Urban Farm Tour

Last Saturday June 9th was the East Bay Urban Farm Tour. We were excited to be a part of the tour.

There were many other wonderful urban farms on the tour and the only down side was that I was not able to go visit the other farms, but here is the map of the other locations. If you missed it this year make sure to go next year

We had a surprising turn out, about 400 people came to visit our farm

It was a beautiful warm summer day, the Algarden was at it's best, full of flowers and the trees heavy with ripening fruit

My favorite garden helpers, Muluk "the bee smoker" and Aya "the garden fairy" made strawberry lemonade from the garden for the visitors

We had lots of kids visiting the farm, foraging was only allowed for those under 12

 And forage they did, I don't think there was a berry left by the end of the day

The other favorite kid attraction was the tree house

Adults had fun too, we told the history of the site, the importance of sharing as a model, talked to them about permaculture and how we implemented those principles in the garden

We showed them our crops

 The shiitake mushroom production on oak tree logs

The compost pile and how to make one at home

Giancarlo explained how to make compost tea and the multiple benefits of it for soil and plant health

Yes, he is a total compost show off

They got to see the chickens

And the bees, who were also on their best behavior and no one got stung. We talked about the importance of bee keeping in the city to establish a closer connection with them and to encourage, 6000 bee keepers caring for one hive rather then the current situation which is the other way around

The tour through the Da Terra food forest (next door) was also really exciting. People got to see how a garden can look like after 10 years of caring. The also saw the relationship of a high tree canopy a medium shrub and a low ground cover of edibles working together 

One of my favorite professors Clare Cooper Markus came to the tour, I was very happy to see her there

 The farm cat "Big brother" disappeared for most off the day but finally showed up to play for the last tour with a lot less people

  

Thank you so much to everybody who came out to visit the Algarden, it was wonderful to see you.

I also want to send a big thank you to Ruby "Sparky bee grirl" from the Institute of Urban Homesteading for organizing this farm tour and inviting us to participate

Huge thanks to Jane "the owner" who kindly allows us to use her property, do this work and who also did a fantastic job welcoming the visitors. Thanks for volunteering Jane!

 And my most sincere deep gratitude to my friend and mentor Giancarlo Muscardini "farmer in chief" for all that he has taught me and for being an amazing partner in this urban farming adventure.

Next Saturday we are celebrating 4 years at the Algarden and teaching a Permaculture crash course, don't miss it! You can sign up here

Early Spring Work Party

It is hard to call this an early spring, it was more like we had no winter. I used to complain about not having summers in San Francisco but not having winters is worse, we really need the rain!

Despite the lack of rain, we had a beautiful spring day with all the fruit trees in bloom. We took advantage of the great weather to have a very needed work party at the Algarden, lots of people showed up and we had a wonderful and productive day.

My favorite garden helper Muluk came back from his Oaxaca adventure and was at the garden helping out

So good to have him back!

There were mushrooms growing everywhere, which is great as it is a sign of healthy soils.

We started by clearing out some areas that had overgrown weeds and doing sheet mulching. 

Sheet mulching consists of layering recycled card board at the bottom and then a layer of mulch on top. The card board prevents light from reaching the weeds and this kills them. The card board will eventually decompose but in the process it helps to retain moisture and it attracts lots of worms that are beneficial for the soil break down.

We added straw on top of the planted beds to help retain the moisture on the soil

Trimmed down the strawberries to get them to fucus their energy in producing fruit

We planted a new plant guild. A guild is any group of species that exploit the same resources, often in related ways. Guilds are groups of plants that work well together. Some plants may be grown for food production, some to attract beneficial insects, and others to repel harmful insects. When grouped together these plants form a guild.

