Amyitis Gardens (Am-it-'iz)

Movin on

2009-07-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

Hey all we found a better blog space. Please join us there by clicking on this here linky-do thing here Amyitis' new blog. Or copy and paste the following into your web browser and be sure to bookmark us.

www.amyitis.wordpress.com

Happy Reading!!!

Summer in the City

2009-06-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

This week's harvest: Baby salad mix, Red Russian Kale, Flying Saucer baby squash, Calendula.

Hot Blooded

So I turned around and they grew. I mean literally. I came into the tomato garden one night to check on things and then again the next morning I went into the garden and they had grown. It felt like I turned my back for one split second and they grew an inch. In my head, hazy childhood memories of "A Little Shop of Horrors" were starting to get clearer. I started to hear "FEEEEEEEEED MEEEEEEEE Seymour!!! Good thing my name isn't Seymour. I just kept on weeding and ignoring the cry.

But seriously, I am thrilled amazed amused and enchanted by the growth of our amazing tomatoes. My grandfather would be proud. And if there is a realm where the wise spirits dwell and look down upon us mortals, I am sure that he's sporting an ear to ear grin. In my family my late grandfather was the tomato guru. He (an urban farmer himself in Pittsburgh, PA) was probably the most notable figure in my developing interest in food and gardening. His tomatoes were some of the best I have ever had. Now our Amyitis beauties are some of the best I have ever grown. It seems like maybe he is sending me good graces from the ether.

But beyond my grandfather's Midas touch for nightshades, I guess we do have to take some credit for their success too. Temperature and food make all of the difference with plants like tomatoes and squash. It should go without saying that a plants will perform best in with optimal support. Success in our case is being created by numerous insurances of those supports. The first step to success was in transplanting. These tomatoes were transplanted into raised beds filled with pure compost. Compost is like a a plant super food. For those unfamiliar with the hubbub around compost, compost is literally decomposing organic matter. Plants, food scraps, yard waste can be (when treated properly) turned into nutrient rich soil through a number of methods. While not everything can handle the nutrient blast of being planted in pure compost, tomatoes seem to love it. Decomposing material also produces heat. And because compost is still on its way to becoming soil it is producing a large amount of heat. In combination with a sheltered and sunny Mission District back yard and nutrient rich warm soil, we've repaired and added to an old irrigation system to insure that these plants are getting the perfect amount of water. All of these factors seem to be helping. Just look at the pictures below. Notice how the tomatoes in black pots are almost twice the size. The black plastic retains the suns heat better than the boxes. These plants were all planted in the same soil on the same day.

Eat your Kale

About a week ago I stumbled into The Corner to hold a meeting with Chef and Kitchen Manager Devon Newby. As we chatted about greens and food she had to take a call and went outside. My eyes scanned the restaurant and came to a table of patrons gleefully enjoying and Amyitis Salad. My eyes widened like Gollum around the ring. "THIS is why I do this!" I thought. Feeding people is the fuel in my tank. Even their toddler child was munching away on baby chard and arugula. I almost shed a tear. They were graceful enough after learning that we had grown their salad to let me take their photo.

Link of the week...... err Month.

When I moved to SF in 2006 I was hunting for people doing interesting gardening projects that I could get involved with. A friend of mine led me to the doorstep of a woman named Novella Carpenter in 2007. Novella was in the process of writing a book about her urban garden. However, "Urban garden" is an understatement. Novella is an urban homesteader. She had livestock, fruit trees and veggies all grown in an abandoned plot of land in West Oakland. For about a month and a half I visited her once a week to tinker in the garden and shoot the breeze. Now her book has hit the shelves and I am urging everyone to read it. Simply from the title "Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer" I know I am going to love it. Because urban farming really is about education. There are few if any road maps to how it should all work and I learn something new every time do anything. All of us urban farmers are drawing the maps as we go. With Novella's book hopefully she'll inspire some more map makers. It is at the top of my reading pile. I hope it makes it to the top of yours soon.

Hang on little tomato

2009-05-19T17:02:00.001-07:00

Wow.

Has it really been a month since the last entry? My deepest apologies to our loyal readers and fans for the delay. Evidently, the pressing needs and demands of a growing garden trump the documentation of it. As the sun shines longer and hotter, the "to do" list grows along with the veggies and weeds. With so many developments and so much growth, I find myself now confounded with how to explain it all. Nevertheless I will do my best to recap the developments at Amyitis that continue to make this such a great and interesting season.

Brand New.

I am excited to announce the addition of a new member to the Amyitis team. Eben Bell, a permaculture landscape artist, has joined up with us to help see Amyitis along its path. Until now Amyitis has been taking baby steps to success. Creating a restaurant CSA while holding down another job has thus far dictated the pace of our expansion. Now with the addition of Eben we hope that Amyitis will enter toddler hood and begin running and jumping its way into new spaces. We are happy to have Eben. His background and help will undoubtedly give solid momentum to our growing project.

Micro-climate change.

It goes without saying that San Francisco has interesting weather. But for the sake of this blog and its widespread readership (ha!) I will explain it anyway. While my friends back east are enjoying the heat of May, San Francisco is like a petulant child in the throes of indecision. She's hot one day and cold the next. She's 90 degrees in the sun and 65 in the shade on any given day. Above all, she goes to bed early pulling the icy sheets of fog over her everyday at 5pm. Each backyard garden too has its own wild ways. Two of our gardens lie on opposite sides of the same street no more than 100 yds. apart. On the same day I have experienced up to a 15 degree temperature difference between them. In some ways this is ideal. We've found that the warmer garden is well suited for tomatoes while the other is best for greens. I suspect that after this season we will be able to make expert choices as to crop and variety locations. Having a variety of spaces and micro-climates has allowed us to think about product diversity in a new way. Due to Eben's influence, I've begun letting certain prolific plants go to seed in hopes that we can save them. The idea being that, plants who've done well in a certain climate and location will produce seeds that will produce the same results in the next generation. Since this is all really one big experiment anyway, it doesn't hurt to try to produce "indigenous" seeds to help us out. Eben's ideas also make me excited for the rainy season here in the city. As it turns out, his interests in mushroom cultivation have carried him a bit further than myself. With his ideas and planning, Amyitis might become the gourmet fungi producer I'd once hoped.

In the restaurant.

As we continue to grow food, the Corner and Weird Fish continue to find ways to serve it up. We are grateful to the innovative staff there that are helping us streamline the way we serve them. While we eventually aim to serve a wide variety of restaurants in the city with our produce, we have had the great pleasure of having a direct relationship with the kitchens there who keep us informed about our product and how they can use it. It is clear that we will need many more spaces here in the city before we can serve anyone else. It has been a great education and a fortunate union to pair our fledgling project with a burgeoning restaurant. Go down to the Corner and Weird Fish and give them (and us) your feedback.

Its a girl?

We've got our first tomato! One hot day this past week Eben and I and a couple of hardworking volunteers got the tomatoes into the planter boxes we'd built for them so long ago. They are happy as.... well... tomatoes. When you've nurtured such a fickle plant from seed in an even more fickle environment, sign of the first fruit is worthy cause for a celebration. We hope this means that they are happy. And now our mouths and stomachs look eagerly to the future when the first taste of a Green Zebra tomato passes our lips.

