Another Beautiful Day!!

Rebecca, Suzi and Tom at the Linden Street Faire. Photo by Barbara Wenger.

Linden Street Faire

Twas one of those beautiful, sunny San Francisco Days and we hung out on the corner of Octavia and Linden. We chatted, sunned, sold fresh garden produce and had one pleasurable day.

A HUGE thanks to TOM. He rocked the street faire with his friendliness and was a superstar selling our produce. Thanks too to Joseph Jodi for his dedication and motivation to organize this lovely community event for over 16 years. Special thanks also to Barbara Wenger, Madeline Behrens-Brigham, Helen from NPC, Suzi Grady and all the folks with whom we meet.

A few of the hidden treats sprinkled thorughout Koshland Garden. Come and visit to see them for yourself. Happy Growing, Rebecca

***UPCOMING***

October 14th

Koshland Park Work Day

9:30 - 1:00

Get down and dirty with friends and neighbors.

************************************

New News

WELCOME TO THE NEW SUZI

First, I want to welcome our new helper in the garden - Suzi Grady. Suzi is already very familiar with our garden through lots of volunteering & is a very big fan of the amazing science of compost. She'll be helping out for the next month with some projects and did an amazing job teaching folks last Saturday about composting.

This Saturday is the very special LINDEN STREET FAIR. Starting at 9a and going all day. We'll be selling produce from the garden as a fundraiser and would love help and visitors. (hint hint)

Down to business, until we hire someone, my schedule will be as follows:

JOHN MUIR GARDEN on Page between Webster and Oak
Tuesdays and Fridays 10:00am - 1:30pm
Koshland Garden Fridays 2:00pm-5:00pm

Please let me know before if you plan on volunteering so I can arrange it with the school. rabozzelli@yahoo.com


Our favorite little helpers who are always hard at work in the garden making us beautiful compost. Thank you red wigglers.

Reflections & Recognitions!!

To All The Beautiful People of Koshland Park Community Learning Garden:

I wanted to take this moment to announce to the gardeners and extended Koshland Park Community that Thursday, August 31st was my last day working with you (well, officially). I have accepted a new position as The School Garden and Compost Program Manager for the Garden for The Environment (also known as the GFE!). I am super excited about this opportunity, but am very saddened to leave this amazing, inimitable group of people. The past 14 months has served as the most significant personal and professional growth of my life! When I stepped into this position over a year ago I never could have imagined walking away with the insight and experience that I have today.

a dedicated gardener! all of y'all are amazing...
This community is the epitome of commitment, dedication, and compassion for social change. Each of you exemplifies a piece of this vision and it gives me goose bumps to think about your smiling faces. I will miss all of you something fierce, but am hopeful that our paths will cross again somewhere along the way. This city is way too small!!

just a few of the wonderful volunteers that helps keep this park safe & beautiful!
I, also, want to take this time to recognize a couple of folks that have guided me through this process and have changed my perspective forever! I want acknowledge Barbara Wenger for (going out on a limb) and providing me this opportunity even though my enthusiasm for the job far exceeded the experience she was looking for to fill this role. You have given me the chance to discover a part of myself that has only made me a stronger, more confident person. You are the founder of an invaluable organization that should function as a model for all other neighborhood park groups! Thank you for sharing your words of wisdom….and for all of the delicious Friday afternoon meetings☺

I also want to recognize the Hayes Valley/Western Addition/Lower Haight “community organizer extraordinaire”, Richard Johnson. You have absolutely mastered the art of mobilizing a community to step outside of the box and challenge the system. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to work with you and the Hayes Valley Partners as they seem to achieve the impossible on a daily basis. Your dynamic personality and dedication to social justice is beyond imaginable. Thank you for all that you do. I will carry the experiences and wisdom that you have shared with me everywhere I go. I look forward to continuing this partnership in my other position!!

Rebecca, lord woman, I do not know where to start with you! You are amazing!! The dedication you have to this garden, this community, and this cause is beyond inspiring! Thank you so much for taking me under your wing and guiding me through this wonderful experience. Prior to this job, I had never had the chance to work so closely with another person. Looking back at what we accomplished, the ideas we shared and the projects we realized, it all seems magical to me! You have been more than a mentor, you have become a close friend to me that I will always hold to dear to my heart! I absolutely admire you and your ability to make dreams come to life. This is what this experience has been for me—a dream that I realized, but not without your wisdom and heart to help make it happen. I love you, girl!

you are the best, Rebecca!!

I hope that all of you will come visit me over at the Garden for the Environment located on 7th & Lawton. We have tons of great workshops every Saturday of the year as well as volunteer days on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Please come by and say hello—or grace me with a giant smile!! much love, ~*suzi

Seed to Mouth--Food For The Soul!

With the schoolyear on the horizon, I want to honor and celebrate one final project of the summer that left our bellies and souls full of goodness:) Beginning way back in the early days of Spring, Miss Rebecca had an "epiphany" that we should (and WILL find a way to) offer nutritional cooking classes to youth and families of our community. The classes would highlight various seasonal crops grown in our garden or other locally grown produce.

