2,224 pounds of produce harvested!

The five bags of tomatoes above were harvested at the Bethlehem Lutheran garden in West Oakland. This last season they harvested more than 200 pounds of produce! Only about 500 square feet, this garden was able to provide a lot of free food on unused church land.

The Free Farm in San Francisco, which is about 1/3 of an acre and sits on the former site of St. Paulus Lutheran Church has harvested 2,124 pounds since February.

In these hard economic times, transforming unused church land into free food is a low cost way that congregations can respond to the real needs of its congregants and the community around it. Let us know if your church gets inspired to grow produce on your unused space or if we can help you start a farm where you live.

We believe that churches really can address hunger issues. The goal of our free farms was to prove that it doesn't have to cost a lot of money to feed people. We hope our project has inspired you!

More than 783.57 pounds of food grown!

I haven't blogged about our gardens in a while because I've been so busy. But, I wanted to send an update that 783.57 pounds of free produce have been given away from the Free Farm. Bethlehem Lutheran has also been enjoying harvests lately.

Beyond the food, we've also worked with more than 566 volunteers in the garden this year.

I'm someone who is usually moved more by personal stories than numbers, but these numbers are very impressive.

Thanks to all the great volunteers and leaders at the Free Farm!

West Oakland Mural Completed

Tamara Loewenstein (pictured above on the right), Urban Share's Art's Coordinator, commissioned a mural featuring agricultural heroes at the Bethlehem Lutheran garden. Designed and completed by Bianca Muller (pictured above on the left), and sponsored by Kultklecks, the mural only took one week to complete.

Here are some photos that show you how we completed the mural. Click on any of the photos to see a larger version.

















Here's the final project. Below you will see Caesar Chavez, George Washington Carver and Michelle Obama.

Tamara talks about the mural at Bethlehem Lutheran

Dartmouth Students on Spring Break work at the Bethlehem Lutheran Garden

West Oakland Garden Workday

(see what the site looked like before our work day)

Today in Oakland, at 950 12th St., we made our final preparations before our big work day on Saturday March 20th (10-2pm - lunch served). This community garden is located at Bethlehem Lutheran. We are partnering with the good folk at Urban Farming for the event, which be sponsored by Kraft.

We started gathering our tools and made friends with the many neighbors who stopped by to ask questions about the new garden space. One young friend (a third grader) has helped us at the garden two Mondays in a row. Since our garden space is sandwiched between two schools, we expect our garden to be a great resource for local kids. In addition to the schools, Girls from the local Girls Inc will be utilizing the space to learn more about farming and the environment.

Today in pictures-
We liberated a gate that was buried in ivy and nailed shut, replaced rusty hinges and added a lock;

(this is what the gate looked like after three hours of pruning)prepped the walls for the murals that we will begin painting on Saturday;

painted the shed;
removed some old beds who wood was rotting;

St. Mark's Garden progressing.

After our second work day at the St. Mark's garden (see what we did on our first work day), we got the space completely cleared and ready for our next steps, which include building some raised beds. The drawing below shows how we hope the garden will look once it's completed.
This garden will be maintained by the members of St. Mark's and the seniors living in Martin Luther Towers (on the St. Mark's campus). One of the most important things that we will be doing at this site in the next couple of weeks will be to put down a walking path that is accessible to those in wheelchairs and using walkers who would like to work in our garden.

It looks like we will be recycling some old playground flooring that we are removing from Bethlehem Lutheran in West Oakland (where we are also working on a garden) to use for this path. We will be asking the seniors and members of St. Mark's to check out some samples of this flooring to make sure it meets their needs.

Save the Date: Bethlehem Ground breaking March 20th

We're partnering with the good people at Urban Farming to create the community garden at Bethlehem Lutheran in West Oakland. On March 20th we are going to have a ground breaking event to start planting our produce. We'll provide more details as the date gets closer, but for now, we hope you'll put the date in your calendars. It's going to be an amazing event!

Tamara talks about the garden at Bethlehem Lutheran in Oakland - Video