Linky-dink

For other San Francisco gardeners (or just gardeners in general) SF Grow is a great organization providing tons of resources to people like us and you. From compost giveaways to free weekly tips, they are a vital source of info on all things garden related. Be sure to give 'em a click. www.sfgro.org

RAD-ISH

2009-04-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

As the season kicks in to high gear here at Amyitis there seems to be less to say and more to do. Well that is not totally true. In fact, I have so much to say I don't know where to begin. Do I begin with the huge debt of gratitude I owe to all of my volunteers and clients? Do I begin with the extreme quality of the baby greens we've been harvesting from the gardens? Or, do I begin by talking about the challenges of growing for a new restaurant? While all of the above are topics worthy of further missives, I will stifle my will to blather on and simply say that Amyitis is moving rapidly forward. And, if the results we've seen so far are any indication of what is to come, we are in for an exciting summer full of challenges and triumphs.

The recent SF heat wave has shot things into full summer at the gardens. The heat is such a stark contrast to the cold snap that came just before it, I often wonder how plants manage to hold on. Well, I guess that some do and some don't. The cold nights we recently had paired with the wind in the evenings has wreaked havoc on our squash and basil. Most all of the squash and basil transplants either stunted or died. Hopefully, after some more in-depth investigation we can actually grow a decent squash plant this summer. They've always grown like weeds before. I am unsure of what we are doing wrong there.

In other news, the tomatoes we started in the basement are outside hardening off... and just in time for the heat wave. That was lucky timing. They are a bit leggy but I think that they will adjust to full sun quite well. We've transplanted them into 4" pots to give them a bigger root ball and a thicker stem before we let them go off on their own.

We couldn't be happier about the quality of the arugula, mizuna and lettuce that are coming out of the gardens now. I can shamelessly say that they are without a doubt some of the best greens I have had the pleasure of eating. It is these times here at the gardens that I would like to take a moment to enjoy. There is no prouder moment than harvesting something delicious that you've nurtured and cared for. In the contrast of a relatively harsh urban environment, to eat such a fine salad is almost enough to make the tears flow. Well, at least salavatory tears.

Lastly, while harvesting the lovely greens I speak of last week for a delivery to Weird Fish and the Corner, I stumbled upon a large and lovely toad enjoying the refuge of a canopy of mizuna. I nearly stepped on him as I made my way through the rows. And while fully aware of my towering presence next to his, he sat seemingly indifferent eating flies. I have no idea how he got there. In fact I am not sure I care. It's undoubtedly a good omen.

Happy gardening.

David

Lovely D'avignon Radishes

A Friday Harvest

Fat Omen Toad

on the menu

2009-04-10T08:22:00.001-07:00

Link of the week

I just wanted to post the interview I recently had with Adam at SF menu pages. I am grateful for the press. Certainly, spreading the word about what we do is the hardest part. A little help never hurts. Thanks Adam.

Be sure to come down to The Corner this weekend for some fresh mission-grown green garlic, salad mix and Russian Kale!!

Click this link to read the interveiw.

Best,

David

Farmers Anonymous

2009-04-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

There really is no stopping a moving train. At this point we've gained enough critical momentum that there is no stopping or turning back. Not that we'd ever had plans to stop. Simply put; the reality of the encroaching growing season and, its unique backyard slant for us, is setting in quickly and deeply. We predicted we'd be busy, but as we've learned recently with our economy, predictions are one thing, reality is another.

During the past two weeks, both Jessie and myself have moved homes and started building a new garden space in the Mission. We've developed strategic tag-team watering plans for all of the spaces (plants don't give us a day off!!) And we've begun to take the first of our weekly shipments to The Corner (18th and Mission www.thecornersf.com). We are jumping with glee each time that we do. Moments like that are when what we do most feels like a selfish act rather than an environmental or communal one. Mainly because it is. When what you happen to enjoy is also something that is good for communities and the environment, there is no reason not to be as selfish as possible. The pure satisfaction I get from bringing our own city-grown organic produce to a restaurant 4 blocks away is narcotic. All idealism aside, I like this.... a lot.

Of course I knew that I liked it when I was farming in VT, but this is something different. I am continually awestruck by how little I know each time I learn something new. Each piece of food we pull from a backyard feels like a triumph, a victory. It feels like we are regaining control of our spaces and inspiring others to do the same. And not simply because it is trendy or altruistic, but because it feels good. It feels right.

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to:

"talkin' it over"

"step one"

"a little help"

"bad-ass"

"almost done"

"Green garlic for The Corner"

"Proud grower"

"Proud grower"

Will work for food

2009-03-14T20:34:00.000-07:00

Volunteer Update

We're gaining more sunlight everyday and with each new sunny moment we're seeing great changes in our backyard farms. These changes mean more work to make sure we can pull off great harvests for The Corner and Weird Fish, the restaurants we grow for. More work means that we are in ever greater need for more hands. Our volunteers have responded to those needs in numbers.

This week Joel, Sierra, Tina, and Adrienne showed their lust for learning about food by getting dirty. They donated a Friday to getting some plants and seeds in the ground at both of our current garden locations. Blessed by a warm sunny day in the Mission we were able to get some of our seedlings in the ground. Throughout the day we planted head lettuce and scallions that we'd started from seed on our grow table. After that

we got crazy with some direct seeding of arugula, tat-soi, kale, and mizuna. While seeding doesn't take all that long in a small backyard garden I had a great time showing people the ropes. Beyond that, I was really grateful for all the help and good company. Before long I reckon we'll have some real black belt volunteers. Thanks guys.

Can we get a light?

While the sun sticks around a little longer now, we've been having some light issues on our light table in our grow room. Our squash starts just have not seemed happy. When a plant thinks winter is coming (i.e. when light decreases) it reacts by producing as much offspring (veggies in this case) as it can before the light is no longer enough to sustain the plant. In controlled environments, one strictly controls the amount of light a plant receives in order to give the plant time to mature before it decides to produce fruit and ultimately die. By systematically reducing the daily light cycle, we encourage the plant to "flower" and then "fruit".

In our case, our squash was flowering prematurely. Which meant it thought death was immanent. We had set our lights on a 12 hour time cycle to ensure that the plants had ample light to photosynthesize and grow large before we planted them outside. But for some reason it wasn't working. Scratching our heads, we just couldn't make sense of why our squash thought the end was nigh. That is... until now.

I donned a dunce cap the moment I realized, while laying in bed at 3am, that the master switch to the power was being turned off every night at 8:30 by our cleaning service at the restaurant. This master switch includes our timer. So regardless of what our timer decided to do, it was lights out every night at 8:30... no questions. Some days our squash was getting a full day of "sun" and others it was getting maybe only 3-5 hours. Now, with problem solved, we need to seed a new bunch of squash. And now the death-row squash will be granted a pardon and set outside to start hardening off. With any luck they'll brought back to health.

I believe that Homer Simpson said it best when he said "Dooooough"!! He knows as well as I do, its hard to sleep with a dunce cap on.

Link of the week

This week I've decided to try something a bit out of the ordinary for us and suggest a link that is off the beaten path. "Fringe" Author Daniel Pinchbeck (2012: the return of Quetzalcoatl) writes mainly about altered consciousness and the point break of our political, social and environmental culture-wave but has also been known to wax poetic when it comes to sustainability. While I will leave the research on his credentials up to the masses, I will advocate his very interesting blog www.realitysandwich.com. In addition to his provoking ravings and rants about consciousness expansion, he has interesting views about the state of the environment and what we can do about it. While he's no Michael Pollan, his views about personal responsibility and urban farming are worth more than a mention. Explore his blog and decide for yourself.

