Spare a Sandwich for Alemany Farm
By The Farm Team | January 2, 2011
Dear Farm Friends:
We’re writing to ask you a favor.
In the last five years since we revitalized an abandoned garden and turned it into Alemany Farm, we’ve never sought financial donations from our volunteers. After all, you already give so much. You give your time, your energy, and your enthusiasm for a sustainable food system.
But even as an all-volunteer-run organization that has no personnel costs, it does take money to keep Alemany Farm thriving — money for irrigation equipment, seeds, vegetable starts, and tools.
So we’re hoping that you can keep our farm thriving by making a tax-deductible donation to Friends of Alemany Farm to help cover our materials costs in 2011. Just visit our donation page to make a secure donation through our fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco Parks Trust.
Here’s a reminder of some of our accomplishments at Alemany Farm in 2010:
• We hosted more than two dozen field trips with elementary school students, high schoolers, college students, religious organizations, and corporate groups. These field trips exposed hundreds of people to the rewards of organic gardening.
• We grew several thousand pounds of organic fruits and vegetables. About half of the harvests went to households in the Alemany Public Housing Community via our summertime free farm stand. The other half was shared among our many amazing volunteers.
• We organized our second annual Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture that gave two dozen adult learners in-depth education about urban food production.
• We hosted 100 community workdays at which people came from across San Francisco and around the Bay to get their hands dirty to make our city more food secure.
You can help us continue this work in 2011 by clicking here and making a donation to help pay for materials costs in the season to come.
If everyone on this email list were to make a $5 donation, we could cover all of our costs for the next two years. You can barely get an organic sandwich in the Mission for $5, so we hope this isn’t too much to ask.
Please consider making a year-end donation to Friends of Alemany Farm today by visiting our donation page. Together, we can help to make San Francisco and the Bay Area more food secure.
Happy Holidays!
The Farm Team
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Upcoming Workdays at Alemany Farm
By The Farm Team | December 13, 2010
The weather lately has been perfectly wintry. Out at Alemany Farm we’ve got all of our winter cover crop in the ground, the garlic has started to come up, and our 2011 strawberries are all tucked in for the cold, dark weeks to come.
Still, there’s plenty of work to be done in the garden, even in this slower season. We need to keep those strawberries and garlic weeded and well mulched. We’ll be busy with some native plant ornamental landscaping. And there’s always the maintenance on our stream ecosystem and wintertime orchard tasks.
So please mark your calendars for these upcoming community workdays:
Sunday, December 5, from Noon to 5 PM
Monday, Dec 6, from 1 PM to 5 PM
Saturday, Dec 11, from Noon to 5 PM
Monday, Dec 13, from 1 PM to 5 PM
Sunday, Dec 19, from Noon to 5 PM
Monday, Dec 20, from 1 PM to 5 PM
CLOSED Sat, Dec 25, Xmas
Monday, Dec 27, from 1 PM to 5 PM
Thanks, as always, for all of your work to make SF more food secure.
The Farm Team
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Alemany Harvest Festival SATURDAY
By The Farm Team | October 19, 2010
We hope that you can join us this Saturday, October 23 as we celebrate Alemany Farm’s Sixth Annual Harvest Festival!
The festivities will start around 11 AM as we dig into some of our Autumn tasks: Turning over beds for our winter cover crop and preparing and planting beds with our 2011 garlic crop.
As we work hard, we’ll also be playing hard.
This year we’ll have a couple of bands, which will start around 1 PM and continue through the afternoon. And throughout the day we’ll also have plenty of games for kids: face painting, t-shirt stenciling, and bike-powered hay rides. Of course, you don’t have to be under 5-feet to make a t-shirt. Bring a shirt from home and we’ll have lots of garden-themed stencils so you can make your own Alemany Farm t-shirt.
Then stick around for the BBQ. For the second year in a row we’ll be roasting a whole suckling pig that was sustainably raised on Northern California pasture and then humanely slaughtered by a local butcher. For those of you who don’t do meat, we will have veggie burgers and veggie hot dogs on the grill. We’ll also have some fresh salads straight from the garden. Please bring a side dish or dessert to share.
The Harvest Festival is our time to celebrate another successful season and to thank one another for all of the hard work we’ve done to make San Francisco more food secure. We hope you can come and share it with us.
