The Free Farmstand:
An Inspiring Urban Gardening Story
Have you ever grown too many vegetables and couldn’t get your friends or neighbors to take any more? Didn’t you wish you could do something useful with them? Well, at the Free Farm Stand in San Francisco, that’s just the idea!
This innovative farm stand is based on the idea of sharing the bounty of urban farms and gardens. It provides free produce for those on tight budgets and low incomes, free flowers, free seedlings and starts, and free garden advice and help! Most of the delectable variety of vegetables, fruits, plant starts and honey at the stand are grown by Tree, the founder of the Free Farm Stand, in his urban gardens in the San Francisco bay area in California, but the stand also serves as a drop-off location for locally grown organic food and flowers.
Here is an excerpt from the Free Farm Stand web page, describing what they do:
We strive to attain the following goals:
- Help make locally grown, fresh and nutritious organic produce accessible to all, especially those families and individuals on low-incomes and tight budgets.
- Help empower people who have the space to grow their own food and become more self-reliant.
- Promote good nutrition and health
What we do:
- We grow as much food as can in our Mission neighborhood and distribute it for free at our Sunday Free Farm Stand.
- We offer garden advice and help to those who want to put in a backyard garden.
We grow seedlings and starts to give away and other plants.
- We offer a place where neighbors can come and share their extra produce that they have grown with others.
- We provide a drop-off place for local organic surplus food from both local gardeners and organic farmers.
- We offer a weekly gathering spot where neighbors can get to know each other and share their diverse cultures and traditions.
- We harvest organic fruit from backyard fruit trees and public spaces give away it away at the Free Farm Stand.
- We give away honey from local bee keepers and educate neighbors about bees and gentle beekeeping.
- We are working with the San Francisco Permaculture Guild on a number of food growing projects to turn a vacant lot on Potrero Hill into a Permaculture mini-farm that will grow food that will go to the Free Farm Stand and other groups that distribute food to the hungry.
- We are working with about fifteen kids that attend Jamestown after school program, teaching them about gardening and where our food comes. We work with them to gain a sense of care for their community.
The RenewAll Garden Project applauds the innovation and big-hearted enthusiasm of the Free Farm Stand!
To read more about this inspiring garden project, and to watch videos about the project, garden education, and other topics, go to the Free Farm Stand website at: http://www.freefarmstand.org