Happy reading,

David

Mission Statements

2009-03-02T16:21:00.000-08:00

Urban Gothic:

Lately, when Jessie and I talk about Amyitis, the subject that most often comes up is "what next?" It seems that for any bits of knowledge we'd gained from our days on the farm, we have

three times as much to learn. Every day we wonder what we could be doing that we haven't thought of yet, what is worth our energy and how much? Is our grow room good enough? Have we been over-fertilizing or under? What else is economical to grow for a restaurant? Just how much food are we expecting to yield this season? Is there a better way? What are we forgetting?

With each question we try to answer it seems that two more appear. With only a 1/2 season under our belt because of our late start last year, we're finding that there are questions that only time will answer for us. As uncomfortable as that is, until time passes we have to make the mistakes and choices like first timers. And let's face it, we are novices at this after all. With full time jobs, there is only so much time to hesitate. So we are doing what we know how one day at a time.

While we are waiting for mother nature to squeeze last drops out of winter from the clouds, we're doing our best to make plans for what is to come. But with all of our questions, we're both feeling a little less than efficient. It still feels too early to direct seed some things. We're not planning on planting many, if any, root veggies like carrots, beets, or potatoes because of the time and space it takes to grow them. So, naturally, we're a bit hesitant to direct seed squashes and cucumbers just yet because of their more sensitive nature. We have chard, lettuce and scallions hardening off under the cold frame that should be ready to hit the ground soon. For those that don't know, hardening off is the process of toughening up the plants between the greenhouse and the open field. Also, it is not too early for lettuce, peas and kale to go in, so they will get planted this week too.

In many ways it feels like the eye of the hurricane. The excitement of preparing our grow table building beds and ordering seeds has passed. And for now it appears that things have gone slightly idle. Yet at the same time, we both know that in a months time, we'll be too busy to think. So for now we're learning how to make the best use out of Mother Nature's limbo time: updating our business cards and trying to find more backyard spaces in the Mission! That being said, we're always looking for ways to find more usable spaces that are close to or in the Mission. Never hesitate to pass us along to a new reader or someone that might be interested in having their back yard space transformed into a producing, wholesaling micro-farm.

Much of what we are planting now will be going to the cozy kitchen of a brand new restaurant opening .....soon? ...here in the Mission called The Corner. Another venture of Peter Hood and Timothy Holt, The Corner will be a small-plate wine and espresso bar. Their menu will focus on local and seasonal meat, fish and produce from our Bay Area as well as fine wine and coffee. Amyitis greens will be a strong part of the menu as we give them a weekly harvest. We're very excited. It is a real privilege to see your food be magically transformed by inspired chefs. We can't wait. Be sure to keep eyes and ears open for news of the grand opening coming very soon.

Link of the Week:

Alemany Farm is a great local farm here in the city dedicated to growing community through growing food. If you are unfamiliar with Alemany, be sure to go check out their website at Alemany Farm. They provide meaningful youth and community activities at their multi-acre city farm and grow food for their low-income neighborhood. Alemany's Mission Statement reads:

"Alemany Farm empowers San Francisco residents to grow their own food,
and through that process encourages people to become more engaged with their communities. We grow organic food and green jobs for low-income communities, while sowing the seeds for economic and environmental justice"

Huh... sounds a lot like us... but with loads more practice and expertise. We applaud the efforts and accomplishments of Alemany and encourage the growth of them and organizations like them. Like us here at Amyitis, they are always looking for volunteers. More information is listed on their website about how to be involved with them if you have something to learn or something to share.

Happy reading,

David

Down and Dirty

2009-02-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

Mud:

Exciting new things are always happening here at Amyitis. It seems that, with each week, we're faced with a new challenge, a new experiment, and a new opportunity. Stepping back to admire the growth of this project is truly inspiring and motivational. This week we were inspired and motivated by the show of support we received from our volunteers. Joel, Sierra, and Dillon came out on Tuesday to help us with our biggest job yet; moving 8 cubic yards of soil mix into the new raised beds at one of our gardens. It was a tricky project with only the use of 5-gallon buckets and tarps to move all of that soil through a tight (and very clean) carriage house and two doorways. Scheduling this project has been tricky as well. We have fully welcomed the much needed rain but it sure makes a muddy muddy mess out of a huge and heavy pile of planting mix. Trying to dance around volunteers schedules and make peace with the weather for long enough to get it done wasn't easy but ended up working perfectly. We had to cancel the soil move a couple times before we just had to go for it. Even though it rained throughout the day, we were able to keep things dry enough to get the job done. And while we suspected that it would be really difficult without sufficient help, we now know that we couldn't have done it without them. As the pictures below will illustrate, we had a lot fun doing it too.

Now that our second garden is ready for planting, we'll be able to start planting some of the seedlings we've had growing in our grow room. They are continuing to grow healthy and tall but it is clear that they are ready to spread out their roots. So far we've started five heirloom tomato varieties, lipstick peppers, red butter lettuce (MFS for those that care), calendula, Athena cucumbers, and several varieties of patty pan and flying saucer squash. It is also nearly time for some direct seeding now that we're gaining considerable sunlight with each passing day. We've already moved some butter lettuce seedlings to a cold frame we built last week. In the coming week we'll be making the plans for how to make the most productive use out of our new space.

Enjoy some of the pictures below from this week's soil project as well as another peak at our grow table as it moves along.

Grow room
The crew

Whooah
The Destination
Almost there
Proud ladies
Dirty Dirty Dillon

Link of the week:

With the fear that I might spoil some grand surprise, I have been hesitant to announce a prideful secret: Amyitis is the subject of a documentary film now underway! And yes, theyand their gear braved the rain to film us move all that soil. Alex Beckstead and Joelle Jaffe of 4SP Films have started filming our trials and triumphs throughout a full growing season for the subject of their latest documentary. Alex and Joelle most recently produced Paperback Dreams, the story of two independent Bay Area bookstores trying to make ends meet in the digital age. Paperback dreams, which aired on PBS, is a thoughtful and in depth film that is a perfect fit for anyone interested in the future of literacy and the ever burgeoning history of the San Francisco Bay area. Paperback Dreams just might help inspire you to save your local bookstore as well as whet your chops for the in-depth look at the life of Amyitis. Find out how to watch and buy the movie at www.paperbackdreams.com.

We don't know if they have a title yet or a release date, but you can be assured we'll keep you posted. We have some title ideas of our own, but we wouldn't dare yet release such nuggets of gold.

Happy Gardening,

David

2009-02-04T12:16:00.001-08:00

Well, David is off on another epic West Coast journey, this time driving from Fairbanks, Alaska back down to San Francisco. He'll be retracing some of his bike trip route, this time in the cab of a pickup truck, and starting waaay farther north. He and our good friend Chris have been battling some subzero temperatures in the Yukon, but all in all, having a great adventure.

Meanwhile, I have been tending to the seedlings and keeping things going here at Amyitis. Growing in California is still somewhat strange to me- we've had such warm weather, I just want to put things in the ground, but I realize that I have to be patient as (hopefully) those winter rains might still come. The seedlings are doing so well in the basement grow lab that we started. The tomatoes have sprouted and the cukes and zucchinis are already a few inches tall.