The Farm Team
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Upcoming Workdays + 10-10-10 + Squash Fast Food
By The Farm Team | October 4, 2010
The Harvest Moon has come and gone and the days are getting noticeably shorter. Out at Alemany Farm, we’re still harvesting peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and squash thanks to the recent warm spell, but we’re already thinking about winter. It will be nice when things slow down a bit and the rains come.
In the meantime, though, we have a busy fall: A big international day of action to combat climate change and our 6th Annual Autumn Harvest Festival.
So please mark your calendar:
Saturday, Oct 9, Noon to 5 PM, regular workday
Sunday, Oct 10, 10 AM to 2 PM, work party as part of the 10-10-10 global day of action to address climate change. If you haven’t yet, please check out www.350.org for more information on how you can get involved. At Alemany Farm, we’ll be mulching our redwood circle, clearing out some beds and making compost, and doing the tillage on our winter onion beds and planting out onions. We’ll also have a very casual BYO potluck BBQ and a bluegrass band. … If you can’t make it out to Alemany Farm, and want to find other events in your neighborhood, please visit www.350.org. At the end of the day, we’ll be heading over to Hayes Valley Farm for the 350.org end-of-day celebration.
Monday, Oct 11, 1 PM to 5 PM, regular workday.
Sunday, Oct, 17, Noon to 5 PM, regular workday.
Saturday, Oct 23, 11 AM to 5 PM, is our 6th Annual Autumn Harvest Festival. We’ll have a BBQ (please bring side dishes or desserts to share), games for kids, plus the traditional planting of our 2011 garlic!
And if you or anyone you know is looking for a space to garden, we encourage you to take part in the SF Park Trust’s upcoming bicycle tour, a great chance to scout for new gardening spaces in the City.
Finally, we’d like to ask you to take a second to support an important effort to address childhood obesity in our City. Supervisor Eric Mar has introduced legislation that would ban children’s toys from being given out with fast food.
Thanks, as always, for your work to make SF more food secure.
The Farm Team
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Music and Beer + Upcoming Workdays + Facebook
By The Farm Team | September 21, 2010
The days are getting shorter, and we at Alemany Farm are getting ready for fall. Last weekend we started putting in our winter crops of cabbage, kale and chard. We just ordered our garlic and cover crop seed and are thinking about the rains to come.
As always, there’s plenty of work to do out at the Farm, so we hope you can join us for some of our upcoming workdays:
Saturday, Sept 25, Noon to 5 PM
Monday, Sept 27, 1 PM to 5 PM
Sunday, October 3, Noon to 5 PM
Monday, October 5, 1 PM to 5 PM
Saturday, October 9, Noon to 5 PM
And please mark your calendars now for our 6th Annual Alemany Farm Harvest Festival on OCTOBER 23. We’ll have t-shirt making, games for kids, a potluck BBQ, and garlic planting.
Also, our friends at the SF Parks Trust need volunteers to help Music in Parks. They need help managing the beer garden at the beer garden at this Sunday’s Now & Zen Fest. If you like music, beer, and gardens, please read the info below to volunteer.
Finally, if you’re on Facebook, please take a second to Friend us at www.facebook.com/alemanyfarm, where you can also see plenty of cool farm photos.
Hope to see you in the garden soon.
Thanks, as always, for your work to make SF more food secure.
The Farm Team
HELP SAN FRANCISCO PARKS TRUST SUPPORT MUSIC IN PARKS- SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 26TH
Join us in Golden Gate Park for Alice Radio’s Now & Zen Fest 2010. Parks Trust will be running the Beer Garden and we need volunteers! Each volunteer will receive a free lunch, free parking, and a portion of the tips collected. (Volunteers must be 21+ or over.)
The concert lineup includes Sara Bareilles, Plain White T’s, Natasha Bedingfield, Five For Fighting, and Ryan Star!
Sunday September 26th in Golden Gate Park’s Sharon Meadow from 11am-5pm.
San Francisco Parks Trust is the partnering charity. Proceeds will support our Music in Parks Program.
Please RSVP to maria@sfpt.org
For event information, please visit here.
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Eat Real Festival + Farm Workdays + Climate Change Activism
By The Farm Team | September 1, 2010
Well, better than late than never. Summer arrived … just in time for fall. But we at Alemany Farm will take whatever warm days we can get. This especially cold and clammy summer (the coolest in 40 years in the Bay Area) has been punishment to the tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins and other heat-loving crops. So hopefully our warm spell (if it lasts) will let those fruits get big and ripen up. We hope so!
