Earth Day In The Bayview: Permaculture @ Palou

Wondering what all the buzz is about permaculture?  Come and learn the basics principles of this method of sustainable agriculture with a certified permaculturist, then spend the afternoon with your neighbors putting your new knowledge to work by collaborating on a design for the Palou Community Garden.  The "garden," located at Palou Ave. and Dunshee St. in the Bayview, is in the process of being transformed from littered vacant lot into a green space for the community.  Trash has been removed, the spaced weeded and mulched, and soon a mural will be installed.  

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/earth-day-in-the-bayview-permaculture-palou-tickets-11044710025

This workshop will help address the next steps by helping define and design what the neighborhood want to create and plant in the space... within the confines of the sites lease, of course.  Come and share our interest in making our neighborhood a welcoming and beautiful place for us all to enjoy living, working, and playing in.  We do hope you will come and join us!

Saturday April 19th; 10 am to 3 pm
South East Community Facility; 1800 Oakdale Avenue; San Francisco 94124
Requested contribution of $5 (*see below)
Spanish or Chinese interpretation may be available with advance request.
Space limited to 20 online RSVPs with 10 additional spaces reserved for the garden's immediate neighbors.

10am to Noon:  Permaculture Principles with certified permaculturist Fred Bove
Noon to 12:45pm: Modest lunch will be provided (please let the organizer know of any food allergies you may have.
12:45pm to 3 pm:  Community Design Mini-Charrette: Join 94124 resident and permaculturist Diego Sanchez for an afternoon of planning the garden, with the permaculture principles in mind.  A charrette is an activitiy that usually involves a group collaborating to plan and design a space.

The Palou Community Garden is fiscally sponsored by the San Francisco Parks Alliance, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.  All donations to the  Palou Community Garden are tax deductible.

* The requested contribution of $5 goes towards the space rental and lunch.  Please contact the organizers atsfgardeners@gmail.com directly to RSVP if you would like to attend but cannot afford the fee. 

Texas St Community Garden Meeting

JOIN US ON FEBRUARY 2nd AT 6:00 AT THE NABE, De Haro at Southern Heights Ave.

COMMUNITY BUILDING GROUP

Dinner will be served at 6:00 and the meeting will begin at 6:30pm

This is the first Community Building Group meeting of 2012!

After years of planning, meetings and discussions we are finally ready to begin construction on the Texas Street Community Garden. Many people have participated in creating the vision and now we are looking to the community to help make it a reality.

At the next Community Building Group, you will meet the two new Garden Managers and help plan for the expansion of the Potrero Garden Program and the next community wide event. It will also be a chance to learn about the new and improved Potrero Healthy Living Program that kicks off in February.

We hope you can join us!

Also, please keep your eyes open for the 2012 Rebuild Potrero Calendar. It should arrive in your mailbox (if we have your address) by the end of the week. If you do not receive one and would like one please call: Uzuri Pease-Greene at 415-368-4436.

Questions? Call Emily Weinstein at: 415-806-1429

h/t M Tran

Earth Steward

I grew up in the suburbs, but did so with parents who had grown up in a nearby farming community, so getting into the soil around us was always something that was just part of who we were.  When he was a kid, my dad's family lived on a dairy farm, and my great-grandfather and great-uncle worked for a large meat-packing plant.  When I knew them, my grandmothers were off the farm, but both had huge gardens and helped teach us how to garden too.  This lead to my family always having our own large vegetable garden and not shying away from the slaughterhouse when it came time to buy our meats.  Having a connection to the earth made us all more aware of where our food was coming from and made us feel more connected to the land we lived on.  It also gave us the sense of being not just consumers, but part of a community in which all the people in it worked together as gears toward a common goal.

Now as a volunteer with and supporter of more than one urban gardening group in the city, I'm really beginning to believe more and more that getting urbanites out into their community to dig in the dirt is one of the best ways for us to turn our habitually failing neighborhoods around.  Doing so creates a sense of ownership and pride in those who take the time to clean up a space and plant some flowers.  Neighbors are given the chance to meet one another and talk about a common goal, whether it be the beautification of a median strip or the creation of a community vegetable garden.  When we're no longer strangers, we start to see a way to work together to make better the places we live in.


From California Watch,

Earth Steward is the result of a novel partnership among the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the San Francisco Police Department and The Garden Project, a horticultural program geared originally to ex-offenders that now focuses on at-risk young adults. ... the Earth Stewards program combines life skills, counseling and environmental education with a paid job protecting natural resources, including the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park, which supplies drinking water for 2½ million people in the Bay Area, and the Crystal Springs Reservoir in San Mateo County.

Visit the Garden Project's Earth Stewards website, which has now been added to the "D10 Good Stuff" section.