Food Justice: To provide healthy food to people who otherwise cannot afford it.
Building Ecology: A garden is a bio-filter, cleaning the air and water that passes through it. The waste of one system is the fuel for another.
Education Outreach: Working with the land, students of all ages can enjoy the sense of security one earns while growing food that will sustain communities.
Tranquil Space: Green spaces filter out the chaos of urban environments, providing much needed serenity for animals of all kinds.
Sustainability Lifeboat: A repository of perennial vegetables that are rare and otherwise difficult for San Franciscan's to get.
Building Community: An ecological resource to be proud of. A green space for needing souls to linger. Returning surplus to those who need it most.
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Free Farm Stand
The surplus grown on this site will be donated to those with restricted access to high quality organic foods. The Free Farm Stand is a perfect place to distribute these fine foods. Check out the blog by clicking the image above.
The garden at 18th & Rhode Island in San Francisco started as a class design project created by students in a Permaculture Design course in the summer of 2008. Following the class, the design was modified and revised by David Cody and Kevin Bayuk of the SF Permaculture Guild and implementation began on October 22nd 2008.
The project was funded completely out of pocket by the volunteers. In the last year we have spent less than $1500 and with the help of volunteers have produced pproximately 1000 pounds of food that has been donated to people who need it most through the Free Farm Stand. In year two we expect to triple the yield and by year 5 we can expect to be producing 6,000+ pounds of food per year.
The site we started with was less than ideal. It had a considerable slope and very thin soil which was mostly sand on top of serpentine boulders. A serpentine soil is very difficult to grow in due to its acidic nature. We knew we had to create our own growing conditions on top of what existed.
Rather than import expensive soil we opted for using free materials diverted from the waste stream. We brought in cardboard from Whole Foods just 2 blocks away and mulch generated from yard trimmings in San Francisco. Approximately 40 tons of materials was layered on the top of the serpentine soil and it is estimated that in 5 years we will have turned all of that into a fertile top soil several feet deep.
Not only have we grown a diverse bounty of food, we have also grown a community around the garden that extends out into Potrero Hill and beyond. We have taught three Permaculture design courses centered around the garden and a number of workshops including fruit tree maintenance, worm composting, and SF specific plant selection. We hold a regular workday every Friday since the project started and see a regular turnout. We have hosted special events such as the Slow Food Eat-In and have given short lectures and tours to several student groups including college classes and elementary schools.
Though we started with only what we had and were able to do ourselves. The demonstration of success has earned us enough attention that we were awarded a grant for the project. The Eastern Neighborhoods Public Benefit Fund saw the project as worthy enough to grant us approximately $14,000 to further our efforts. With this money we intend to develop educational signs, tool storage, seating and gathering spaces, and further our research into food plants that perform well in San Francisco.
The next year and years to come look good. By building slowly and with community support we have managed to create a stable foundation upon which to grow further success. We have always intended that this project serve as a model for other projects in the urban setting. So far our achievements tell the story and the process we have implemented here is repeatable on any scale and in any location by anyone. The time to start is now.
Be prepared to sit in a garden setting of beauty and wonder.
Where: corner of 18th & Rhode Island, Potrero Hill, SF
What better way to share ourselves, our ideas, and what is important to us than to share it together with food?
At 18th and Rhode Island, our efforts and food are all about sharing. The food we grow is donated to those who have a hard time finding or affording healthy organic foods. Most of it goes to the Free Fram Stand where people can stop by and pick up, exhange, or otherwise share food with their community. There is never any cost, but smiles and happy attitudes usually flow as the currency of choice.
But what about the kids school? We have here the opportunity to share good food with kids who are often given a limited choice on what they will eat while at school.
We invite you to come out on Labor day between 10am and 4pm to let the world know exactly how we feel. Join us and Slow Food USA for an Eat In to voice our support of healthy food in schools.
We are happy to announce our third Permaculture Design Course this season held at the garden in combination with our classroom space at the Potrero Neighborhood House.
We are making it through the summer dryness fairly well. Some of the plants are loving it, others struggle. For me, I never longed for rain so much as I do now when gardening in San Francisco. Sure sunny days are fun, full of bright happy faces and a fair bit of play, but water is life!
We survive right now by using city water to water the plants. What else could we do? With 19 or so inches last season and a long dry season, there isnt much way around it. I wonder what the chloramine does the the microbial soil life...
Even so, the mulch we applied last October has come a long way and is much more decomposed than it was. We can expect a dramatic change over the coming rainy season, allowing the soil life to flourish even more.
Looking foreward to the rains, but for now enjoying the sun.
