Harvest Festival!

Harvest Festival this year was a great success, all planned and run by the BEET Rangers! In the morning, the BEET Rangers helped move mulch and compost, take out and harvest winter squash, and prepped beds to plant carrot and radishes for the fall. We harvested some cute little winter squashies to decorate for halloween!

We spread a lot of the compost into our perennial beds and fed our trees their fall compost, giving them deep fertilizing as we move into the new season. A few of the BEET Rangers also painted signs to leave a lasting impression on the garden, making it more beautiful for future groups who come to enjoy the garden.

After our hard work, we went down to Hayes Valley Playground to celebrate with the rest of the neighborhood. The BEET Rangers ran a table about our organization, and helped people plant peas to take home in pots they could decorate themselves. Other BEET Rangers, especially Krystal, Karen, and Jessica, did face painting on lots of little kids. There was a delicious barbeque, and lots of bikes to ride around, including bikes that were welded together so you could ride side by side! It was a great time, and a sweet last event to celebrate with the community and our soon to graduate BEET Rangers
!

Rebuilding Together was a great success!

Rebuilding Together made our dreams come true! It was really spectacular. We were able to do a lot of great work both in Koshland Garden and John Muir Elementary. All the volunteers were so great and helpful, their hard work makes such a difference, and is so appreciated!

Here are some of the highlights that we are left with:

1. New garden planter boxes full of herbs on the playground at John Muir Elementary!
These planters were reconstructed, repainted, and planted with lavender, rosemary, lamb's ears and yarrow, thanks to Rebuilding Together.

2. New mostly Native Plant Garden!
We planted the old school garden with lots of native plants, and pruned back the plants that were already there. We hope this will now be a place where students can come to learn about native plants and their uses, observe native wildlife, and learn the importance of preserving native habitat. It is beautiful, and we look forward to all the changes that will come as all the plants grow in and get wild!

3. Tree wells on Webster and Page get a makeover!
The tree wells were reconstructed, repainted, weeded and seeded with California wildflowers. They are now brightly colored, and look like a rainbow as you walk up the street. It looks so much more cheerful and beautiful on those blocks now, it made a huge difference.

4. Improved Shade Garden at Koshland!
Rebuilding Together also spent a lot of time at Koshland, adding and sifting compost to lots of beds, repairing our compost sifter, hauling bricks out to the new Native Plant garden, and helping us arrange the new herb bed, soon to be completed! The best was the improvements in the Shade Garden- they planted a few different Columbine and two Coral Bells that look gorgeous. Check it out!

A million thanks, it all looks so beautiful. We cannot say enough good things about all the great work Rebuilding Together did with us, we hope to have them back soon!

Check out photos at:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=jcpslhg.3bubkyrc&x=0&y=-su3160&localeid=en_US

March Workparty!

One Brick and SF Rec and Park made a great impact on our park and garden today. We were able to finally weed and mulch the tree wells on the South end of Page Street, which looks incredible now. For a while it was looking pretty desolate down there!

There was a lot of great enthusiasm which allowed us to really get down to business and pull out the bulk of winter weeds that the rain had brought, and spread most of our endless mulch pile of woodchips in their place. A thick blanket of those woodships should keep the weeds at bay until maybe even next winter?! One can hope...

During the day our hardworking volunteers were filmed and photographed by the Chrissy Field Center media team, who is collecting footage for an installation featuring us! We have won the title of Chrissy Field Heroes for 2008, and soon everyone will be able to see Koshland Garden and Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group on display at the Chrissy Field Center!

Thank you to One Brick volunteers, SF Rec and Parks, John Muir Elementary youth, Everett Middle Schooler Karen Tran, and French International High School students for coming out to support with hard work and smiles!

March 8th Community Clean Team Work Day in the Garden!

COMMUNITY CLEAN TEAM WORKDAY

Time: Saturday, March 8th 9AM-12PM
Place: Koshland Park, at the corner of Page and Buchanan

Come help out at Koshland Garden and Park on Saturday, March 8th!
We will be mulching, weeding, snacking, harvesting and more!
This event is part of Community Clean Team, and we will be joined in
the garden by Street Parks Youth, a project of SF Parks Trust working
to connect San Francisco Youth with the environment. Come out and meet
the folks involved in these great programs, and enjoy some time
helping out the garden! We will cancel if it rains, so let's hope for
blue skies!

The Community Clean Team is a citywide volunteer program that partners
city agencies with residents, merchants and students to clean and
beautify San Francisco neighborhoods. – Department of Public Works


Street Parks Youth


For more info: gardenkids@gmail.com, (415) 643-3638

Koshland Garden Work Day 2/10!

Today was a fabulous day- the skies were blue and the weather was lovely!

A bunch of folks made it out to the garden today to help out- community gardeners, students from John Muir Elementary, Everett Middle School, neighbors and our fabulous new Garden for the Environment volunteers, Katie and Lisa!

We did a whole bunch of winter weeding, spread a new layer of mulch through the garden and the park, did some pruning and got the garden looking really great for the new semester of classes. Thank you to everyone who came out, and we look forward to seeing folks on Wednesday afternoons, 2:30-5pm, when we will begin our regular work and play time in the garden.

February Work Party!

Thanks to all of our awesome volunteers who came out to make the garden shine on February 9th! We did a lot of much needed weeding, dug around in the compost, planted and mulched.

All of this hard work makes a huge difference in the health and beauty of the garden, making it more enjoyable for everyone who comes to visit! It is always so rewarding to get to spend time with community who come out to participate in the workdays, we always have a lot of fun, and this time it was great to have dogs and babies keeping us company!