Now in hindsight, I can share that the classes were an amazing success with lots of kids, parents, neighbors, gardeners, and friends attending and helping us make beautiful food that we all sat down and ate together as a family. YUM! Looking forward to starting it up again.

Naked Ladies

I thought that might get your attention :)

Hope everyone is super well, I am back from vacation and to my lovely surprise I find that our Amaryllis belladonna have shown there beautiful faces. The appearance of the tall, flower stalk without any leaves accounts for the common name "naked lady".

UPCOMING COMPOST WORKSHOP!

September 9th, from 9:30 - 11. Teach about the ins and outs of compost as well as make compost sifters!! Immediately following will be our 2nd Saturday workday. Bring your food scraps, but please remember, no meat, diary or bread.

JOHN MUIR SCHOOL WORK DAY AUGUST 26TH.

Look at how sad this garden looks. Help us get John Muir ready for the first day of school (8/28). 9am - 2pm and lunch too. Come for as long or as little as you like. All help is always greatly appreciated. Lots will be going on too so your day can be filled with a variety of tasks. Help in the library or classrooms, mulching and planting in the garden, painting, and lots more.

With school starting, Suzi and I change back to our school schedule. More specifics later as classes get scheduled.

Suzi - Monday, Tuesday, Friday
Rebecca - Tuesday, Friday

Monthly 2nd Saturday Work Parties from 11-2.

Finally, I had to share this wonderment with you. This little spider was found in Jesse's tomato plant. She is an Enoplognatha ovata and is protecting her blueish egg sac. Here are a few interesting facts about her:

-Typically construct her web on live plants, rolling a leaf as a retreat.

- Can be very variable in color.
- Its size is between 3 and 6 mm.
- found on low vegetation and bushes.
- The leaf in which she makes her egg sac is often slightly rolled.

So look out, you too may find an Enoplognatha in your garden plot.

Life is BEAUTIFUL. Good Day All! ~ Rebecca

National Night Out--A Safe, Fun Night For All!

National Night Out is a nation-wide event designed to highlight each communitiy's dedication to their speific crime and violence prevention strategies. It is intended to generate support for and participation in local anitcrime programs and organizations as well as strengthen neighborhood spirit and community-police partnerships. For our neighborhood, the Hayes Valley/Western Addition of San Francisco, a group of committed organizers, also known as the Hayes Valley Community Partners ,planned and successfully created a fun & safe extravaganza for youth and families to come and celebrate our community. With much love, thanks and props to Richard Johnson, the co-founder of Hayes Valley Community Partners, we were able to pull off a Public Safety Fair where neighborhood organizations joined forces to show their support in OUR "Night Out Against Crime". The fair was followed by live entertainment from local groups such as Western Addtion Drill Team, Horus Tolson and the SGI-USA's Golden Gate Chorus, and perfomers from neighborhood church groups. It was a blast had by all and we want to extend our deepest gratitude to everyone that contributes to the safety and beautification of our neighborhood. It is quite a special thing we have...

This is the irreplaceable Richard Johnson, Co-Founder of the Hayes Valley Community Partners

District 5 Supervisor, Ross Mirkarimi, acknowledging the dedication that Richard has to this community!!

Laurie Hampton, one of the many wonderful gardeners of Koshland Park Community Learning Garden, standing in front of our booth where we offered free lettuce, collard greens and kale to folks!!

Much love to all and enjoy these glorious, fog-less summer days!!
-suzi

The Super Amazing No Drip Rapid Reel

Suzi and Rebecca with Koshland Garden's brand new watering reel.

Very proud and happy after spending half of Friday assembling our brand spanking new, heavy-duty, no drip, all-amazing Rapid Reel. Watering the garden will be a breeze with this baby. The days of water spraying and dodging water puddles are in the past. Please be kind to our new addition and treat Rapid Reel with nothing but respect. ~ Rebecca

Let Us Grow (and we did!)

What a delight the last two weeks has been!! Suzi and I were fortunate enough to work with some very special youth for our first ever summer garden camp in Koshland Park called Let Us Grow! Our days were filled with laughter from start to finish.

Let Us Grow! was positive in so many ways. We grew sunflowers seeds, formed new friendships, learned how to prepare garden fresh food, and discovered a sense of place. The camp focused on gardening, and thus food and nutrition, arts and crafts, and community. Two weeks flew by, but by the end we all appreciated the garden and the overwhelming amount of life it has to offer; now newly decorated with disco balls, mylar flags, beautifully painted signs, sunflower seeds, new plants, and SO MUCH LOVE!!

Some of the highlights from Let Us Grow were the field trips we planned, not your normal, go to a museum field trip. Rather, the field trips complimented the goals of the camp and, therefore, the trips revolved around fresh, delicious, healthy FOOD. Our first trip was to the farmer's market at Civic Center, also stopping and playing at all the beautiful parks on the way and way home.

Here we are getting our lunches ready to go. Once at the farmer's market we meet the famers and tasted their many scrumptious fruits, including tayberries, strawberries, plums, peaches, nectarines, and even some savory olives.