Before we forget, please mark your calendars for these upcoming community workdays:
Saturday, Aug 28, Noon to 5 PM
Monday, Aug 30, 1 PM to 5 PM
Sunday, Sept 5, Noon to 5 PM
Monday, Sept 6, 1 PM to 5 PM
Saturday, Sept 11, Noon to 5 PM
Come on out, get your hands dirty, meet some new friends, and take home some fresh, organic fruits and veggies.
Speaking of food. We’d like to encourage you to check out this coming weekend’s Eat Real Festival in Oakland. The Festival (http://eatrealfest.com/) seeks to make sustainable food as accessible and as affordable as fast food. That means an awesome lineup of street food-style vendors and workshops on everything from making your own homemade wine and beer; to home beekeeping; butchering; edible gardening; permaculture; cheese-making; kombucha-making; and keeping backyard chickens. Alemany Farm co-managers are participating in the Eat Real Lit Fest Saturday at 5 PM and doing a seed-saving demonstration Sunday at 11 am. Join us!
Also, we’d like to give a plug for folks to get involved in the upcoming international day of action happening on 10/10/10 to address climate change, sponsored by the awesome team at www.350.org. Here in SF, community organizers are seeking to make the connection between creating local, sustainable food systems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If you want to get involved, please check out the announcement below about an upcoming planning meeting.
Thanks, as always, for your work to make SF more food secure.
The Farm Team
10/10/10 Announcement:
In a single day, October 10, 2010, 350 San Francisco landscapes, balconies and community spaces will be transformed into bountiful food gardens, bringing local food production into our 7 square miles. Kitchen Garden SF is teaming with the San Francisco Permaculture Guild, Hayes Valley Farm, 350.org, SF Urban Agriculture Alliance and other local organizations and businesses to host gardeners, urban farmers and local food activists in a global environmental work party. The 350 Kitchen Garden Challenge in San Francisco will include citywide garden work parties, kitchen gardening workshops, a harvest party at Hayes Valley Farm and a bike tour of urban farms built on formerly vacant lots and garden action locations.
The 350 Kitchen Garden Challenge will bring San Francisco to the forefront of climate change solutions by creating a healthy homegrown food supply, building soil, saving water and cutting greenhouse gas emissions; it encourages reconnecting to earth’s natural cycles; the 350 Kitchen Garden Challenge supports local businesses, create local currencies and builds resource sharing networks; it beautifies our neighborhoods, builds community, creates local garden networks and empower ourselves to care for the earth, our selves and each other and it provide San Francisco residents the opportunity to participate in something greater than ourselves in solidarity with other 10/10/10 350.org global actions.
Planning is underway and Kitchen Garden SF is looking for partners, sponsors and organizers to participate in the 350 Kitchen Garden Challenge and bring San Francisco to the forefront of climate change solutions. We will have our first public organizing meeting on Thursday, August 26th, 6:00 - 8:00pm at Hayes Valley Farm, 450 Laguna Street. Please RSVP to karlanjohnson@gmail.com if you can come to the meeting or would like to be a partner or sponsor. To register a garden action or sign up to volunteer on 10/10/10 go to Kitchen Garden SF. Feel free to forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested, we want to see the entire city planting kitchen gardens on 10/10/10!
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Summertime at Alemany Farm
By The Farm Team | July 30, 2010
Dear Farm Friends:
The rest of the country might be suffering from crazy heat waves, but at least we here in the SF Bay we’ve got our cool climate to keep it chill. Which, while not ideal for, say, melons and okra, is at least warm enough to bring on an abundant summer crop of squash, basil, tomatoes, and cucumbers. ‘Cause when the sun starts to western and the fog-blown wind dies down, Alemany Farm takes on a golden glow more lovely than just about anywhere else. As long as you ignore the freeway.
All of which is to say … High summer is the perfect time to get your hands dirty at Alemany Farm!
If you haven’t already, please mark your calendars for these upcoming community workdays:
THIS Sunday, August 1 from Noon to 1 PM
Monday, August 2 from 1 PM to 5 PM
Saturday, August 7 Noon to 5 PM
Monday, August 9 from 1 PM to 5 PM
Sunday, August 15 from Noon to 5 PM
We’ve got plenty of summertime work such as mid-season bed tillage and our second round of plantings such as cauliflower, carrots, beets, squash, and beans. Also compost building, weeding, and hillside orchard maintenance. Plus end-of-workday harvesting of plums, berries, squash, beans, lettuces, cucumbers, and our early season apples.