Last weekend, to make some more room for these burgeoning plants, my good friend Caitlin and I built a tiny cold frame in our garden. We transplanted all the lettuce that we had seeded in an open tray into cells of their own, gave them some water, and then set them in the cold frame that we had placed in the sunny part of the garden. Unfortunately, at this time of year that garden doesn't get a whole lot of direct sunlight due to the angle of the sun and how it hits all the surrounding buildings. The lettuce seedlings are hanging in there, but look a little jolted from their adjustment from 14 hours of light a day to maybe two or so hours of direct sun. But the little cold frame is keeping them moist and toasty and Caitlin and I were quite proud of our little building. I dream of a big cold frame, that I can actually stand in and do my seeding and watering, but this one works just fine for now.

Jessie

Photo Maki

2009-01-22T14:57:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers,

Although it has been some time since our last post, we can assure you that we've been hard at work here at Amyitis. While enjoying the warmth and glow of these holiday and inaugural seasons, we've been toiling away here to insure our success for the seasons that lay in wait. We've been so hard at work, both at our day jobs and at the gardens, we've only found time now to get you caught up.

Taking swift advantage of the recent Bay Area warm spell, we motivated to get some timely projects and experiments finished. Thus far, the results of these projects are getting us really excited as we move forward into the spring and summer seasons. Along the way, the owners of gardens #2, showed incredible enthusiasm and generosity by having raised beds built in their yard. This huge commitment on their behalf was humbling and inspiring. We're unfailingly grateful to them and their efforts to keep Amyitis alive and well. On a day this past week I helped Michele, Amy and their builder Lucas clear brush, trees and stumps from the space to prepare for the beds. A day later Lucas had finished the beds, and beautifully. The before and after photos below truly speak for themselves. But rather than ramble on here, I will let the photos do the talking. Scroll down for a tour of what we've been up to.

Happy reading,

David

From top:

1) Starts in our "start room" in the basement of Boogaloos

2) Jessie tending to the trays

3) MFS lettuce dicots for head lettuce

4) Hericium erinaceus or Lion's Mane mushroom grown in our home kitchen

5) The Author with kitchen grown Shiitakes

6) Before and after photos of garden #2 under construction of beds

7) Garlic sprouting in garden #1 planted a couple of months ago.

Link of the Week:

Check out Novella Carpenter's blog at www.ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com.

Novella is someone I met two years ago when I was looking to get my hands dirty. After just having moved to the city from Vermont, I was unsure of how to get involved in the urban agriculture movement I knew was happening all around me. As I applied for jobs I quickly realised that no job in urban farming was going to pay my San Francisco rent. Through my consistent search for a good fit, I was directed to Novella through a friend of mine. Novella was kind enough to have me come over to her very unique garden/mini-farm operation in the east bay once or twice weekly to see how she ran things and volunteer. She, unwittingly, is the inspiration for the blog you read today and quite possibly Amyitis itself. Do check out her sight and read on. What she has done and continues to do in urban agriculture is groundbreaking and fearless. I applaud her efforts and achievements. If you read her blog, you may too.

Yule Log

2009-01-02T11:57:00.000-08:00

Before I left to see my family on the east cost for the Christmas holiday, Joel and I had gone wood hunting at a couple of the local green waste management facilities. Climbing upon huge towering piles of mostly cedar and eucalyptus wood scraps, branches, and stumps, we culled a couple of logs that looked like appropriate hardwoods (again, hardwoods are what we need for mushroom cultivation). The facilities managers all were invariably friendly, eccentric, and happy to let us free climb dangerously unstable piles of scrap. In spite of the fact that my tree identification is poor at best, I evidently seem to be able to successfully sniff out hardwoods from a nebula of various aromatic pine and cedar. I only know this because, still unsure of my gleanings, Jessie and I traveled to the headquarters of some SF tree removal specialists in the midst of a holiday barbecue to get an ID on the species of log we had gotten. According to them it was Poplar; a fact to which we sunk our heads to upon hearing. Poplar they said is "...about as soft as you can get". "It's only good for toothpicks and Camembert boxes. You're holding a couple million tooth picks right there." Though discouraged, we didn't stop there. A little more research was in order.

After doing a bit more research we found out that Poplar IS actually a hardwood, commonly called Cottonwood. Perfect! Cottonwood just happens to be an ideal species for shiitake cultivation! My sixth sense for hardwood location was verified. I had unknowingly picked a very ideal couple logs. It was time to start plugging away.

I started by drilling the holes in a diamond pattern about two inches apart. Immediately I was glad that we only were starting with two logs. I can imagine it being a really back-breaking job to do 200 or so logs (what we'd most likely do if we had a commercial mushroom operation). After I had drilled holes for the better part of an hour I started with the plugging. The dowels are soft enough that they need to be pounded in with a rubber hammer. Once the plug spawn bag is open you have to use them all. Once exposed to the elements, the plugs can't be saved. So pound away I did for another hour or so. In the end I was able to get in about 170 plugs. Following getting the plugs in, I heated up about 1/2 lb. of beeswax. This all natural wax is recommended to seal the fresh plugs that you've just labored to put in. Evidently the wax will give the shiitake spawn the best fighting chance of inoculating the log by not letting in competitor fungi or disease. After drilling, plugging, and waxing all exposed wood I was finished. All in all the process maybe took 2 and 1/2 hours. Now the logs will sit for 4 to 6 months until it is time to induce fruiting. "Fruiting" has a couple different methods that encourage the fruiting bodies (the mushroom itself) of the mycelium to emerge. But, more on that later. Much later.

Link of the Week:

You may have noticed by now that my links of the week are all over the map. One week were talking local and the next were promoting Incorporated and global. In an Internet column, I think that it is a duty to diversify ones sources and influences, from the grass roots to the corporate level. The Internet being the Internet, the vast and sprawling matrix of information it is, it holds for us the keys to drive contagious information all over the planet. I feel it encourages the destruction of barriers to conscious changing information and wisdom no longer confined by physical location or hours of operation. This of course means we are faced with the responsibility of honing our own skills of discernment and critical thought. One's challenge is to glean valuable bits of good information despite its maybe suspect context. In other words, our challenge is to recognize a good thing when we see it. In the last few years, the New York Times has tuned an ear to the low but growing rumble of the food movement. The NYT magazine has been highlighting young farmers and their efforts to reclaim this human right that Amyitis attempts to exercise. A couple weeks ago they posted a slide show and feature on young farmers. While I don't often feel that large corporate media enterprises need my help in spreading their journalistic wares, I commend them for their part in helping to spread this grass roots food movement. You can visit the slide show here, as well as gain access to more of the stories about the farmers featured there.

Happy reading,

David

Plug Spurned!

2008-12-15T17:48:00.000-08:00

I guess you could say that sometimes when I sit with my finger on the trigger, ready to make hasty Internet purchases, I can be a little hair-brained. In this case I had shiitake for brains. Or at least, shiitake on the brain. Admittedly, the excitement of an Internet deal is often hard for me to squelch. And in the case of mushrooms (one of my favorite foods) nary can I turn away from the bright LCD screen begging for me to add another item to my virtual shopping cart. Often times, in these situations, the finger click is followed by the synapse fire.

