Written by Jay Rosenberg | 05 October 2010

You can make a video of your 10 | 10 | 10 Garden Action and share it!

Here's one from Ryan at Just Good TV. Check out more Hayes Valley Farm VIDEOS too. 

Written by Angela Goebel | 30 September 2010

What do you get by mixing perlite, sand, compost and woodchips? With a little bit of light and water, this concoction is the perfect home in which to raise newborn seedlings. Seedlings require special attention and care for their first weeks of life, until they are baby plants ready to play in the nursery.

Hayes Valley Farm is building a network of mini-greenhouses to raise seedlings. Volunteers will be growing seedlings in their windowsills, kitchens, and backyards. On Sunday, Jay taught us how to create a soil mix the seedlings will thrive in, as well as an easy trick for spacing seeds.

How To Start Seedlings

Materials Needed

• 2 Flats
• Newspaper
• Seeds
• Compost
• Woodchips Sand
• Perlite (optional)

1. Sift woodchips and compost to remove larger objects such as twigs. Seedlings prefer fine soil to grow in. We did this by pouring the woodchips and compost over flats and into buckets. Shake the flats like you are gold panning, resulting in refined soil matter.

2. Mix the materials that will compose your soil:

• Handful of Perlite
• Handful of Sand
• 1/3 Part Woodchips
• 2/3 Parts Compost

The perlite helps retain moisture, the sand aids in drainage, the compost adds nitrogen, and the woodchips provide carbon. Jay said he didn’t recommend purchasing perlite because it is an expensive industrial product. But, in our case, it was donated, so we went ahead and used it.

3. Line a flat with newspaper and place another flat on top of it. Now, lay the soil mixture you created in the flat. The newspaper helps capture excess moisture.

4. Plant the seeds so that they are spaced a few inches apart. One effective technique is to lay another flat on top of the soil. Put a seed in every other space in the flat’s grid to ensure they are evenly spaced. Punch holes and place the seeds in the holes, so that they are about ½ inch deep. Cover the seeds with the soil.

Written by Kevin Bayuk | 28 September 2010

The future of life on this planet may depend on what we eat. Factory farmed junk food is the #1 cause of climate change, but we can save the planet by going organic. The greenhouse gas emissions from factory farms, deforestation, industrial crop production, food processing, and long-distance distribution make the food sector the biggest cause of climate change, responsible for at least a third of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Factory farmed meat, dairy and eggs alone may contribute as much as 51%! But we can change food system pollution into food system solutions. A worldwide shift to local, organic food production would drastically reduce food system emissions and turn the world's farmland into a carbon sink to capture and store 40% of global greenhouse gas pollution.

Excerpt from Organic Consumers Association's "Food Agenda 2020: The Organic Alternative

Benefits of Kitchen Gardens

Community Health

We know that our culture is facing a nutrition-related health crisis. It starts with the rise in obesity and leads to other diseases.  Diet and obesity related diseases (heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes) are the biggest killer in the Unites States today.[2] Obesity costs Americans 10% of our health care bills, approximately $150 billion dollars per year. This figure is expected to double in the next 10 years to $300 billion per year.
Not only do kitchen gardens provide fresh, healthy vegetables and encourage healthy eatting, they also give us an opportunity for exercise and human interaction. Kitchen gardens can be adapted for any skill and ability level, from individual gardens in barrels to entire backyards with perennial vegetables and fruit trees.

Community Building

As any current San Francisco gardener can attest, a garden becomes a magnet and a catalyst for community health just by being visible.  As neighbors see eachother enjoying the bounty of a kitchen garden, perhaps pausing in the morning to enjoy the sweet flesh of a sun ripened strawberry, it often leads to sharing garden knowledge and garden surplus.  Connections are made and bonds are established simply by seeing food production so close to the kitchen.  A catalyst, because every gardener discovers the dilemma of too many zucchini or so much arugula they could feed the neighborhood. Surplus happens in a garden.  Community bonds frequently follow a surplus as extra veggies and fruits are shared with neighbors. The garden caring and neighborly sharing leads to a diverse diet promoting improved eating habits and stronger community bonds.

Written by Jay Rosenberg | 24 September 2010

Since July, many have found creative ways to express their sorrow, regret, anger and confusion about the attack on our beehives at Hayes Valley Farm. 

Hayes Valley Farm asked local songwriter Greg Hayes to write a song memorializing the honey bees lost at the farm. "Honeybee" speaks to that tragedy, comments upon colony collapse and is, of course, a love song.

As we get ready for tonight's big event, Farm Film Night: Vanishing of the Bees, I am thrilled to offer a sneak preview of the song. Greg has been hard at work in his studio putting together a final cut. We plan on releasing the full version on 10/10/10.

You can help too!

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Dont miss Farm Film Night tonight at 6pm.

Written by Brett McGuire | 23 September 2010

Why should you come to the next Farm Film Night? Well, I’m glad you asked.

You like to eat, don’t you? So do I. When I was a lad, food was just something I had to shovel into my mouth in great quantities so I could keep training. (I was in swimming pools an average of four hours a day.) Only in my late twenties did I discover food and how much I really liked to eat.

Maybe you are one of those for whom food is just a necessity, and the process of eating does not mean much. Then again, maybe you have moved well beyond my own requirements, and consider yourself a ‘foodie’ for whom every bite must be just so or you are not interested. In either case, a question before us at this point in history is, Do you want to keep eating? No, seriously. What if I told you I was going to keep you from eating every third bite of food that you intended to put in your mouth? Imagine I could do it. How would that make you feel? Angry? Horrified? Certainly anxious, right? Now imagine that for all those bites of food I kept you from eating, every one of them was high in nutrient content, and the great majority of all the fruits and vegetables on the planet.

What would be left? Potatoes. Grains. Meats fed by those grains (until they ran out), and little else. Okay, I know, tasty enough on their own, but hardly a banquet.

Now, do not imagine, but understand that the scenario I have depicted here is coming true as I write. I am referring, of course, to the honeybee: that unsung hero of food production, and undervalued workhorse keeping us all alive. Literally.

Iconic in human history, the honeybee is responsible--through its role as a pollinator--for the growth of approximately one-third of all the food we humans put in our mouths…

...and they are in decline. In just the last few years, beekeepers have seen annual losses in their hives of as much as 30%.

So, you wanted to know why you should come to the next Farm Film Night? Three words. Colony Collapse Disorder. That’s why.

Join me for a screening of Vanishing of the Bees, find out why the honeybee is in decline, and how each and every one of us has a role in making sure they do not disappear (since I wants ma apricots!) altogether. In light of the sort of ignorance and obvious mental illness that attended the recent massacre of all our bees here at Hayes Valley Farm, I think it is time we all got a bit better educated about the possibilities.

See you Friday!

Photo: The Daily Galaxy