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Wild Willow Farm &
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San Diego Roots
Sustainable Food Project
is a 501(c)3 California
non-profit corporation.
Your donations are
tax-deductible.

 

News, Workshops and Upcoming Events

 

Wild Willow Farm produce now on sale at SOL MARKET!

Endive, Arugula, White Icicle Radish, Red Russian Kale, Red Romaine Lettuce, Dill, Sage, Thyme, Peppermint, Rosemary

SOL MARKET (Seasonal, Organic, Local)

A farmers market experience at a retail store

 

Liberty Station (Near Sail Ho Golf Course)
2855 Perry Road - San Diego 92106
619.795.6000
Store Hours – Everyday 10:00am – 8:00pm

Go to their website

The freshest, healthiest local foods are available seven days a week, now featuring the first pickings from Wild Willow Farm! SOL has a bar serving local beer and wine, a bistro where you can enjoy dishes prepared with ingredients from Wild Willow Farm, and plenty of opportunities to spend time with and learn from people who grow, prepare and care about quality food.

Pick-Your-Own Produce Every Saturday at Wild Willow Farm!

Farmstand now open every Saturday from 1 to 5pm (during volunteer hours)

Wild Willow Farm now has a unique "Farm Stand" experience Continuing with our goal of educating the next generation of farmers, gardeners and homesteaders in San Diego and encouraging all eaters to participate in their food system, we're opening up our farm even further to allow you and your friends and family to come harvest produce to enjoy at home. Not only can you volunteer in the field to help grow your food -- now you can harvest some to take home and enjoy too!

Come alone or bring a companion, volunteer if you wish, and pick up some of the freshest produce you can get. We'll have staff ready to show you what is available, and we'll be happy to demonstrate proper harvesting techniques. We'll also provide any tools necessary for the harvest such as a knife or harvest bucket. In order to reduce waste, we encourage you to bring your own bag, or you can pay us 10 cents per bag.

Other items such as eggs from our pastured hens, who are let free range every day and fed only organic veggies and certified organic grains, will be available at the stand, along with dried herbs (Communitea), vegetable & herb starts for your garden, seeds, and other specialty items.

Click here to see what's ready for pickin'. Variety will keep expanding as summer continues.

Wild Willow Farm Community Potluck Gathering

This Saturday, May 19

Cooking Class, Volunteering, Potluck,
Wood-fired Pizza, Bonfire, Music

2550 Sunset Avenue, San Diego 92154
(not a mailing address)
click here for a map

Our farm is all about community, so what better way to say that than by hosting a monthly community gathering? Now using our new wood-fired pizza oven and outdoor kitchen, on mostly third Saturdays (subject to change) of the Spring, Summer and Fall months we host big community gathering, with volunteer opportunities, tours, a grand potluck dinner, and bonfire; sometime music or free films. Bring a jacket and warm clothing; rain cancels.

*Please bring something homemade and yummy to share (extra points for using organic, locally grown ingredients). Please label your dish and ingredients used if possible. Also bring your own plate, cup and eating utensils to help us keep this a zero-waste event.

Upcoming potluck dates: June 16, July 21, August 18

Cooking with the Harvest with Chef Jenn

Saturday May 19, 3pm

Suggested donation of $10-20 at the door
Instructor: Chef Jenn

To register, click here

This wonderful vegetarian cooking class on the farm. Class includes instruction from a professional culinary instructor, is a totally fun demonstration, and everyone get to enjoy farm fresh produce (direct from the source) at its best!

You'll learn all steps of the cooking process from beginning to end, and recipes are provided for you to take home. Menus are to be determined, by Mother Nature! Classes will be held outdoors with organic produce supplied by WWF and Suzie's Farm. We will have a sample CSA box from Suzie's Farm on hand and be using ingredients from that week's box in our menu.

For any other questions about this class or private classes, please contact Chef Jenn at (858) 212- 9054 or follow her on twitter Chef_Jenn www.chefjenncooks.blogspot.com 

Partner Event

Celebrating Community Gardens
from the Ground Up

Saturday, May 19, 11am to 5pm
TLC Giving Garden, 11240 Clairemont Mesa Blvd,
Tierrasanta, 92124

FREE

The San Diego Community Garden Network (SDCGN), a local nonprofit partner of San Diego Roots, whose mission is to support the growth of community gardens in San Diego County, is kicking off the summer gardening season with this FREE event. "Celebrating Community Gardens from the Ground Up!" will feature a full day of workshops on topics such as composting, grey-water recycling, and starting community gardens. Event attendees can expect delicious local eats, great activities for kids, opportunities to find out about community gardens located throughout San Diego, and frequent tours of the TLC Giving Garden–one of San Diego's most inspiring new community gardens.

For the current info on the event activities, vendor opportunities, and to sign up for workshops click here to visit their website.

Free Workshops will include:

How to Start a Community Garden
Composting Resources for Home, School, & Community Gardens
Healthy, Seasonal Cooking Demonstration
Herbs in Your Landscape
Summer Fruit Tree Care
Vermiculture (Raising Worms); Make a Mini Worm Bin
Rain & Gray Water Harvesting
Ask a Master Gardener
Craft & Food Vendors; Music
Face Painting; Garden Crafts; Garden Planting
Garden Supply Vendors
Solana Center for Environmental Innovation
And More…

This FREE event will help raise funds for and promote the mission of the San Diego Community Garden Network, which is working to create a healthy community garden movement in the County of San Diego by assisting in the formation of community gardens through education, technical assistance and by linking gardeners.

Summer Fermenting Workshop

Saturday, June 9, noon to 1:30pm

Suggested Donation: $10-20 per person.