I had written a couple of weeks ago, hinting at my lust for fungal fare, and mentioned the possibility of growing some shiitake plug spawn. Plug spawn are small wooden dowels inoculated with spores of whichever mushroom you fancy. The plugs are about 1/2" in diameter and roughly 1" long. They are meant to be "plugged" into holes around 2" deep in fresh hardwood logs. Fresh in our terms means cut no more than 5 months ago. The reason we need fresh wood is because older wood has had more time to sell its fresh heartwood to the highest bidder, i.e. another fungus. We don't want to go eating any mushrooms of course without knowing exactly what they are. And if our shiitake plugs were to mingle with a less than edible sort of mushroom, we'd be deep in the pits of wonderland or worse. Being in California, I thought that the possibility of finding freshly cut oak logs would be no big deal. Easily done. Just a phone call, right? Wrong.

As it happens fresh oak that has not been promptly chipped, shredded, split, cured, or turned into a piece of flooring is rather hard to come by. In fact it has been rather consuming to find just what we need at all not to mention without driving all over kingdom come to fetch it. To add to the frustration of finding the wood, plug spawn are living organisms with a 30 day time limit. On top of this is the onset of the holiday season and holiday shopping madness. In short, this has been less than the good time I'd first imagined. Had I known then what I know now I would have simply continued to grow them from sawdust bags, saving plug spawn dreams for a day when I was huddled in my woodland yurt amidst acres of hardwood trees. I am unsure just how many times I will have remind myself to always do my research before I let myself be reeled in by the flashy lure of a sale sign.

Alas, we have yet to give up and are still on the hunt for fresh wood. Like vampire Ents we will not rest until we plug our spawn! If any of our readership knows of a reliable source of any fresh hardwood please send them to us or us to them. Any little bit helps.

Link of the week:

In case you too are interested in growing gourmet mushrooms but want to do it in a much easier and faster way you can usually get bags of impregnated sawdust that produce great results but far less of them. Before, I'd mentioned Fungi Perfecti, a Washington based company started by one of my personal heroes Paul Stamets. For a more local source of equally great products go to Far West Fungi . They are a Bay Area based operation with a store front in the Ferry Building downtown San Francisco as well as market stalls at various farmer's markets and an online store to buy kits and produce. They all are very helpful and informative. I buy the bulk of our mushrooms from them every week at the Heart of the City farmer's market in the Civic Center on Wednesdays and Sundays. Check em out!

Wild Leeks

2008-12-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, David and I broke ground, so to speak, at our newest garden in the Mission. Conveniently located within a few blocks of our first garden and the restaurants we supply, this space so far has been a dream. It is beautifully sunny, with easy access to water and supplies, and generous homeowners who kindly shared stories and delicious coffee as we went about our first day of work.

The condition that we found the yard in on our first day was also uplifting. The realtors put down sod just before the house was sold, but then neglected to water it in between owners. So the grass died in the hot sun, leaving behind large strips of soil that effectively kept any weeds at bay and were very easy to remove and carted off to the compost pile. (We thought that we could salvage the grass but unfortunately discovered that it was a little too far gone.)

Perhaps most thrilling, was what we discovered sprouting up all around the graying patches of sod. What looked like sprouts of some particularly invasive grass that I was initially imagining battling all summer, turned out to be ramps; sweet and tender wild leeks. David and I were thrilled- in the northeast, where we are both from, these only appear but once a year, in the early spring, and are gathered in shady groves or along streams, or purchased for a hefty price at the farmers market. The yard was covered in them and, upon our discovery, we started walking gingerly around them, trying not to crush their greens. We harvested a few pounds, which is quite a lot considering their individual weight. We delivered most of them to Weird Fish for a dinner special, and brought the rest to our house for our own dinner. We sauteed them with King Trumpet mushrooms and white wine and served them over some locally made fresh pasta. It was quite a seasonal treat!

Look for them in the coming weeks in Weird Fish specials.

Jessie

Thanks Thanks Thanks

2008-11-26T14:06:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving: the seasonal holiday to end all seasonal holidays; the feast to fatten us for the long winter to come; the hard earned fruit of so many strenuous days of field work and labor, is upon us again. And despite its associations with some less-than-enchanting traditional American habits of over consumption, excessive TV watching, and heavy drinking, it none the less remains my most favored holiday. Not only is it my favorite because of its focus on humility and gratitude for bounty both gastronomic and familial, but for its unapologetic plunge into the copious delights of eating. To put it otherwise, the Dionysian indulgence in a hedonistic love affair with that which sustains us. After all, this is a blog dedicated to creating local and sustainable FOOD! In essence this is a journal about food itself. And with all of the politics associated with each and everything that goes in and around our bodies, it is important the we remember that we are talking about food; tastes, smells, nutrients, vitamins, art; that from which all else is built upon. What better thing to celebrate? A celebration of food where careful thought and great pride is expressed to each component is elemental in the human experience.

Through our relationship with Weird Fish and Boogaloos we are trying to create more awareness of seasonality. By keeping a seasonal menu we can keep things local, fresh and interesting (something that fine dining has known for years). Thanksgiving expresses the finest that the season has to offer. Traditional elements of a Thanksgiving meal (turkey, cranberries, potatoes, apples, onions, beans, and corn) reveal a true cross-section of seasonal foods from coast to coast. This is a time to truly revel in the freshness and flavors of autumn. Remember to support your local butcher and your local farmers when possible.

This holiday is one of those times that drive my imagination back through our collective consciousness to a primal scene in a time when humans' knowledge of their fate was indivisible from the fate of their crops. I am reminded of a time when people knew their food. While we are no less linked now that we were then, there is a vast separation of those simple yet vital relationships. We thank everyone who is here to help close that gap.

We send out a deep thank you to those that pioneer and evolve this food movement, to those that support and read this blog, to those who support our gardens, and to those that unfearingly are mending a tired system by creatively reviving time tested traditions. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Link of the week:

This week I was lucky enough to be given a mention in the SF Chronicle regarding the garden project. Although it was only a brief mention about the gardens, it is good to know that ears are open to what is happening in the Mission. This is a prime time to get involved with what we are doing. Please take part by spreading the word about Amyitis (pdavid.stockhausen@gmail.com, jessiealberts@gmail.com) if you know Mission District people that may be interested in joining our project. Happy reading!

SF Chronicle Article

Food not lawns

2008-11-19T15:18:00.001-08:00

We're happy to announce another garden in the Mission!!

As word begins to spread about and what we are trying to do, Mission residents are hopping on board. On Monday we officially gained generous access to another garden. Although small we're confident that we'll be able to make a great use of this space. In addition to being generally beautiful it already has some apple trees that can be restored to health. The residents were excited and eager to support us and participate with our project. We share their enthusiasm and they have our deepest gratitude for their generosity.

Early next week we'll start in on transforming this space into a super garden. First we'll be taking a stab at the sod to get at the earth below. It is good for us that it is mostly dead. This should make removal a bit easier. After we get down and dirty with the sod, we'll have to send away that soil to ensure that it is healthy to grow in. After that I'd like to invest in some perennial herbs to start planting back there so they get a good head start for spring. In the mean time, I'll be drawing up some plans of what the space might end up looking like. My initial guess is that it will be a good space for growing peppers, squash and tomatoes in summer. Next week I should be able to post more pics of our progress.

