End of the San Francisco Civic Center Victory Garden

All good things must come to an end, the Victory Garden at Civic Center has been removed after a fantastic 5 month run, especially impressive since it was only supposed to be there a little over a month. I want to send a thank you to all the people who made it happen, maintained it and supported it - Thank you! The re-usable bits will be used for a new garden for Project Homeless Connect - stay tuned for more info.

From the Ground Up at YBCA

We have a special short playing at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco as part of a show entitled The Gatherers through January 11, 2009. The whole show is about greening our urban spaces.

From YBCA website:
The Gatherers is an exhibition that brings together a diverse group of practitioners who combine art with cultural activism to explore questions of how we ensure sustainability for our growing urban populations. Since our relationship with nature varies so much from one culture or locale to the next, The Gatherers provides an opportunity to explore not only the differences, but also the similarities, of their attempts to green our urban spaces. In doing so, it touches upon a broad range of interlinking matters, from environmental issues to urban spatial justice, through interactive programs, urban interventions and public dialogue.

Artists and artist collectives in the exhibition include: Fallen Fruit, Amy Franceschini with Wilson Diaz, The National Bitter Melon Council, Oda Projesi, Marjetica Potrc, Public Matters, Ted Purves and Susanne Cockrell, Rebar, roomservices and Åsa Sonjasdotter. The Gatherers is co-curated by Berin Golonu and Veronica Wiman.

SF Civic Center Victory Garden Video!

Here is the first of many video podcasts. This is John Bela of San Francisco Victory Gardens +08 talking about the Civic Center garden, let me know what you think.

San Francisco Civic Center Victory Garden

The countdown to Slow Food Nation has begun and the garden at Civic Center is in full swing. They are producing an average of 100lbs of produce a week and are donating it to the San Francisco Food Bank. It has been amazing to watch the progress and the change of the overall feeling in the neighborhood, most everyone who sees it comments that they would like it to stay forever.

I have been filming at the garden since they started to remove the sod, it took San Francisco Victory Gardens +08 and a small army of volunteers only two weeks to install the garden (not counting the months that Willow at City Slicker Farms in Oakland took to grow the seedlings...).

This garden has turned out to be a great boon to From the Ground Up, since it embodies everything that the documentary is about. I feel very fortunate that I have been able to document this amazing accomplishment. I will be posting some video podcasts of the garden and gardeners very soon.

Food & Photos

I hope that everyone celebrated Earth Day in a fun and tasty manner. Here is a link to a Michael Pollan article that I sent to everyone I knew: http://tinyurl.com/4u6dwb.

There has been so much in the news about food prices rising and shortages, it is getting people talking about food and hopefully about where their food comes from. This is great, but cheap food has never been cheap, we have been paying for it all along in other ways. Cheap food is not always the best food, underpaid laborers, dangerous working conditions, harmful farming practices and produce that is designed to travel well, store a long time & look good, but taste like cardboard, all exist to make food "cheaper" but not better. Good quality food is worth paying more for, if you join a CSA or shop at farmers markets, it will not cost any more that a grocery store chain. Grow some of your own, it is fun, cheap and a great way to meet people. Check out the links page on the From the Ground Up website for some places to start.

I have recently returned from a trip to Paris & Amsterdam to visit friends, but I also checked out some gardens while I was there. Thanks to some great leads on the American Community Garden Listserv, I found a couple of great community gardens in Paris. In Amsterdam most of the garden that I saw were on boats in the canals, nice. Here is a link to those photos, I will be uploading more soon: http://www.flickr.com/gp/12644420@N08/2wXJ60

Spring Has Sprung

...at least here in San Francisco. I am very excited about the arrival of this spring - I am heading out and will soon have photos a gardens in Amsterdam and Paris. Filming will resume and video podcasts will be on the way to hold us over until the full length feature is finished. Check back soon.