Civil Eats

Progress continued yesterday at the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden , as volunteers built raised beds, creating concentric circles in the soil to prepare the beds for planting. The crew also started raking out the stone ground covering, donated by Lynsgo Garden Materials.

On July 12, we will have a community planting day with Mayor Gavin Newsom and Slow Food Nation Founder, Alice Waters. Nearly 150 volunteers have signed up in advance to participate that day to help plant heirloom varieties of vegetables, herbs, flowers and cover crops. The plants include:

Vegetables: Amaranth, Snap Bean, Pole Bean, Dry Bean, Beet, Broccoli Raab, Endive/Escarole, Ground Cherry, Chicory, Chinese Cabbage, Carrots, Collards, Cowpea, Cress, Corn, Cucumber, Eggplant, Pumpkin, Radish, Kale, llacon, Leeks, Lettuce, Mustard Greens, Okra, Bunching Onion, Hot Pepper, Spinach, Summer Squash, Winter Squash, Swiss Chard, Tomatillo, Tomatoes and Turnip.

Herbs: Basil, Cilantro, Dill, Fennel and Parsley

Flowers: Pollinator-attracting native plants and California native food plants. Calendula, May Flowers, Sunflowers and many others.

Cover Crops: Buckwheat

Watch this space for more developments on the Victory Garden, and please let us know if you would like to volunteer!

Photos by Naomi Starkman
1. Raised beds
2. Crews moving stone donated by Lynsgo
3. Stone being raked onto the garden design

Naomi Starkman is a food policy consultant to Consumers Union and others. She is the co-founder and editor of Civil Eats and Kitchen Table Talks, a local food forum in San Francisco, a board member of 18 Reasons, a nonprofit connecting community through food, and is on the Circle of Friends Council for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. She served as the Director of Communications & Policy at Slow Food Nation ’08 and has worked as a media consultant at The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ and WIRED magazines. She was previously a senior publicist at Newsweek magazine and was the Director of Communications for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). From 1997 to 2000, she served as Deputy Executive Director of the S.F. Ethics Commission. Naomi works with various clients on food policy and advocacy and is an aspiring organic grower, having worked on several farms.