Fungus among us:

It seems that we've got some fungal friends popping up at our other garden. The combination of the recent rains and the full shade we've been getting back there has encouraged some growth of some pretty great looking mushrooms that look to me like they might be Agaricus Californicus. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me when I discovered them so I don't have a photo. If in fact they are Agaricus Californicus they are mildly poisonous and should not be eaten. However, the good news is that it seems as though the garden will be a great habitat for some cultivated culinary mushrooms. I plan to experiment with oyster and shitake mushrooms back there in the coming weeks. We'll keep you updated as to how that pans out.

Link of the week:

This week I thought that I would mention Local Foods Wheel.

The local foods wheel is a really creative way to have consumers be conscious of what they are eating. It is 12" illustrated cardboard chart that informs Bay Area eaters what is in season when. I think this is a great idea. It is a really creative way to teach people to alter their palates with regards to seasonality. Eating seasonally has many benefits that we know of not to mention many that, I am sure, await discovery. Stay local, stay seasonal with the local foods wheel. Check it out.

Be well,

David

Fatal Harvest

2008-11-12T18:00:00.000-08:00

Wow! We had such a great harvest this week. The onions and tat soi looked better than ever. Sadly though, this may be one of the last for the remainder of the year. Leave it to nature to keep teaching you lessons. I believe that we have heard the call of Mother Nature to retreat and go back to drawing boards. As an native East-coaster the idea of a California winter at one time was a laughable idea. But now I see that, although subtle, the seasons here command humility as well. In fact, the wintertime excites me. It is far easier to make phone calls and sit in front of a computer when it is dumping rain. I am actually grateful for the respite to a degree.

This week I finally got our volunteer Joel Scott to let me take his photo for the blog. We're really pumped that he's so enthusiastic and eager to get his hands dirty. His help during this week's harvest was invaluable as city farming proves to be more and more consuming. An extra set of hands is almost always welcome. I hope that he continues to stay around when it is time to prune the trees. There are several overgrown shrubs and one tree in our garden that needs some careful attention. (anyone out there a good arborist? we could use help with our pruning) We have a bougainvillea that has dominated the back 16Th of the space. It is time for a trim. Although beautiful, its pedals coat our lettuce beds. Luckily it seems it doesn't really care when you prune it. So I imagine we'll be doing that pretty soon.

In other news we have maybe secured at least one more garden for Amyitis. We'll keep you updated about things as they move along with it. Hopefully we'll be able to start work there in the coming weeks.

Link of the week

This week I had to spread the word about one of my favorite companies. Although I generally don't love the idea of advertising for a company, this one for sure gets my seal of approval. For those of you unfamiliar with Paul Stamets, he's a brilliant mycologist out of Northern Washington. In addition to growing mushrooms and running a retail operation called Fungi Perfecti he's also a world renown researcher, speaker, author, and environmental activist. Talk about busy!! He may be one of the more brilliant scientists I have ever heard and therefore I am excited to promote his wares. Go to http://www.fungiperfecti.com and check it out for yourself. This week Paul will be here in SF speaking at the SF Green Fest. Be sure not to miss him this Saturday November 15th. His knowledge, wisdom, and motivation are contagious.

Best,

David

p.s. we're still looking for back yards, rooftops, porches, and any potential growing space here in the mission. Spread the word!!!!

Fall Back

2008-11-03T10:16:00.000-08:00

What's new:
As fall time truly sets in around the Bay area and rains begin to fall we're seeing the big changes we were expecting at the garden. The end of a season is exciting. It paves way for new ideas and fills us with inspiration. It provides opportunity for improvement by forcing us indoors to reflect on the season.

In the case of Amyitis, it provides opportunity for us to think about expansion. We've had such a great response to our call for more space. Marcia at tablehopper.com gave us a shout out that has produced some amazing results. Already we've had a large group of people excited about sharing their space. So, thankfully, as our garden grows more and more dormant over the winter we'll be free to plant and prepare more gardens for next season. For now, I will be going from space to space to see what we can grow there. Our 22ND street garden has shown us that it receives amazing summertime light but the surrounding houses block a lot of light in fall. As the sun drops toward the horizon, in a city especially, all spaces will have these kinds of issues. Our task this winter is predict what will do best in each space. I now know that our 22ND street garden will be great for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and salad in summer and then continue to produce great looking salad all the way through November. We'll still have to see about what will grow (if anything) over the winter. I've planted a lot of salad mix and head lettuce with hopes that it will survive the low light times that lay ahead. I am also experimenting with growing some culinary mushrooms in some of the shady areas around the yard. Anyone with sawdust or wood chips out there? Come find us.

Veggies in Action:

We've had a fun time with our veggies. Every time we bring them to Weird Fish we are so excited to see them in action. It is pure satisfaction to look at a plate with something you grew 5 city blocks away looking back up at you in such a beautiful display. If I might wax poetically for a second, greens may be some of the most elegant food to eat. They really tie any dish together and can easily become the focal point. We had some fun with some of our 22ND street mizuna at a party we threw for a friend's birthday. Above are some pictures of what we prepared for the event. We topped some crackers with pureed steamed beets we'd gotten at Rainbow with some local chevre. We then set them atop a sprig of our mizuna and topped it off with a thin slice of scallion. Delicious!! The result was a slightly sweet, lightly cheesy, spicy little bite. They were really easy to make and a hit at the party.

Link of the week:

A blog follower turned us on to this really cool link about someone named Fritz Haeg who has started a project called Edible Estates. It looks very similar to what we are doing. Here is the link Edible Estates. As we've said before, we are so inspired by anyone doing this work. The whole reason for doing this work is that it needs to be done for us to truly move to be more sustainable as a culture. If we are to create cultural and environmental change it needs to start with ourselves. We're excited to hear about anyone doing something similar to what we are doing. Keep it up!! Support it!! Get involved!!!

best,

David

Space Hunter

2008-10-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

It is becoming more and more clear to me and Jessie that we simply need more space. After all, more space= more food. While being eternally grateful for the space we were given, it is simply not enough to really make the kind of dent we're hoping to make in the restaurant alloy. With that now said, I do know that there is a way to make this happen without becoming a full scale farm. With our garden project we intend not to sustain a restaurant entirely, but merely HELP to sustain a restaurant. I have yet to be convinced that we need to move to the sticks. All around me, in this city, there are spaces. There are unused spaces that need food, and lots of food. What if we all changed the way we thought about usable space? What about tearing up that inedible sod for a little arugula? I am sure that there are many San Franciscans with un- or underused spaces. All we really need is a little more than we've got to really make things cook!

So now we're putting out our feelers and looking for space. We ideally would like to find people that have unused space that they would be comfortable donating. I mean hey...free landscaping anyone? Not to mention front row seats to the ever-expanding food sustainability movement. In exchange for the space, the donors would have a weekly share of veggies and potentially some deals at the restaurants we serve. Now that is community! a direct link between producers, farmers, and restaurants.

So help us out. We need all the community we can get. IF you have space you'd donate, or know of space that is up for grabs, email us (email).

Fighting with Phood!!!

And now a word from our sponsors. Phood Fight Inc. is a company started by Peter Hood of Weird Fish, St, Francis Fountain, and Boogaloos. The Amyitis garden was initially funded by Phillip Bellber and Carolyn Blair but now Phood Fight is the company helping us to keep things going. In a way Phood Fight manages the way these restaurants use their products. We intend to insure that our restaurants are using the greenest and most sustainable solutions to restaurant materials and food. Look at it as Green Management if you will. We'll keep you posted on how it moves along.

