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!

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!

Free Farm Continues Growing!

This week at the workday our vegetables got some protection from the elements with Reemay row covers. Check out the photos to see the work done on the row covers and how spectacularly the food is shaping up.

Join Us for Upcoming Workdays!

Every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am - 2pm come volunteer at the Free Farm.  This Wednesday help us welcome visiting Alternative Spring Breakers from Dartmouth College!  Come be a part of the excitement of food growing in San Francisco reported on recently by the Chronicle!  You bring the elbow grease, we'll bring the vegan lunch!  Hope to see you soon.

Here's a group of Alternative Spring Break students that came to help out at the farm.  You and/or your organization are certainly welcome, too!

Gardening Volunteer Opportunities

Hi there! If you've got a desire to learn about gardening and food growing by getting your hands dirty, here are some places you can go!

Every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am until 2pm the Free Farm at Eddy and Gough Streets is open for folks to come work. There are all kinds of jobs to be done. This coming week we plan to do some shoveling to double dig our beds, planting more food, building our trellis for scarlet runner beans, raking and smoothing double dug beds, organizing tools in the shed, taking pictures, watering plants, running the wheelbarrow, or making a vegan lunch for yourself and the other volunteers! Sound like something you'd like to do? Either stop by in some clothes you don't mind getting a little dirty, or send me an email at thefreefarm.sf@gmail.com

Tree, a major coordinator of the Free Farm also has opportunities at different gardens listed on his site.

Happy Growing!

Fruit Trees, Compost, and a Labyrinth!

Maybe it only looks like trash bags covering heaps of who-knows-what and a black bin to you, but it's so much more! This is the beginning of the Free Farm's composting system. There is a place for our food scraps from lunch, the invasive plants found at the site, and thick, woody materials, too. Composting space on a farm. Gotta have it! Below is a picture of our composting committee. Thanks so much, you three!
















The picture below shows Tree sharing his knowledge of fruit trees. He taught us how to prune the tree so it will stay low. He also cleared up a problem lots of folks run into during tree planting. Rather than digging a hole and surrounding the tree with all nutrient rich material, the native soil should be mixed with the organic matter.















Also, Pastor Megan has been making serious headway with the meditation labyrinth. Make sure to check out the link to see how fabulously it's coming along!

DIY: Learn to double dig raised beds

This Saturday workday our group got two beds ready for planting! Tree gave us a tutorial on how to prepare them by double digging.

Step 1.) Your beds should have a 4-6" layer of compost on top to start with.














Step 2.) See Tree there in the photo below with the shovel in as deep as the shovel's head? That's as far down as you want to dig. You also only need a width of one shovel's head.














Step 3.) The soil from the first trench should be placed in a wheel barrow. That soil goes to the far end of the bed where it will be used to fill in the last trench.

















Step 4.) Stick a digging fork in the trench you just dug so the tongs are fully submerged. Wiggle the fork around to loosen up the soil. This wiggling aerates the soil allowing roots more space and increasing drainage.













Step 5.) Now that the soil in the first trench has been loosened up you can begin digging the second trench right beside the first; same depth, same width. The soil from the second trench (including the 4-6" of compost on top) gets put into the first trench. You're just moving dirt from hole #2 into hole #1. Easy as that.

Just keep following this pattern of digging out a trench, working the fork into the dug-out space and then digging another trench right beside it and putting the second trench's dirt into the first. Do this all the way down the line. Mixing nutrient rich compost in with your soil helps build the soil structure, making the beds a hospitable area for food growing.















After raking the beds even our beds look like this.

Saturday Feb. 6th Recap

This past Saturday workday from 10am - 2pm started with the arrival of roughly three pick-up trucks worth of compost from the city dump. Farming in San Francisco on a large scale requires lots and lots of nutrient rich material to amend the sand-like soil. We'll be using a double-digging method to get our beds ready for planting.















This Saturday also saw some special friends from Tofu Town. They generously provided us with prepared lunches of vegan gyros and backyard gleaned fruit juice. All-in-all around 20 volunteers were fed. It was so good, I can't say enough. Thank you Tofu Town!















In keeping with the community building component of community gardening/farming our group comes together during important parts of the workday. We gather for a group huddle to lay out our plans for the day before we start, we come together again for a lunch break, and then we close by touring the farm and pointing out what's been accomplished during the day. The Free Farm project is about more than just growing food, it also seeks to nurture community amongst its contributors.

I hope you will come be a part of this growing community during our Saturday 10am - 2pm workdays.

Work With us at the Free Farm this Saturday

The Free Farm is quickly moving from an abandoned, neglected lot, to a well-loved, full-scale farm. Come be a part of our growing community of farmers this Saturday from 10am - 2pm. We'll be getting our beds prepared with manure and compost, laying down wood chips to finish our loading ramp, continuing cleaning the lot, and watering our strawberry plants! To work at the farm you'll need to wear some work clothes, including closed-toed shoes, and be ready to sign our volunteer liability and photo release form. We'll provide the delicious vegan lunch! See you then!

What's needed at the Free Farm and how you can help

Hi everyone,

This past workday saw some exciting progress at the Free Farm. We set up a valve and now have running water. Now our crops won't die!















This is a huge step for the farm, and the next step that comes from it is hooking up a manifold which allows us to run water multiple places. In order to water the whole farm we need to install a drip irrigation system which means we need a drip timer. Timers run about $60. We'll also need plenty of PVC piping to get the water to the plants.

We're also at the ridiculously exciting phase where we are preparing the beds for planting. This means we need to work lots of compost and manure into the sandy San Franciscan soil. Do you have a truck we can use to load up with compost?














We also have plenty of other items that can be donated, check out the last blog with our comprehensive list.

If you can help us feed hungry people with fresh, locally grown produce by donating any of these items please contact me at case.garver@gmail.com. I'll get you the specifics.