Victory Garden Watch, Day 7

July 9, 2008

With four days left until the July 12 Community Planting Day, nearly 20 young adults from Friends of the Urban Forest’s (FUF) Youth Tree Care Program joined John Bela and 10 other volunteers to continue work on the garden. According to its web site, the Friends of the Urban Forest’s Youth Tree Care Program “trains economically disadvantaged youth in planting and tree care, encourages young people to engage with their communities and introduces them to careers in urban forestry.”

After consolidating more piles of soil, the FUF crew continued raking out the stone ground covering from yesterday, which was graciously donated by Lyngso Garden Materials. The FUF crew will join us on at the Community Planting Day to help plant the seedlings into the garden.

The afternoon brought on relentless heat, sunshine and humidity, but Victory Garden Manager John Bela and team were still hard at work as they laid matting and covered it with gravel to create a wheelchair accessible section of the garden. This part of the garden, closest to Larkin Street, will host the stage for the Soap Box. The Soap Box is being designed by Scene2, a full service studio specializing in three dimensional media with big clients such as Banana Republic, ESPN, KGED-TV and Old Navy. During Slow Food Nation, the Soap Box will provide a platform for farmers, food producers, young chefs and many inspired stewards of the earth to stand up on their “soapbox” and speak to a public audience for 10 or 20 minutes. This is just one of the many free events at Slow Food Nation.

After a quick peek at the weather forecast, it looks like we should have sunny, warm days to finish the preparation for the BIG planting day. So, if you just need an excuse to take a long lunch break and enjoy the weather, stop by the garden and check it out!

A special thanks to all the volunteers who came out today and worked on this unusually hot day. Thank you to the Friends of the Urban Forest’s Youth Tree Care Program and Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved and speaker at Slow Food Nation’s Food for Thought Speaker Series. We appreciate all the support!

Photo by Layla Azimi

Layla Azimi worked as the Communication Coordinator for Slow Food Nation, the first event of its kind, which drew 85,000 people to San Francisco in hopes of building a healthier, more sustainable food system. Co-founder of Kitchen Table Talks, she lives in Napa Valley where she is learning to perfect her marmalade and jam-making skills and planting her first vegetable garden. Read more >

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Join the conversation.

Flavia
July 9, 2008
It is truly inspiring to see so many people doing what your organization is doing. Thank you for the hard work. I know it will pay off soon!
Joe Casper
July 10, 2008
Dear Fellow Slow Foodies,

you are a role model for the slow food community.

Keep up the good, clean and fair ( & hard ) work.

Joachim Casper
Convivienleiter
Convivium Braunschweig
Slow Food Deutschland e.V.
timothy baron
July 16, 2008
Good luck with the Victory Garden. Its awesome, change is slow, but it will occur. thanks for your hard work. the victory garden by city hall is inspiring.

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