NEW!!

I have decided to add a link of the week. We'll post links that we like related to local food related resources.

This week we liked tablehopper.com. Tablehopper is a really cool website for Bay area foodies, farmers and restaurateurs alike. Check it out and find a new place to grub!!

Best,

David

A little help from my friends

2008-10-14T22:29:00.001-07:00

Now back from my epic journey, I have once again plunged into the garden with about as much abandon as I can muster. Thanks to Jessie, the garden looks and feels lush and vibrant. The rows that she planted are thriving in a prosperous fashion and are delicious. Weird Fish, (18th and Mission) started by former Boogaloos Manager Timothy Holt and Boogaloos G.M. Peter Hood, has been buying the veggies from the garden wholesale as a way to cover our costs. There is still some experimentation required to get the financial kinks worked through. Getting costs covered during a start-up year for a garden is tough. There are many little expenses, even when we are using a lot of recycled and found material for construction. I'd say though that we are off to a good start. The real challenge will be our first winter here in the garden. Not knowing how much we'll be able to produce may lead us to be even more creative. Only time will tell.

It is becoming clear to me as this project grows how much we need community support. Even with a small garden, we need all the hands we can get. Holding down day jobs and producing food for restaurants is a tall order. There never seems like enough hours in the day. Luckily, we have the interest of some potential volunteers. Each week we'll be welcoming the help of local volunteers to help with things like weeding and maintenance. Boogaloos employee Joel Scott came out to help us this week with his pickup truck. He helped me move organic debris and trash from the space as well as collect some wooden pallets. We'll be using the wood from the pallets to build a compost bin. Hopefully we'll use red worms to most efficiently compost the organic refuse. More on that later.

Go on down to Weird Fish to sample this week's harvest; Baby salad greens with Arugula and Mizuna, wild green onions, Baby Tat Soi and Baby Russian Kale.

Wish us luck

David

The vision

2008-09-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

The very tiny community that has already grown up around this garden project has been really exciting. I'm amazed at the number of conversations I've had with people about what we are doing, considering that the garden is in someone's backyard- not exactly a very high profile spot. More exciting still, is how interested those people have been, and how willing to help. I have a growing list of volunteers- I only wish that we had a bigger space so that we could put all this energy to good use! From the tenants of the building, to the business owners downstairs, to the neighbor whose fence isn't too tall to see over, to the employees of the restaurants to complete strangers that engage me in conversation as I walk down the busy city street with armloads of salad greens, or shovels and compost- everyone has been really enthusiastic. And that has just been filling me with such joy lately.

The only thing that hasn't been bringing me joy in regards to this garden is the way the lettuce is growing, or in this case, not growing. I think that the seeds we have are not quite right for this climate but unfortunately, as things go with gardening, problems usually take a few weeks (at least) to identify and then attempt to rectify. So, the salad mix is heavier on the arugula and baby kale than I would ideally have it, but thankfully, those are some of nicest I've ever grown.

2008-09-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

First Harvest!

Today was an exciting day. I got up early to go harvest before the strong September sun wilted all the tender baby greens. Luckily, the yard stays pretty shady throughout the morning, so I had ample time. I had been anxious that we wouldn't be able to harvest enough at once from our small space to make it usable for a busy restaurant. But the dense planting was deceiving and in the end, I delivered 5 large, and full, bags! Hooray! And, I must say- they were beautiful greens. The insects haven't found us yet- one of the benefits of growing food amongst a whole lot of pavement. So, I was thrilled and skipped down the street with my delivery. From farm to table in under 5 minutes- not too bad.

2008-08-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

Things are really looking up here at Amyitis. We've been having a hot spell in the city and the plants are cruising right along. I'm looking forward to the first harvest in the coming week or so and hoping that I can pull enough from this little patch to be able to bring a substantial amount to the restaurant next week. I'm wondering if I should have just planted the whole space at once- I'll just have to wait and see as this experiment goes on.

I've been juggling jobs and whatnot as Dave is now navigating the islands of B.C. on his bicycle- with grasses and weeds starting to sprout in this reconditioned soil (they weren't there when we started. Their ability to lie dormant until the conditions are right just amazes me) I've been quite busy. But it felt great, as I stood in the garden today, to look around and see things coming along.

what's the big deal??

2008-08-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

I thought it was about time to mention some of our motivation for constructing and cultivating a garden like Amyitis. I hope that as people become interested in the project that they simultaneously become familiar with our intentions, our inspiration, and what has educated us. With any luck, our work here may become an inspiration to others wanting to make a conscious change in their community and our environment.

It has become clear to me that the earth that we live on will continue to develop and change as an organism regardless of how we treat it. However, if we are to sustain animal and plant life for ourselves, change needs to happen continually anywhere it can take hold. In other words, the earth would be just fine without us, but we would not be fine without it. While, as a culture, we often look for set-it-and-forget-it solutions, it has become clear that fostering these imperative environmental and social changes requires constant experimentation, communication, and creativity. In the simplest of terms, there are no blanket solutions to global issues. We must treat diverse issues with diverse solutions, drawing upon local resources to create local responses. Organic farms that still use techniques like mono cropping are no more sustainable simply because they hold the title "organic". The greatest change can happen in the smallest of ways, little by little, locally. Our hope with Amyitis is to participate in this local change.

Will something like Amyitis really help? Are restaurants really able to be environmentally sustainable enterprises? We can only hope so. There is always the chance that we may find out that a deeper reorganizing of the way that we live is necessary for us to thrive. For now, we hope that Amyitis and other farms, gardens, co-ops, community centers, and restaurants begin these changes one step at a time, creating a wave of change over time. If we are able to inspire others with our work, real change has a chance.

What are the benefits of small, local farms and gardens? There are almost too many to mention. While there is a rapidly growing catalog of reference material describing the benefits of actions like Amyitis, there are also a few simple reasons.

We are becoming a community resource. By having Amyitis attached to a local restaurant we are becoming a source of information for the community.
We have control over what we produce and what goes into it. We don't use petrochemicals or chemical fertilizers.
We are beginning to invite volunteers to help us, making Amyitis an educational tool.
We have created new green space.
We have taken a small step towards sustaining ourselves.

We would like to encourage all of our readers to do their homework. There are so many books and magazines dedicated to educating all of us around how to best change our world for the better. Here are a couple places to start:

"The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. The Penguin Press.

"Mycelium Running" by Paul Stamets. Ten Speed Press

"The Fatal Harvest Reader" Edited by Andrew Kimbrell. Island Press.

"Toolbox for Sustainable City Living" Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew. South End Press.

"The New Organic Grower" Eliot Coleman. Chelsea Green Publishing.

We also encourage your comments as readers of this blog. We want to hear about things that have worked for you or your community. We are in the process of learning how to create the best solutions with the environment we have. Use this blog as a forum for sharing information about creating this change!!

Jessie will be doing most of the new posts for the next month as I am off touring the west coast on my bicycle. You can follow that blog at www.bigsurly.blogspot.com and watch us as we ride through some of the U.S.'s most majestic terrain.

Cheers,

David

Sprouts!