You can take home your own 1-gallon jar of fermented veggies for an additional $12

Instructor: Austin Durant, Founder, Fermenters Club

To register, click here

Fermentation is an age-old way to preserve food that's making a huge comeback! Besides preservation, fermentation offers many health benefits, both to you and to the earth! Come learn the basics of fermenting food, start your first batch yourself and take it home with you. You'll be hooked after the first taste!

During the workshop, you'll learn about the basics and benefits of food fermentation; what Fermenters Club is doing locally and globally to promote this lost art, and see a demo on starting a seasonal vegetable ferment. Then you'll have a chance do it yourself! Stick around to roll up your sleeves and start your own ferment from fresh, local, vegetables, and you'll have the opportunity to keep a one-gallon jar of pickles!

Build your own Top-Bar Bee Hive.

Saturday, June 23, noon to 4pm

Cost: $50, or $45 for Friends of the Farm

Build and take home your own hive!
Instructor: Paul Maschka

To register, click here

With a resurgence in back-yard beekeeping, people find it can be costly and confusing to get started with commercial hives. There are a number of options beekeepers have developed especially in parts of the world where resources are scarce. The Kenyan Top-Bar hive is a great way to start. Often using repurposed lumber, a little hardware and some leftover paint a person can construct an extremely sturdy and efficient hive that will last decades (with a little instruction) We will go over the design, construction and operation of your new hive then help you build it. In the process participants will have created their own hive and have learned some very valuable carpentry skills.

Medieval Mead Making

Sunday, June 24, 10am to 1pm

Cost: $50, or $45 for Friends of the Farm

Take away 1 gallon to ferment at home.
Instructor: Paul Maschka

Bring some food for a potluck!

To register, click here

Mead is wine made from honey. It can be an extremely primitive drink or a highly refined, aged libation. It's thought that mead holds the crown for being the first fermented beverage by our ancestors. One theory is Paleolithic hunters gathering honey mixed it into their water containers (animal skin bags or gourds) which would have resulted in self-perpetuating fermentation. We won't be using an animal skin bag to make our mead but it promises to be fun all the same.

Please join us for this lively look into our past and experience the process of the "Earths first fermented drink." Participants will be taking home a 1 gallon batch to finish and enjoy.

Natural Building: Part 2

RESCHEDULED
Saturday, June 30, 10am to 2pm

Cost: $50, or $45 for Friends of the Farm

Attendees of Part I in August 2011 receive half-off.

Instructor: Paul Maschka

All structures start with a strong foundation: we have the frame up, and now it's time to finish the reinforcing and thatching!

To register, click here.

Join us for Part 2 of our natural building series (attendees are not required to have attended the previous workshop). At our previous workshop we used Arundo donax to frame the building of a new structure in the middle of our first field. Join us as we now work to finish off this beautiful structure. We'll do some lashing techniques for the framing and for the thatching. This type of experience is truly life changing.

A number of the plants usable for natural building are non-native and abundant. Some examples are Mexican Fan Palms (Washingtonia robusta) good for roofing, Giant Reed (Arundo donax) it resembles a wild bamboo, Salt Cedar (Tamarisk) long strait logs and many varieties of Eucalyptus with logs and branches of all sizes. Many of our native plants (such as willows) are fast growing and renewable and were use extensively by the local Native Americans. In this workshop we'll will construct a shade structure at Wild Willow Farm using de-barked round poles, woven willow branches, Arundo canes and fan palm fronds -- all harvested right from the farm! We will practice the art of cordage making by hand, lashing techniques , joinery using wooden dowels, preserving wood naturally and bracing.

Please Bring: Water, Food for pot luck lunch Sun hat, Comfortable gloves, Close toed shoes.

Other things to bring if you have them: Machete, hand pruners, long handled pruners, pruning saw, saw horses, 6 foot and 8 foot step ladder, Hand operated auger with bits.

Instructor: Paul Maschka teaches organic agriculture at San Diego City college and is co-manager of the Seeds at City Urban Farm on campus. He is retired after seventeen years working at the San Diego Zoo Horticulture Department as Lead Organic Horticulturist. Paul is a passionate conservationist - he studies, practices and lectures on a number of environmental topics including organic urban food production (edible landscaping), biointensive gardening, mycology (cultivation of culinary mushrooms), water conservation (rain water harvesting), beekeeping and urban bee rescue, composting, vermiculture (worm farming), native habitat restoration, home grown, home made, and whole live foods (cheese, canning, kimchi, tempeh, honey).

Volunteer at Wild Willow Farm

2550 Sunset Avenue, San Diego 92154
(not a mailing address)
click here for a map

The farm is a great place for children. We are settling into a  regular schedule of activities at the farm from bed preparation and compost making, to planting, tending, and more. As this happens, and as more vegetables start coming up, the farm will become an even greater places for all ages to adventure and taste. If you wish to bring your children down to volunteer or just to play around in the field while you do, that works fine!

Volunteer with the Farm Crew
Saturdays from 1-5pm (warm season hours)
Volunteer at the farm with WWF interns and farm manager Misha. No experience necessary, we'll show you everything you need to know. You'll have the opportunity to be involved with the large variety of activities we do every day: from planting and propagation, to compost making, bed preparation and much much more.

Recommended Attire: Closed-toe shoes/boots, broad-brimmed hat, pants, long sleeves, sunscreen, gloves, and any tools you have from home. Bring some WATER too!

Weather: It does not usually get too hot on the farm as we have an almost constant breeze from the ocean during the day. The evenings can become cool once the sun goes down. Bring layers. Rain cancels.