Come on out and dig in.
Thanks, as always, for your efforts to build a more food secure San Francisco.
The Farm Team
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Upcoming Workdays + Closures
By The Farm Team | June 25, 2010
Dear Farm Friends:
Just a quick reminder the the Farm will be closed this coming weekend and again for the Fourth of July holiday.
Please mark your calendars for these upcoming workdays:
Mon, June 28, 1 PM to 5 PM
Mon, July 5, 1 PM to 5 PM
Sat, July 10, Noon to 5 PM
Mon, July 12, 1 PM to 5 PM
Sun, July 18, Noon to 5 PM
We also want to let you know that Alemany Farm took home the First Place Blue Ribbon in the recent Urban Eats County Fair in the “Garden Basket” category!
Thanks so much for your work to make SF more food secure.
The Farm Team
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Help Alemany Farm at County Fair!
By The Farm Team | June 25, 2010
Dear Farm Friends:
Finally a little bit of spring warmth to get the garden really growin’. … And just in time to ripen up some of our squash for the SF County Fair!
Alemany Farm will be an exhibitor at this coming weekend’s County Fair sponsored by the SF Giants and CUESA, the non-profit that runs the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market. You can learn about the event at: http://www.cuesa.org/events/urban_eats.php
To pull off an awesome exhibit that will educate Giants fans and others about the importance of local food systems, we need your help! If you can volunteer to help us set up our exhibit on Saturday morning, staff the table on Sunday, and/or breakdown the exhibit on Sunday evening, please email Ellen at: ellen@radicalradish.org.
Also this weekend, Merritt College in Oakland is hosting a solstice Permaculture Convergence that will feature workshops in natural building, urban farming, organic gardening, herbs and mushrooms and more.
ANY volunteer at our table will is hugely appreciated!
Finally, mark your calendars for our regularly scheduled community workdays and note some holiday related rescheduling and cancellations
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Alemany Farm Out on the Town
By The Farm Team | June 25, 2010
Dear Farm Friends:
One of the great things about urban agriculture is that, well, it’s urban. Which means that there are more opportunities to engage people in conversations about sustainable food systems than there might be in the sticks.
In the next couple of week, Alemany Farmers will be speaking at a couple of events we want to make sure you know about.
On Wed, May 12, Alemany Farm co-manager Jason Mark will speak at the SF Commonwealth Club as part of a panel on urban farming that will also feature Oakland homesteader Novella Carpenter and Chris Burley from Hayes Valley Farm. For more info and tickets, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/2385mqe
Then, on Mon, May 17, Alemany Farm co-founder Antonio Roman-Alcala will speak at SPUR as part of Shaping San Francisco’s “Ecology Emerges” series. Antonio will join writer Rebecca Solnit and UC Professor Dick Walker to explore the “Economies of Nature.” For more info, please visit: http://events.sfgate.com/san-francisco-ca/events/show/103720765-ecology-emerges-4-economies-of-nature
Alemany Farm is also happy to help promote an upcoming debate about the role of animals in our food systems: NIMAN vs LYMAN — Can you be a “good environmentalist” and still eat meat? … Featuring Nicolette Hahn Niman, author of Righteous Porkchop, and Howard Lyman, the “mad cowboy” who won’t eat meat. Thursday, May 20, at the David Brower Center in downtown Berkeley.
For more info and tickets, please visit: http://eii.org/events/vs/
And don’t forget about our upcoming community workdays. We’re in the full swing of spring and busy planting tomatoes, basil and peppers plus spring orchard care and, as always, compost building. Our next regularly scheduled workdays are:
Saturday, May 8, Noon to 5 PM
Monday, May 10, 1 PM to 5 PM
Sunday, May 16, Noon to 5 PM
Monday, May 17, 1 PM to 5 PM
… If you’re still hungry for some gardening, we encourage you to participate in the new weekly workdays at the Children’s Garden at the SF Botanical Garden. Every Thursday, Noon to 4:30 PM. For more info, contact volunteer@sfbotanicalgarden.org.
Thanks, as always, for helping to make SF more food secure!
The Farm Team
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