It has been a little while since I have posted here, but that doesn't mean the garden hasnt been active! We have been down there every Friday and also there has been a couple of Permaculture Classes who have infused their energy into the site.
I was takking a look at some of the 'rough' edits of myself giving an interview at the garden on YouTube today and I saw a video titled "Urban Permaculture". I though to myself, "Yeah, I wanna see that" so I clicked it.
Here's the funny part, it's the garden, and us, and the Spring class! I think it was a group of students form SF State who made the film. If you guys read this make some comments below and take a bow! You did a fabulous job!
This is a short update on the garden. As everyone who has visited the garden must know, the fava beans are growing everywhere with beans on them. Last Friday workday we harvested 12 1/2 lbs of beans and then on Saturday a woman from the Urban Permaculture class harvested a lot more and brought them to the Free Farm stand. I am guessing they were the same amount. Just for the future I am trying to weigh how much produce we harvest from the garden if it is over a pound. So my guess last week is that we had about 24 lbs of beands. This week we harvested 15 pounds which is a five gall bucket full or one msquare milk crate filled with fava beans. They are very popular at the Free Farm Stand.
We have been having good work days on Fridays and have been planting more vegetables and fruit. This friday we planted some Caroline (everbearing) raspberries in bed 5 (I thinned them out of a bed in another garden and they looked kind of wilty) We alsocplanted some big kale plants in bed 2. Alvin and Bernadette did a lot of work. Our neighbor Travis came out too and helped. He fertilized the strawberries with a mixture of worm tea and a little fish emulsion that I got free at a garage sale. He also sowed red clover seed underneath the tree fence.
One big news item is that our neighbor Ross on Rhode Island where we get the water from sold his house and is moving out on Wednesday the 29th. David and I figured out the water bill with him and we used the water meter to calculate the bill.. We had to do some guesswork, but we erred on the side favoring him and we will be paying him $116 for the water bill from February until the 29th. On that day we will read the meter and then we should be able to be more accurate. Some things David and I learned is that we are using in the last couple of months aprroximately 100 gals per day of water at 1.2 cents per gal (all this is approximate). Of course we did have that hot spell, but the hill is hot up there where the sun is out. We probaly want to raise money at some point to not only pay for water, but to purchase drip irrigation supplies . We should also try to set up grey water from the othe neighbor up at the top of the hill.
Besides the fava beans the tater towers are rockin and they are greening out. There seems to be room for a whole lot more to plant and I guess we are waiting for more design work to happen. I will be missing next Friday workday, but David Cody should be there.
Last Friday after our small but beautiful workday I was about to leave to go home. I noticed that one of the red chards was been crowded by the fava beans so I decided to chop and drop the favas according to permaculture terminology (in other words I cut the fava beans down that were crowding out the chard). Then I discovered small lettuces hiding in the favas that I didn't realize were there. So I proceed to do more cutting and harvested a bag full of lettuce for the Free Farm Stand. I was truly amazed because I thought that the experiment of planting on these berms of wood chip mulch was pretty much a bust (though we did but some soil and compost in each hole that we put a seedling in). To some extent things have been growing rather slowly compared to some of my other gardens. And a lot of the small seedlings didn't grow (the lettuce lawn didn't work either). But I was really happy to get the lettuce and will probably harvest more on Saturday. I must admit I have not been a total believer in our methods here on the hill, but I am starting change my views on things. Last night I went to the PDC (permaculture design course) and I am also getting a better idea of what permaculture is about. I also learned that it is ok to be a bit "woo woo" (did I spell that right?). I will never get comfortable with that word though, it is just not a friendly word imho.
Some updates: We have three potato towers up (if they have fallen ovver yet like one almost did last Saturday). Friday I hope to plant one more and to plant more vegetables (starting at 10am). My blog has a slideshow of the potato tower building and more details of our workday.
The PDC class is coming to the garden nw on Saturdays and they did some sheet mulching. I was only there for a short time last Saturday so I can't report much more on what happened .
Oh a lot of the trees are budding out though some seem dormant and even comatose. I am sending them my vibes to wake up!
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The garden at 18th & Rhode Island in San Francisco started as a class design project created by students in a Permaculture Design course in the summer of 2008. Following the class, the design was modified and revised by David Cody and Kevin Bayuk of the SF Permaculture Guild and implementation began on October 22nd 2008.
The site we started with was less than ideal. It had a considerable slope and very thin soil which was mostly sand on top of serpentine boulders. A serpentine soil is very difficult to grow in due to its acidic nature. We knew we had to create our own growing conditions on top of what existed.
