preoccupations

part-time farmer of organic cut flowers and asian vegetables

farm manager for an educational urban farm

masters student of landscape architecture

greenhouse & nursery operator

edible landscaper

gold digger

degenerate

rebel

Now, some photos:

It's my last week in the field.

Drip irrigation, yes!

Bee hive initiation :D

underground markets

Held in an empty parking lot in Oakland on a summer's eve last year, we anxiously waited in a line going down the block, paid a $2 entrance fee, signed a waiver promising not to sue, and finally gained access to various local food makers who lacked legal legitimacy as vendors due to high start-up costs and business barriers. That night, we ate well, homemade everythings from chocolate to chicken bowl. Sadly, SF Forage, whose mission is to give local food artisans a boost toward legitimacy, announced today that the Underground Market has been officially shut down.

Seven hours south by car, in our hometown off the main street (one of the highest traffic-dense streets in Los Angeles County), is a 3-acre farm run by a Taiwanese immigrant family, growing Asian vegetables and aggregating produce from local community growers. It's a for-profit, peri-urban family farm selling vegetables and homemade buns+cakes directly to Chinese moms out of an underground market/shack at prices lower than most grocery stores. Running business for over ten years, the lady at the market puts a free ginger and garlic clove in our bag after we give her cash for the goods.

The most legit food, maybe it comes from the illegitimate, inexpensive family kitchen.

blueberry equivalents

Today felt like *summer - warm, slow, and sleepy. The main activity of the day was to pick blueberries off the blueberry bushes. I definitely ate a bunch of the less ripe ones that I'd accidentally picked, which may be contributing to some kind of disenchanted relationship to the blueberries I once thought precious and rare. A good thing and/or a bad thing.

In total, we picked $720 worth of blueberries this afternoon, 12 flats or 144 baskets at $5 per basket. They all fit into one vermont cart, in my mind, the worth of one month's rent for a single room in a Southside Berkeley apartment in blueberry equivalents.

These blueberries are precious, though. They're actually locked in an enclosed, netted structure that protects them from human and avian theft. Today's blueberry harvest alone took 18 man-hours of amateur picking. Each basket took about 7.5 minutes to pick, not to mention all the additional hours and inputs invested into them prior to harvest. Like every other crop I'm developing a closer relationship to, I'm finding that good food in all aspects is a labor of love and their value, multidimensional. Like organic blueberries: enchanting, sweet, healthy, expensive, laborious, lovely, blue.

*Officially, though, the first day of summer is in exactly one week, June 21st, 2011.

kinship

ORGANIZATION Homeboy Industries: nothing stops a bullet like a job

Last Thursday, I went to see Father Gregory Boyle speak. He's the founder of Homeboy Industries in LA. Here's something that struck and stuck [as edited by my imperfect memory]: "If you stand for the right thing, you've got solidarity. If you stand in the right place, you've got kinship. It's mutual, it's geographical." I like it. What do you think?

These are cover crops.

Here's a run-on sentence for you: I'm learning so much so quickly so I'm going to try to make note of all of it here but to be honest I don't think I'll succeed at this ever because there is too much to know, oh well.

Now, here's my attempt at covering cover crops.

These are cover crops. Bell beans in the foreground!

Here's the farm and garden when we first arrived. Since, we've skimmed it all down and put it in our compost piles for brewing.

Cover crops are plants grown intentionally during off-season times to condition soil and supply 'green manure' for compost-making. Depending on what cover crops are planted, various soil conditioning services are rendered, ie. rye grass roots break up hard soil clods, bell bean roots fix nitrogen into the soil. In general, cover crops also protect soil surfaces from weathering/erosion from wind/rain while housing beneficial insects that eat pests. They're pretty functional but can be aesthetically pleasing, too.

Last year in Taiwan, I remember seeing flower ocean ['Hua Hai'] fields in the winter time. Farmers used cosmos and other attractive, flowering cover crops during the winter to promote tourism in their region. Um, at least that's what my taxi driver tour guide told me. She seemed like a genuine person, I don't know.

Earthworks

URBAN FARM Earthworks Enterprises Community Farm

During my 3-month stint of unemployment and laze in LA, I happened to find myself at Earthworks in South El Monte [thank god]. I think my soul might have otherwise been void of meaning and rather full of annoying Hulu commercials. Thanks, Earthworks, for preserving my soul! Here are some pictures of the place.

1210 N. Lerma Road, S. El Monte, CA

organic, small-scale production

Sister Rashida [me] Andy

I'm not sure what the future has to throw at me, but regardless of what it is, I hope that the farm gets to grow into it's greatest potential. [Nerd time: It's like a very strong genetic variety of a valuable crop that does or does not produce ideal fruit depending on whether it receives the necessary environmental inputs: C, N, micronutrients, sunlight, irrigation, drainage, time, etc.]

Il faut cultiver notre jardin. We must cultivate our garden. -Voltaire, Candide. Yeah!

Compost Recipe

RECIPE Compost

pile, pile, pile. my group's was named 'Lady Elaine Fairchild' <3

the metabolization of materials by aerobic microbes = heat. if i was homeless, i'd like to sleep on a compost pile.

Compost is a secret super ingredient in the system of French intensive gardening that functions to inoculate and condition soils for successful planting. Like black, crumbly gold or dark chocolate cake. It's pretty amazing.

I n g r e d i e n t s

Greens/cut cover crop [N]

Hay bale/dried grass [C]

Horse/animal manure [C+N]

Water

I n s t r u c t i o n s

1. Measure out a 5' by 5' space, located in a moderately sheltered area outdoors

2. Lay down a very thin layer of hay on ground surface within the 5' x 5' dimensions

3. Lightly chop up the greens with a spade & put down a 3-5" layer of it on top of the hay

4. Next, add a 3-5" layer of animal manure on top of the greens

5. Continue systematic layering, adding a light sprinkle of water atop every hay layer

6. As the pile begins to build up, occasionally pull back corners and edges with a fork to maintain square dimensions

7. Continue layering until the pile reaches roughly 4' tall

8. Finish the top with a layer of dry hay

9. Cover the entire pile with a large tarp

10. Take the temperature of the pile to monitor biological activity

11. The pile should reach upwards of 130 degree F. If the temp slows, turn the pile by re-piling it into an adjacent space

12. Let the pile sit and process for maybe 3 months or until it reminds you of black, crumbly gold or dark chocolate cake or whatnot

13. Slice and serve. Um, just kidding. Add compost to garden beds prior to planting for a nutrient & microbe boost throughout the growing season.