Together we also visited RNM in Lower Haight. WHAT A TREAT!!! Nik was kind enough to come and spend a day with us in the garden and the following week we walked down Haight street to RNM. He let all the kids make their own fresh pizza with the topping(s) of their choice. Then, after saying our thanks, we sat together at our formal dining room table with fresh flowers sprinkled all over it and dined on fresh garden salad and homemade pizzas. YUM!


Millennium, referred to as the fancy vegan restaurant, was another very special treat. After teaching the kids about vegan food, we bussed downtown. Chef, Eric Tucker, greeted us and gave us a private tour throughout the restaurant where we learned about the restaurant decor and how it comes from reused products like seat belts or old feed sacks. Moving on we visited the kitchen downstairs, meet some of the staff, checked out the fresh veggies and fruit in the frig, and then picked out some fresh veggies and fruit to make our lunch. Together we tossed a fresh salad of mixed lettuce with peaches, cucumbers, tomatoes, with a sweet peach vinegarette. For our main, Eric, created a divine pasta dish adding chick peas for protein and more fresh vegetables that everyone gobbled up. For dessert, everyone's favorite, the pastry chef's were kind enough to make both vegan chocolate chip and ginger cookies. Triple Yum!!!


We experienced and learned so much in only two weeks.
The children could name all their favorite flowers, herbs, fruits, and veggies by name, and tell the difference between a collard and broccoli leaf - not a easy task. To the left is our favorite flower - Buddleia, commonly known as Butterfly Bush for obvious reasons!

Special thanks goes to the butterflies, sow bugs, red worms and all the other invertabrates who make the garden grow. We couldn't have done it without you. And equally as important, I would also like to appreciate EVERYONE else who made LET US GROW! a HUGE success. We thank you for your donations and time. We are grateful that you are so invested in our community. Most importantly, thank you to the sun and Earth, for which we are all eternally grateful and for giving us the most beautiful summer I have ever experienced in San Francisco!!. Peas and Love, Rebecca

To see all the fun we had check out the rest of the pictures here.

From City Girls to Farm Girls (for a week:)

We were so fortunate to spend the last week of June at The Occidental Arts & Ecology Center
The OAEC is a small organic farm as well as a nonprofit organizing and educational center. They have been offering this School Garden Training for several years as well as many other wonderful, comprehensive workshops. The workshops range from Woodshop for Women to Landscape Painting to frequent Permaculture Design courses. Many of the folks that live and work out there have become experts in their area of interest and were so kind and forthcoming in the sharing of their skills and experiences. We spent the week learning organic gardening practices, attending seminars focusing on school garden projects and site development and a little hands-on construction (our favorite part!). Not only were we blessed to learn from such amazing people; we also ate the BEST food ever!Q!! We were fed breakfast, lunch and dinner prepared by some of the most creative and delightful chefs around. My mouth still salivates when I think about some of the food we ate:) All in all, it was a spectacular, extremetly insightful journey to the countryside--and it was quite refreshing to feel like a "farmer" for a week!!
**Please click HERE to view our other pictures from our trip!!**

Our friend, Suzi, so beauifully showing off our home for the week! (AKA: Yurt) There were 8 of us sleeping in bunkbeds--it felt a little bit like camp:)

One afternoon we visited a local school garden and prepared lunch using "kid-friendly" recipes that we could then take back to share with our children. We also made the first layer of a cobb bench for the garden's learning circle. Cobb consists of a perfect ratio of sand, clay, straw and water. When sculpted and dried it can serve as an all natural concrete! This was super fun--and was quite a workout!
We worked and learned with some amazing folks from all over the state! It was so special to spend the week with such an open and enthusiastic group of teachers, parents and volunteers!
Many of you may not know this, but I LOVE bees!!! I am utterly fascinated by their behavior and the role they play in nature! So, this picture is very special to me and a perfect image of the magic that is throughout the OAEC. We recommend anyone and everyone to get up there even if it is just for the volunteer day on Wednesdays--you will fall in love as well!

UPDATES & HAPPENINGS:
LET US GROW!!
Today was the first day of our two week, Let Us Grow! Summer Program. It was a big hit and the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves. The quote of the day: "My new favorite food is Kale!!!" ~8 year old girl:)
The camp will run from 10 am to 2pm, Monday thru Friday, this week and next week!! Feel free to stop by!!

SEED TO MOUTH Cooking Classes
Come join us for our 2nd Cooking Class THIS Wednesday (July 12th) in the HV South Community Room (403 Rose St., across the street from the Park)
This weeks meun is APPETIZERS and homemade salsas..YUMMMMM!
Hope to see you soon,
peace & love,
suzi

OUTSTANDING Parks Group

Rebecca Bozzelli, Dee Dee Workman, Barbara Wenger, and Suzi Palladino.

Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group was kindly recognized by Neighborhood Parks Council (NPC) for all our OUTSTANDING efforts in reaching out and working closely with the Hayes Valley, Western Addition, and Lower Haight communities. What a great feeling to selected for this award and to be surrounded by the special people we are fortunate enough to work with, people who make our jobs easier because of their dedication and hard work. The award was presented to Barbara Wenger from Mayor Newson. Thank you NPC!