Cooking with Local Ingredients

At Urban Sprouts, we want to connect students to local produce, whether it's food from the school garden, persimmons and lemons from someone's backyard, or fresh finds from the farmer's market.

At Aptos Middle School, the lettuce, arugula, and radish from our school garden were ready to be harvested and tossed into a salad. Students washed, chopped, and combined local fruits and vegetables with a sesame salad dressing and a persimmon vinagrette. Although some students were more interested in the cooking than in the eating, it was a first step towards creating healthy (and colorful) dishes using many local ingredients.

Additionally, students at Ida B. Wells Continuation High School learned how to whip up persimmon ice cream using only five ingredients (lemon, vanilla, sugar, buttermilk, and persimmons), and without a fancy ice cream maker. Thank you, Ms. Bressack, for donating the delicious persimmons from your backyard!

Outreach Committee Meeting- First Meeting 12/8 6:00pm

Help grow the school gardens movement!

We are looking for members to join our Outreach Committee. These individuals will work alongside our staff to represent Urban Sprouts at partner school events, community fairs, farmers markets, and other city-wide events.

Please join us for our first meeting
December 8th, 2009
451 Hayes St 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102

Questions or want more information? Please contact Audrey at 415.515.0967 or helpout@urbansprouts.org

Log Cabin Work Day

We are hosting our first garden work party at our newest site, Log Cabin Ranch.

Come out and:

* tour the site
* help plant our orchard
* build new garden beds
* lots of other exciting garden activities

As the garden is located in La Honda (about 45 miles south of San Francisco) we will be organizing carpools for all participants. We will be contacting those attending by December 10th to arrange rides.

To RSVP please CLICK HERE

Please note this is a San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department Facility and participants in the work day will need to be at least 21 years of age and bring a photo id.

Pictures from Log Cabin Ranch

Amazing Volunteer Week

Last week was a busy week in the gardens as we hosted 3 large group events. Employees and students from Wells Fargo, Haas School of Business, and Blueprint Research & Design performed almost 100 hours of volunteer labor as we built worm bins and compost bins, dug new beds, and completed some general garden work. This was a fantastic start to our new composting initiative as we are on track to build new compost bins, worm bins, and compost sifters in all 7 of our sites in the next few months. Thank you so much for your time and energy, it's always so great to welcome new folks into the gardens.











To bring your group out Click Here

Thank you, Yahoo! for a HUGE boost to our composting efforts!

Read on Yahoo!'s blog about this great compost project they funded for us, as part of their Purple Acts of Kindness.

Garden Workday at San Francisco Community

Members and students of Urban Sprouts, Project OLE, and Justice Brothers came together for a garden workday at San Francisco Community School on a bright, sunny October afternoon.

Armed with wheelbarrows, shovels, and hand tools, we created new beds bordered by rice wattles to prevent soil erosion and to maximize garden space. Volunteers and staff also harvested summer crops, prepared compost, cleared established beds for fall planting, and carried out general garden tasks. Our day was even captured by film students from San Francisco State University for a short documentary on urban beautification in the Excelsior district.

What are we growing now in our newly prepared beds? Peas, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, radish, cover crops, garlic, yarrow, cauliflowers, strawberries...

Join Us and Make a Difference

Great News: the world is catching on to our message that school gardens can nourish us and strengthen our communities! The Obamas put food gardens in the spotlight on the White House lawn, and now more than ever parents and teachers are asking Urban Sprouts for support and advice.

The movement is growing because this year, in times of recession and food crisis, the need for school and home gardens is greater than ever.

Today, just like the Obamas, we have SO much work to do. Local schools and families rely on their strong partnerships with us as other programs are cut. Schools all over California and the West want to learn our methods as they start new school gardens.

That's why we're inviting YOU to join us! Why support Urban Sprouts? Read here how your gift to us will go directly to bring school gardens to more young people, families and schools.

Or click here to GIVE YOUR GIFT TODAY, OF $35, $50, OR $100!

Thank you so much!

School has been in session for only about two months but already so much has been happening in our gardens.

At ISA the high school seminar got the daunting opportunity to install a drip irrigation system for our garden. This project took a lot of team work and problem solving skills in order to piece together and bury our water pipes. The whole project could not have been done without the help of our dedicated volunteers Casey and Carter. This week we’ll also be saying goodbye to Ms. Stones, our favorite sub, who has been working with us since the beginning of the school year.

At MLK we’ve been working on soil, starting seeds and most recently: worm anatomy! We also had our first Garden Work Party at MLK. We worked on making our garden more accessible, creating a better outdoor classroom seating area and putting together tables for our greenhouse.