Summer in the City

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

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

Photo Maki

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.  

Wild Leeks

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

Food not lawns

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