First Garden Workday with Congregation Emanu El

Today at the Free Farm members and friends of Congregation Emanu El as well as other local temples across the San Francisco Bay Area joined us for their first garden workday. This marks the first Sunday that members of Congregation Emanu El and other temples will join us for the first Sunday of each month to work with us at the garden.

Today we divided up into small groups so that we could tackle several different projects we've been wanting to get to. Several people teamed up to put fresh mulch down along the path of our herb labyrinth so that it will be soft for those who walk upon it, especially those with tender knees. Others weeded around the strawberries and sunflowers and on the concrete area where we are getting ready to build a bathroom and other structures. We covered up a rocky area with soft mulch, extending our tree stump sitting area so that we can have a larger circle during work day lunch time and other activities. The area set aside for growing pumpkins was cleared from dried plants and covered with compost; soon it will be ready to be planted! Tomatoes were transplanted and placed in the green house. And, of course a little watering to keep the plants happy under the warm sun today brought. We are looking forward to working with the lovely folks of Emanu El again next month!

If you are interested in joining us for our next Sunday workday please come by on July 4 from 10am-12pm. We look forward to meeting you!

Join Us and Support Welcome

Join us for
A Free Farm Afternoon
Gough & Eddy
in San Francisco
May 22, 2010
2:30-4:30

3:30 Talk by Novella Carpenter, Author of Farm City

Music Provided by: Lia Rose

Food Donated by: farm:table, Mama's on Washington Square, Greens, Maggie Mudd, and Bi Rite Market.

A family friendly afternoon at the Free Farm. Food from Mama's on Washington Square, Green's Restaurant and many more. Wine tasting. Coffee from Farm Table Cafe. Carla's kid's corner. Music and Poetry. A fun and very special afternoon.

A special talk by Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City, a book about her first year running Ghost Town Farm in Oakland. Novella Carpenter will speak at 3:30 pm. ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com

Join us and support WELCOME. We provide a communal response to poverty with a simple philosophy of providing food, education and counseling to the communities we serve.

tickets $75, $50, $25. Pay what you can afford. Consider buying two tickets to sponsor one of our community members.

Our Organization:
When Welcome was founded in 1996, our initial mission was to work with the homeless in San Francisco's Polk Gulch District. In 2008, our work resulted in over 155 people moving indoors. We continue to work with the same low income individuals to help them learn the skills they need to remain indoors, to improve their quality of life and to become self-sustaining individuals through meals, one-on-one support and creative community projects that address the health needs of those living in poverty.

Location:
At the Free Farm at the corner of Gough & Eddy in San Francisco

The Free Farm:
Is a farm that will grow 12,000 pounds of food that will be distributed for free to members of the community. You can find information about the free farm at thefreefarm.org

Order your tickets now: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/107417

In the News

Check out this great story about the Free Farm from KQED's Bay Area Bites Blog.

excerpt:

Or, what about starting from the very beginning, and growing more food from scratch right here in the city? Even in cities as highly populated as San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, a surprisingly amount of arable land is still available. Just look at the Free Farm, which was started on a vacant lot at Gough and Eddy Streets in January of this year.

Pastor Megan Rohrer, a young Lutheran pastor who works with a variety of homeless communities around the city as the executive director of Welcome Ministry, wanted to expand the work she was doing, going from feeding the hungry of San Francisco to growing food for those same communities. The St. Paulus Lutheran church was willing to offer an empty lot it owned to her and a dedicated community of volunteers to make a garden.

Meanwhile Tree, a longtime food-justice activist and community gardener as well as the founder of the Mission's popular Free Farmstand, was looking for a place to grow more local food to supply the farmstand. Once Megan's church connections met Tree's gardening expertise, the Free Farm was born. With grants from the Mesa Foundation along with several local Episcopal and Lutheran churches, plus a whole lot of wheelbarrow-pushing volunteer labor, the weedy lot has undergone an astonishing transformation.

What was once a trash-strewn, needle-littered eyesore that neighbors called "The Pit" is now a welcoming, mural-lined space full of neatly mounded raised beds planted with salad mix, potatoes, beans, broccoli and lettuce. Bricks salvaged from the St. Paulus church (which stood on the space before burning down in 1995) now form strawberry beds on the hillside and a winding spiral bed planted with flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Cold frames and a newly built greenhouse are filled with trays of tiny seedlings, everything from kale to tomatoes to marigolds started from seeds donated by church communities across the country. Bright garden-themed murals by local artist Leanne C. Miller cover the concrete wall on the west side, and there are plans to bring more artists and sculptors into the garden to create site-specific works.

Volunteers get down and dirty every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am to 2pm, building infrastructure, hauling mulch, manure and compost, planting seedlings, waterings, and more. A volunteer-made vegan lunch, often featuring produce harvested from the garden, is shared by all. Volunteers will also share in the harvest, with excess supplying the Free Farmstand (Rohrer hopes to establish another neighborhood Free Farmstand on the site) as well as providing fresh local produce for twice-weekly homeless dinners organized by Welcome. (For more information on Welcome's additional garden projects around the Bay Area, go to Urban Share.)

