super ripe organic dry farmed tomatoes left over from the farmer's market. A lot were given away but many were to damaged and too hard for people to take home. I haven't come up with a way for people to process soft tomatoes like that…they would make delicious sauce, but then it would be needed to can the sauce once it was made. That would take jars and equipment and then how do you distribute it and get your expensive jars back?

There was a lot happening in the park including a Healthy Family Days event that we were actually a part of. The organizer of that event served free healthy food in the clubhouse that we invited everyone to go to. They were serving among other things a vegan squash soup made by the Sexy Soup Lady and everyone said it was very tasty. I also hosted two bicycle tours to the stand. The Homo Homestead tour was fantastic and I enjoyed meeting them all. Joolie who organized it brought us a big bag of greens and herbs that she had grown in her nearby garden. The Garden City tour that is part of a workshop on how to get land in the city to grow a garden in came by while we were closing up shop. I spoke to them about the history of the park and garden and the current work we are doing feeding those with compromised budgets and promoting food growing.
Below are photos from 18th and Rhode Island on Friday, mostly pictures of some of the harvest. I forgot to mention that we had our largest harvest yet of potatoes, 9 pounds that we gave away on Sunday. They were mostly small in size, but looked great.


This coming Saturday the 31st, even though it is Halloween, I am planning on having a garden work day cleaning up and planting my backyard garden that has been pretty much neglected for a while. That will be from 10am-2:30pm with lunch being served around noon. We will be weeding, pruning, bottling honey if we have time, and planting. Then on the following Saturday Nov. 7^th we will be extracting honey.

Fall Meditation

I believe we can transform ourselves and our world by deepening our relationship with nature and the eternal power of creation. A seed contains hope. We can begin by planting just one seed or one garden. The seeds I have been thinking about at this moment are fava beans. I am doing some late research into trying to obtain some different varieties of this plant this year. The huge book Cornucopia II, A Source Book of Edible Plants is really wonderful and lists fava bean varieties like “The Sutton” that is a short growing kind whose pods can be eaten whole even when mature. If anyone wants to check out this book they may come over to my house to read it, I don’t think it is at the library, but it is probably at the fabulous library in the Arboretum. I haven’t quite gotten into the winter time seed catalog reading, garden day dreaming mode yet, that will come in a couple of months. Someone reminded me that I should not only spend time doing but being.

I have a lot of garlic that needs a winter home to grow in...it prefers some daily sun to grow well in (I ordered way too much). On our Friday workday at the Permaculture Garden we planted a lot of this garlic, several different kinds. The rain will help them come up. I have already started planting sugar snap peas, lettuce, and broccoli. I put a big pumpkin on the super local table, this one was the biggest one we grew on Potrero Hill, what I now consider the banana belt of San Francisco. We gave out more apples that came from Apple Hill near Placerville and this week they were beautiful red ones as well as the yellow green Golden Delicious type. Lauren brought boxes of soft but handsome brown pears from gleaning two weeks ago. I harvested nine pounds of sunchokes from the Esperanza garden and the last of the tomatoes from the other gardens. My friend and neighbor came by with over a pound of gorgeous Rocoto peppers…I originally gave him the seeds for these and I don’t know how many plants he has, but the peppers really looked good and I am sure they were very popular. The Farmer’s Markets are selling more greens and that means we are starting to get more of their left-over’s. Some farmers are packing it up for the winter. Green Gulch Farm had their last day this Saturday and we won’t be getting more starts or greens from them for a while (hopefully I will make a new connection with them in the spring). This is what fall season is about here and I am enjoying it as the weather starts to cool down and feel crispy.

I am also feeling a bit reflective and joyful. I must admit I amazed at the way this project has grown this year and how it has generated a lot of excitement. I heard from one of regular volunteers who goes to USF on Masonic that they have opened their own Free Farm Stand for the students and also for the neighbors, a part of their garden project: http://usfgardenproject.com/.

Our stand has also drawn such a large crowd and line, but so far we have continued to have enough produce for everyone. I am actually not going out of my way to collect more produce though my heart is often tugged in that direction. I really like encouraging local food growing. There still are places for people to garden if they want. I know of two backyards that need attention (besides my own). Also, I am still looking for a space to put a green house so we can grow seedlings and trees to give away to neighbors and schools, churches, and shelters.

Someone left this article from the Examiner in my mail box that got me totally excited: http://tinyurl.com/ykopmok . The mayor is ordering city departments to pay a 13% surcharge on city employee’s travel that will go to planting fruit trees throughout the city to increase local food production. The Dept. of the Environment will oversee the fund. It all sounds nice when you read about it, but my sense is that from the start this effort is plagued by bureaucracy. The estimate is that the average cost per tree will be $200. Why so high when bare root trees are only about $30 at the most? Most of all why can’t I get anyone in the city to help me plant the fruit trees I have already collected and have money for in the park where we host the farm stand? They want me to put up a costly fence which in my opinion is not necessary. Again I feel like if we want real change we have to make it ourselves, we can’t count on government to do the right thing. If we want to engage in the political way of bringing about change it means spending a lot of time trying to make our voices heard and gathering a lot of attention.

Here is an example of where our city government is messing up and we should probably speak out about it. On Wednesday October 21 at 2pm in room 416 at City Hall the Building Inspection Committee will be voting on whether to require a permit for single source greywater. In other words discouraging people to recycle their washing machine water by having to jump through a bunch of hoops and pay fees. One can attend this meeting or at least send an email voicing your concerns to Ann Aherne: ann.aherne@sfgov.org (she'll make sure every commissioner gets a copy). You can write the same to Steve Panelli, Chief Plumbing Inspector, at: Steven.Panelli@sfgov.org.

I ran into a friend of mine named Susan at the recent bee club meeting. She told me she just opened a small specialty nursery featuring edibles, herbs, grasses, and native plants. It is chemical free and is supposed to be an alternative to most standard nurseries. Although I am not a big fan of businesses, I would like to support her effort because the city needs a good nursery that features edibles and she seems open to carrying things that may be unusual if she can get them. I haven’t been by there yet, but we should all check it out, especially people in this neighborhood:

Independent Nature

1504 Church St at 27th

415 6421708

open 11 to 6 daily except Tuesdays

News flash! I just learned in an email from my friend Leif that he and Nicole Lobue are guest chefs this Thursday at Mission Street Food and the profits will go to the Free Farm Stand. I didn't know this was happening...it will probably be great food if you don't care about the meat being served or that there isn't anything vegan on the menu.