2008-08-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

Well, the first few weeks of gardening here have been somewhat challenging- a learning experience, I suppose. I am accustomed to planting into soil that has been worked by other hands before mine. Soil with organic matter and nutrients and the possibility of getting a shovel into it. At least a digging fork. Well, it took a little more work than that. But after hours of pick axes, a rented roto-tiller, and many, many pounds of organic compost and soil amendments, David and I thought that we had everything in shape.

So, in the beds that David laid out we planted our first seeds. We are growing mostly salad greens, as they produce a fairly large quantity in a short span of time, and from them we could get the most from this piece of land. In went a variety of lettuce seeds, and lots of mustards to make the salad mix more interesting; mustards like red russian kale, arugula, tatsoi, and mizuna. Taking turns watering every day, we quickly got discouraged. Almost nothing came up! I have been farming and gardening for years and that has never happened to me. At first we couldn't figure out what we had done and entertained all sorts of ideas of what had gone wrong- bad seeds, damaged in shipping, too sunny, not sunny enough? But slowly David and I started to put the pieces of this puzzle together.

We remembered that when we started this garden a few weeks before, there hadn't really been any signs of life at all. No weeds, even- just blackberries and a few tufts of Bermuda grass. That was a flag to me at the beginning, though I hadn't thought of it too much after we began working the soil. And then one day, after watering for nearly an hour, I stuck my hand into the dirt and realized that the soil just half an inch below the surface was still bone dry. It was a strange experience. The water wasn't running off into the walkway that runs alongside the beds- so it was certainly going somewhere. Later that evening, we deduced that given the compaction of the soil, any rain that had fallen on it in the past year (few years?) had simply run off its solid surface. As this is California in August, the last rain to have landed here was well over 6 months ago! In the end, it was a very simple matter of buying an overhead sprinkler and watering it for a couple of hours a day for a few consecutive days. I was slightly frustrated that such a simple conclusion took a few days to come to- but thats why I say that this is an experiment with a great learning curve. Never before have I started with land that no one had really been actively working. I'm learning a lot.

Anyway, what an amazing change the consistent overhead watering has made. Seeds that we had long given up on have sprouted, the soil feels healthier, is retaining moisture and looks dark and rich. Things are sprouting up everywhere and I'm trying to keep up with planting new things and thinking about a garden plan for the next month and a half when David is away on a long journey on his bicycle.

Building

2008-08-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

After working out the plans for the garden and ordering the seed, the search was on for how to make the garden fit the design we had made, and on the cheap. Thanks to Internet posts and classified ad. sites like craigslist, finding used, salvaged, cheap or free items is easier than it has ever been. For a small scale development project like this, a site like craigslist can provide almost anything you need to fit your budget provided you have the time to go around and get it. So far we've been able to balance our time and the resources provided to us to search around the web for deals. I found a yard sale post for some pre-owned flagstone about an hour south in San Jose. I was lucky enough to able to borrow Pete's van to go down and grab it with Omar, a coworker of mine at Boogaloos. The downside to searching high and low for bargains is that one may end up wasting a great deal of time searching for the perfect fit at the loss of productive work hours at the site. When first arriving at the "yard sale" I was skeptical that we'd driven all the way down there for nothing. The seller was unable to provide a great description over the phone. I really didn't know what to expect. I suppose I half expected a pile of stone ready for hauling, but when we arrived it was something slightly different. The stones were still embedded in the ground around her yard forming a rough pathway to her porch. But, they were "for sale", so away we dug. Scraping away clumps of mud slugs and ants from the undersides of the flagstone added an interesting twist to the purchase. With the help of the seller's neighbor (she wasn't even there- we only talked by phone) we piled the stones in the van and named our price. $70 for the load (about a half pallet in all) seemed like a good enough deal. They were thick stones that looked as though they would clean up well. There looked as though there were enough small ones to fill out the plans I had drawn. Stone yards and landscaping centers charge ¢.15 to ¢.50 per pound for flagstone. Our plundering saved us a good deal of cash. Not to mention that they were nicely worn unique pieces of stone. Once laid out and cleaned, the stones looked great and were perfect for the design we'd thought up. For $70 or $80 dollars and a 4 hours, we now had a finished pathway and mini-patio that made for easy access beds and a garden worth looking at. Beds made, its is time for some planting.

Introducing Amyitis

2008-07-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

If you've been to San Francisco in the last 5 years, chances are good that you've been to the Mission District. Over the past 10 years the Sunny Mission district has undergone huge changes that have made it a burgeoning hot spot for city tourists and locals alike. The Mission is increasingly becoming the freshest reference point for popular and alternative youth culture, music, art, and cuisine. And, with the growth of the district in full effect, some of the cornerstone businesses responsible for that growth are starting to ask "how do we do this consciously"? After all, in an age where energy and resources are at a premium, these questions are becoming not only imperative to ask, but also imperative to answer. Amyitis gardens are a response that we came up with to start to think outside of the box truck.

Origins

The ideas of city farming and urban gardening for a restaurants are by no means new ideas. It is not uncommon for high-end food establishments to source locally or even from there own gardens. Urban restaurant gardens are sprouting up here in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland as well as places like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The High-end pioneers of this gardening movement have created a necessary awareness of the need for this type of food reform but the next frontier is making it accessible and affordable for owners and patrons alike. In cities, clean gardening space that can produce enough for a restaurant is often at a premium. Amyitis is being created from the lucky confluence of the ability, space, and resources to make something like this happen and, with any luck, make it affordable.

The Space

Owners of Boogaloos Restaurant (22ND and Valencia) Phillip Bellber and Carolyn Blair entrusted the use of the back yard one of their residential properties for the creation of Amyitis to me (David Stockhausen) and my partner Jessie Alberts. In cooperation with the buildings tenants, the relatively unused back yard space underwent the 1st phase of transformation to becoming a food producing garden. After having the dry lifeless soil tested for harmful pathogens or heavy metals we began rehabbing the soil and drawing up a plan. We first had to remove a lot of volunteer blackberries and Bermuda grass from the yard. The tenants had already removed a dead tree from the center of the yard and a days work from Phillip's son Sam got a lot of the bulk of the weeds out. Once a lot of the weeds and invasive grasses had been extracted we the had to break up the hard packed soil with a pick axe and hoe before we brought in the roto-tiller. Next (sorry neighbors for the smell) we brought in a couple yards of loam and blood meal fertilizer to begin to bring life to the soil.

Planting

It was a bit late by the time we had found out about the space. I had been talking at the restaurant about my background as an organic farmer in Vermont ad-nauseum for the past year and a half after I moved to San Francisco. Unaware that Phillip and Carolyn had the space, I would often push for us at Boogaloos to get a little greener and source things more consciously. One day late in May of 2008 A bell went off for Phillip I suppose, and he offered me the space. Jessie having been a farmer herself (and now working across the street in a neighboring cafe) I naturally insisted upon her involvement with the project. Phillip's excitement and enthusiasm was welcomed and was the right push to get us moving right away. With the peak growing season in California midway through already, starting a garden this late in the season considerably limited the variety what we ideally wanted to plant. We decided to stick to small baby greens such as baby salad, arugula, radish, kale and chard and some yellow squash, haricot beans, and specialty scallions for a start. Leafy greens are a good way to get started. They grow relatively quickly and produce a lot because you don't have to harvest the whole plant. With successive plantings we speculated we could get a consistent flow of good greens throughout the fall and winter seasons here in San Francisco. With seeds ordered it was time to start building beds.