Read the whole article and leave comments about the article at: KQED's Bay Area Bites Blog

Raised Beds Completed at St. Mark's Garden

Today we finished building 3 more raised beds (for a total of 5), a planting table and one storage bench. Next will will be:

1. covering the sand that covers the space with fine wood chips that are accessible for wheelchairs and walkers
2. building a few more storage benches for people to sit on and to store tools
   
3. filling the raised beds with a mixture of soil, compost and horse manure
4. install the drip system and timer
   
5. start planting!!

We'll also be adding some fruit trees to our garden as well. We know we have a lemon tree that we'll be putting in.

Save the date: May 22nd Fundraiser

Order your tickets now: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/107417

A family friendly afternoon at the Free Farm. Food from Mama's on Washington Square, Green's Restaurant and many more. Wine tasting. Coffee from farm:table. Carla's kid's corner. Music and Poetry. A fun and very special afternoon.

A special talk by Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City, a book about her first year running Ghost Town Farm in Oakland. Novella Carpenter will speak at 3:30 pm.

Join us and support Welcome. We provide a communal response to poverty with a simple philosophy of providing food, education and counseling to the communities we serve. Learn more at www. sfwelcome.org

tickets $75, $50, $25. Pay what you can afford, no one turned away for lack of funds. Consider buying two tickets to sponsor one of our community members.

Our Organization:
When Welcome was founded in 1996, our initial mission was to work with the homeless in San Francisco's Polk Gulch District. In 2008, our work resulted in over 155 people moving indoors. We continue to work with the same low income individuals to help them learn the skills they need to remain indoors, to improve their quality of life and to become self-sustaining individuals through meals, one-on-one support and creative community projects that address the health needs of those living in poverty.

Location:
At the Free Farm at the corner of Gough & Eddy in San Francisco

The Free Farm:
Is a farm that will grow 12,000 pounds of food that will be distributed for free to members of the community. You can find information about the free farm at thefreefarm.org

Order your tickets now.

Whole Health Activities Begin!

Before the work day this past Wednesday we had our first whole body health activity at the Free Farm. Our free yoga gathering helped volunteers and members of the community start the day of with some good stretching.

We're looking for qualified individuals (trained folk or students who have some supervision) to lead free whole body health activities at the Free Farm. They could include, but will not be limited to:

• Reiki
• Tai Chi
• meditation
• support groups
• acupuncture
• skill share classes
• self defense
  
• poetry
• singing/open mic
• book clubs
• insert the practice or hobby you use to relax or keep your body healthy

This is a great way for individuals to complete the hours they need in order to get certified or to give back to the community in a beautiful space. If you're interested, please contact megan@welcomeministry.org to learn more.

We'll keep a schedule of events, get the word out to encourage folk to come or make appointments for you - whatever you prefer. Leaders will be expected to open the gate (there is a numerical code), maintain a safe environment at the farm, make sure everyone leaves before they do, and make sure everyone who participates signs a waiver.

Get Connected

This is what's going on with Urban Share this week.

• Wednesday the 14th yoga at the Free Farm. We have 10 mats that can be used if you need one. First come, first serve. Yoga begins at 9am.
• Then, Wednesday workday at the Free Farm from 10am - 2pm with a vegan lunch provided.
• Saturday, the 17th the Free Farm is holding a blessing ceremony for the garden with Lutheran Bishop Mark Holmerud, Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus, clergy from the Free Farm and folks not-involved with the church.
• Sunday, the 18th St. Mark's workday constructing raised beds together.

Rest assured there will be plenty of pictures of religious people in their funny clothes, early morning farm yoga, and St. Mark's progress.

Til then here are some photos of what it looks like to volunteer with Welcome at Urban Share gardening events.

Present Needs

Urban Share has a list of needs to drive the projects we're involved in forward. In order to have our needs met we have to ask. So, here's asking. Please bear in mind that you can either provide the whole in-kind donation of the item we need, or parts helpful in constructing it, or money to be put towards it.
Free Farm:

1. Plastic for a green house
2. Green house shelving (you'll see from the pictures below that we really need it)
3. A shed for our tools (new or used as long as it's waterproof)
   
4. Lumber for a composting toilet
5. Wheelbarrows
6. Knowledgeable folks able to lead others in tasks that need completing.
7. Hand tools
8. Lots of Compost/Manure/Woodchips

Check out this great greenhouse that the Farm received as a donation!

Free Farm Harvest Helps Feed at Welcome Community Dinner

This Saturday's harvest of lettuces from the Free Farm went to Welcome's 2nd and 4th Saturday community dinner. Over 150 meals were served with a side of super fresh, super local, greens.


The greens started off in covered beds here. (Thanks to Carling for this great photo taken at the Saturday workday!)











Then they were harvested and packed up.










And finally found their way onto plates to feed Welcome guests!

Fence Gardens - 3 Types - DIY

Today at the Free Farm, we completed 3 projects that will grow on the fence. Our goal is to get some plants growing on the fence to make the space look prettier (both inside and out) and to create a noise barrier from all the street noise.