In this case we planted an apricot tree at the center to help pollinate the existing apricot tree. A few pollinator attractors, the bee hive is right next to this guild so we planted budleya, borage and rosemary which the bees love, also a pineapple sage for the butterflies and hummingbirds. Some raspberries for the humanoids and a few cover crops to keep the soil moisture such as thyme (also a bee lover, bees love blues and purples)

And speaking of bees, we did loose one hive this winter but the other two are surviving and hopefully at this point this means they have made it trough the winter, now lets get ready for swarm season

Overall it was a lovely day to enjoy the garden

Thanks so much to every one who came out to join us

There were lots of winter veggies to share and people took home baggies full of greens 

Is that a dinosaur eating my dino kale forest?

oh no, just Tiago...

Who, by the way, had the most fun in the garden

Looking forward to the next work party.

Happy Spring!

Mission High School Greening Project

I have been a long time resident and fan of the Mission District, and of course the Mission Basilica, the birth place of the city of San Francisco. When I found out I had the opportunity to work on the design of the gardens for Mission High School, I was absolutely honored, such a beautiful and historic building.

 I wanted to do a design that reflected the history and the architecture of the building

The courtyards were built in traditional Spanish style, beautiful but in different stages of disrepair. I had this odd feeling of having just stepped into Havana, Cuba.

I took my first  design clues from the ceiling of the main lobby, which was covered in Moorish  geometry

I wanted to incorporate that same design pattern and apply it to the courtyard. Can't go wrong with geometry on a traditional Spanish courtyard

 So here are the initial concept designs

The Jay Pugano and the students at Mission High created this video where I present the concept ideas to the school community

 Full Design Description Video

The original design has a zome at the center, which everybody loved. Unfortunately  the funding we had was not enough for the zome, but we are looking at ways to fund-raise and make the zome a reality as an outdoor classroom/ art piece.

The design was approved by the school community so we moved forward with the construction, which had to be completed during the summer while the students were out on vacation

It was very exciting to see all that concrete broken down and allowing the earth beneath it to breath again

The funding for this project came from  Proposition A Bond Program which is financed, in large part, by two local bonds passed by San Francisco voters in November 2003 and November 2006. These are facilities bonds, intended to improve SFUSD school sites by bringing them into Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance.

The San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance was able to successfully advocate for schoolyard greening by securing a portion ($7 million) of the  Proposition A voter-approved school bonds. 

This money was distributed  amongst 45 elementary schools in SFUSD which received $150,000 to green their schoolyards. Mission High School was allowed to apply for a grant to get some of this funding too.

They were awarded $100,000 for this project, which might sound like a lot, but turns out that concrete removal in SF is very expensive. So we focused our funds on the removal of the concrete and the placing of infrastructure (planter beds, irrigation, etc)

The planting was going to be left out to be done by the students and the school community.

That is the fun part anyway, so basically we wanted to create a canvas for the students to be able to plant and create a garden

It was exciting to the stars from my design come to life

Accessible raised planters were installed

 Sub drain irrigation was installed for the stars 

The pathways were filled with decomposed Granite and the planting areas with soil

The stars were planted with no mow turf

The small courtyard got planter beds  with wide seating edges so that the students could sit on them and eat their lunch there.

By the end of the summer the students came back to two remodeled courtyards with plenty of space to plant a garden, however much work still needs to get done by them. 

They got started right away and most of the planters on the small courtyard have been planted.

It is beautiful to see this space get transformed by each of the students giving it a personal touch.

For the past four years I have built a public altar for day of the dead at Garfield Park. This year I had surgery and I was not up for the task. I was excited when my friend Karina Borgogno shared her idea of building an altar for Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and founder of the Green Belt Movement. Wangari was an inspiration to Karina and her idea was to have an altar made of all living edible trees, plants, herbs. I was happy to participate at the altar building as support and help her. I suggested we donate the trees and plants to Mission High after the event.

Here is Karina talking to the kids about Wangari and telling them the story of the hummingbird.

With the help of the students, we planted 2 fig trees and two plum trees. 2 on each courtyard.

Big Thanks to Susan Boshoven, Biology teacher who coordinating the planting with her students and who has done a lot of work for the Greening project at Mission High

It was a really fun day and Karina showed those kids how to plant trees

Thank you to all the students who participated.

Thank you Karina for being a humming bird with me