Making Holiday Wreaths

We had a lovely time last weekend making wreaths and cards for the holidays. We gathered in the community room at Hayes Valley South with the support of the Community Partners United. Students from John Muir Elementary and youth in the neighborhood came together to decorate holiday cards and make their own wreaths out of all natural and recycled materials. Along with making cards to take home, we made cards to put into the food boxes which will be distributed throughout the neighborhood in a couple weeks. The wreaths looked great this year with sprigs of rosemary, sage, wheat, holly berries and more!

Thank you to everyone who came out and got crafty with us for the holidays! Y

Harvest Festival

Today was a blast! Despite the cold and gray weather, tons of volunteers came out to help us plant over 500 flower bulbs that will bloom and bring color to the park this spring! Thank you to Helping Hands, the French International School, community gardeners, neighbors, and John Muir Elementary School students for all their hard work!

The weeding, planting and beautifying of the park went from 10-1pm, and afterwards everyone went inside the community center at Hayes Valley South to get warm and celebrate with yummy veggie burgers, tofu dogs, and potluck salad. Ami, Amar, and a bunch of John Muir kids bravely kept the BBQ going in the rain, and brought us lots of warm food. Even in they were having loads of fun helping out, and ended up with their pictures in the local newspaper!

Indoors we listened to the sweet tunes of Michael Musika and Ledbetter, and the kids played their own CD's and had a huge sing-along with choreographed dances. It was awesome. Then we broke into some really messy and fun pumpkin painting, and made all sorts of crafts from collages, bookbinding, finger knitting- anything we could make from the paper and glitter that Ruby generously brought to share.

In the end, the kids didn't want to leave- they asked us to have this everyday! So we will get busy, and be sure to have lots of events to keep us all warm and laughing through winter. We look forward to Wreath Making, coming up soon! Z

A Few More Harvest Fest Moments

They are so great we had to do two posts!

The musicians are from Ledbetter, one of the bands that performed at Harvest Fest.

The students danced to their own music after the bands, they LOVE to dance.


The DiFrancesco family came out to help, representing the French International School.




After all the hard work, everyone went inside the Hayes Valley South Community Center to eat BBQ veggie dogs and veggie burgers, decorate pumpkins, listen to music and make crafts.

Concert in Koshland Park

On October 7^th folks gathered in the park for a Sunday evening of fabulous music!

The event started off with Anna, Nora and Tobi, a trio of drums, harp and guitar.
Shake Your Peace! rocked next, followed by Lily Idalia of the band Light Leaks, and ending the evening was Treasure Nest playing experimental jazz music.

The entire event was powered by a bicycle sound system. It was great fun and even the kids took a turn pedaling on the bike! We plan to have many more garden concerts in the future so if you're interested in playing please drop us a line!

gardenkids@gmail.com

Western Addition Peace Wall

On June 9^th, we gathered around the Western Addition Peace Wall on Page Street (at Buchanan) to celebrate the installation of the Western Addition Peace Wall.

This project has been 8 years in the making and anyone who's seen the wall can tell that it was worth it!



This beautiful Peace Wall is made up of over 8,000 tiles. The tiles were made by kids, neighbors, churches, schools and artists as a part of the Peace Empowerment Project. The artist Justine Tartarsky, created some larger tiles to complement and unite all the tiles. The wall wraps around Koshland Park like a long, beautiful ribbon.

At the Peace Wall Celebration many groups came together from the community for food, entertainment and to honor everyone who has died because of violence. If you haven't yet, be sure to stop by and visit this beautiful memorial and art installation.

Workday this Saturday, March 10

Hello Friends and Gardeners!

Please join us at Koshland Park for our workday this Saturday, March 10 from 11:00-2:00 at the corner of Page and Buchanan.

Tasks will include: repairing the compost bins, planting bulbs, and trimming back grasses.

Last workday was a huge success and included mulching of paths, weeding, and sowing wildflower seed. The ground is warming up and it's time to plant basil, broccoli, beets, potatoes, radishes, turnips, lettuce and more! Thank you for tending to our park and garden!
--workdays are the 2nd Saturday of each month.
***in the case of rain, workday will be cancelled***
-Nora

Wreath Making this Saturday the 9th!

Everyone's invited to join us for garden wreath and card making. It is this Saturday from 1 to 3 pm at the Hayes Valley South Community Room (403 Rose Street, off of Buchanan between Haight and Page).

We'll have treats, drinks, and supplies galore!!!

Hope to see you there!
Love, Nora

One Heck of a Halloween

The pictures say it ALL! THANK YOU SO MUCH to those fabulous people who came out and celebrated! A HUGE thanks to Buskaroo, William Wesson, and Stitch Craft!! The event was fabulous beause of your beautiful music!!

XO, Rebecca.

Also, please find some time in your Saturday to come hang out in Koshland Park for a work party. 11-2pm.

WHAT A BLAST!!

Lower Haight Block Party Fun!!

Thanks to Tom, Jesse, Nicole, Lavinia, Barbara, and Michael for helping to get the word out about our hidden gem in the neighborhood. We meet lots of new friends and hope to see them in the garden soon. Here is Tom and Lavinia enjoying life at our garden table where we sold the local, fresh, organic garden produce.

Happy Halloween!
lllllllllllllllllll

Celebrate Halloween listening to some folk music in Koshland Park! This is the place to be if you like the outdoors, Halloween, live music and s'mores. Wear your eeriest costume, stop by on your way wherever, roast marshmallows, meet new friends, chat, be happy, bring friends, dance, sing out loud, make it a party!!

On Halloween. Tuesday. 6 - 8pm.

Corner of Page and Buchanan.

Boo! Rebecca

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.

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