Here are three easy do-it-yourself projects that would be easy for you to complete on your own.

Our first project is the easiest. Take a plant that grows quickly like a vine, and likes to climb and train it to climb a fence. How do you train a plant? I used twine. It's as easy as gently tying it to the fence guiding it in the direction you want it to grow.

The photo to the left is of a Marsh Mallow (yup that's it's real name) that was growing wild near the fence at the Farm. So, I trained it to climb the fence and labeled the plant so that it could be read on both sides of the fence.

The second project, is also very simple. In fact all I did was fill a metal container with soil (potting soil + horse manure), plant a passion fruit and train the vine to attach to the fence. The passion fruit also has some support from some bamboo shoots to help it get to the fence and grow tall.

As you can see from the photo above, we needed the container because this section of the garden has concrete on it. If your fence is next to soil, you can plant right into the ground.

The third project is a little more complicated, but only took an hour from start to finish. I made a small pocket out of potato sacks and chicken wires. Then I filled it with dirt and planted a nasturtium and trained it to the fence.

Click here if you would like the complete instructions on how to make the vertical garden pocket on a fence.

April 17th Free Farm Blessing Ceremony!

Hi Everyone! Like the board says, "4/17 - Blessing Ceremony"







I want to dedicate a special blog post today to invite you to the Free Farm on Saturday April 17th, at 10am for a special interfaith blessing and dedication. Presiding will be Pastor Dan from St. Paulus. Commissioning the area will be the Episcopal Bishop of California, Marc Andrus. Pastor Megan from Welcome, Griff from Diocal and the Free Farm, Margaret from Holy Innocents Episcopal Church, and regular volunteers will all be there offering blessings on the farm as well. We really hope to have the Farm's full spectrum of faith traditions, and non-traditions represented as possible.

Please join us. This promises to be a very special event for the farm and community.

Regular workday will take place. Either coming along for the event or not is perfectly alright!

First Free Farm Harvest!

This past Saturday at the Free Farm saw some seriously healthy looking lettuces ready for eating!



Check out the pictures of Megan and I ready to snip greens from the lettuce lawn that can be harvest three times. Our strawberries are plumping up and the lettuce heads are now big enough to eat. Everyone's hard work is finally turning into something tasty!

Welcome Fudraiser - Harvest Lunch: May 22nd: 12-2pm

Save the date! Tickets will be $100 ($25 for garden volunteers and students).

Kris - Neigbor Loves Working in the Garden

Griff recaps our garden work day

Free Farm Work Day - 3/24/2010

At today's work day we were able to get a lot of great work done, because we had so many wonderful volunteers. You can see most of them here in this photo.
We planted lots of different types of plants and spaces today.
We planted tomatoes in hot frames (water cooler bottles with the bottoms cut off).
We planted several types of mint in our labyrinth.
We planted beans along our stairs. As they grow taller, they will climb the stings attached to the poles we set up.We did our second planting of our lettuce lawn. This is planted by spreading lettuce seeds closely together covering it with a thin layer of dirt and watering. When it grows we will trim the lawn and it will continue to grow (like grass). We planted squash in our raised beds.
Check out our how our hillside garden is growing:
We still have more plants to plant, and we hope you'll help plant them on our next garden work day Saturday from 10am-2pm (with a vegan lunch served at noon). A neighbor came with a truckload of plants for our garden. A retired gardener, this neighbor liberated these plants from a building he was managing that was about to be destroyed. He's been taking care of them for the last 10 years.

In the News

Free Farm San Francisco - Tonic

Volunteers turn an overgrown lot in San Francisco into a farm that will provide free food.

San Francisco is one of the most expensive cities in the country, which makes the idea for the Free Farm all the more remarkable. The 1/3-acre lot located at the corner of Gough and Eddy streets is planning to provide free food to whomever wants it, with much thanks to a man who goes by the name Tree.

As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, Tree, a resident of the city's Mission District, opened what he called the Free Farm Stand in his neighborhood back in 2008, thanks to donations for the supplies he needed and a lot of hard work from various volunteers. Even though Tree said, "I've always got more people in line than food," he's managed to grow and give away more than 6,000 pounds of food.

Tree oversees the volunteers at the plot of land located at Gough and Eddy, land that used to be "an overgrown space for the homeless, junkies and partying gang members." The Rev. Megan Rohrer, executive director of The Welcome Ministry, a San Francisco nonprofit aiming to end poverty, asked the land's owner, the Lutheran Church, if Welcome could grown food on the lot, and the church agreed, unofficially giving them three to five years. Following a three-month cleanup, seedlings are now being planted and while it could be months until workers start to give out food, it's going to happen.

Not only will it help those in need, but as Tree explained in the article, it also helps the community at large. "Doing things for free encourages people to share. It encourages people to be community, to be family. It provides people the chance to be generous with each other." Let's hope the generosity continues to spread.

See the original: Free Farm San Francisco

Alia talks about their spring break work day

Saturday March 13th Workday

Today we continued our double digging, did some planting, painting and gathered lots of plants from Tree's personal nursery that we will use on the farm.

Here are some of the photo highlights of our work:

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.