In early June 2019, the second Los Altos Hills Community Farm was installed on a busy corner!  A large neighborhood gathering helped to celebrate the opening of the stand!

The community farm stand has become a popular community sharing point thanks to the community gathering site of Nextdoor.com.

Today a neighbor Mellisa has left several vases of fresh herbs to share and posted pictures of the herbs on the electronic nextdoor.com community bulletin board:

I just put lots of fresh herbs from our herb garden at the community farmstand (at Fremont Ave and Manuella Rd).

– Mint
– Thai Basil
– Italian Basil
– Greek Oregano
– Rosemary
– Thyme

Help yourself – they are free! (But please don’t take the vases).

We are making this chicken for dinner tonight – it is our absolute favorite and a go-to in our house. It uses Thyme and Rosemary. (http://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2013/…)

And if you need some inspiration for dinner or treats to make with these, here are some of my other favorite things to make:
– Herbed butter
– Mojitos
– Mint Lamb
– Grilled Rosemary Chicken
– Rosemary and thyme roasted potatoes
– Grilled salmon with thyme, olive oil and salt/pepper
– Thai curry with basil
– tomatoes with basil and mozzarella
– water infused with rosemary, mint, lime and strawberries

Today I installed 4 bee nucs (small hives)  today from a bee keep down near San Luis Obispo.  I transported this hives in the back of my car for 4 hours.. luckily not too many escape from the cardboard boxes and flying around the inside of the car!

I’ve moved the frames from the boxes into the full wooden hives.

I’m hoping for a better bee experience this year as last year all of my hives died by mid November.  Bee keeping is not as easy as one might expect!

At a recent Slow Food South Bay annual event, I learned about the seed libraries now available at many real public libraries locally where you can “check out” seeds in the hope that you will bring back some other ones to share.

So I built a small seed library box where you can check out seeds or share seeds you longer need or wish to plant or seeds you have harvested it yourself.

On the top of the box, we have provided this set of instructions to help with the seed library loaning and sharing:

Los Altos Hills Community Farm Stand

SEED LIBRARY INSTRUCTIONS

• All seeds are free but only take what you will use
• Please contribute back to the seed library with your own seeds

Feel free to donate seed packages that you have purchased but not used

Collect your own seeds from your own yards and harvests and put them into individual envelopes or containers and users can use the envelopes in the drawers below.   Feel free to include any specific instructions with your seed packets envelopes on proper growing techniques

Seeds are arranged into the following areas:

Organic / Heirloom – This is important if people want to harvest seeds to put back at the farm stand. Many commercial seeds will not sprout successfully

Backyard collected seeds -Your own collected, and successful harvested seeds from your own local LAH and nearby communities gardens – These are the most valuable types of seeds to share since we know they work in our climate and soils.

Non organic seeds or Not sure – Most seed packages will now say if they are open pollinated seeds where the seeds can be harvested successfully from the plant. If unsure, put your seeds in these area

Pencils, envelopes, markers, and seed bags are available in the drawers for your use.   Start sharing and growing with the seed library!

It’s that time of year and free persimmons are now available at the farm stand.

It’s honey time at the farm stand.  I’ve harvested our backyard hives about 2 weeks ago and extracted about 3 1/2 gallons of honey.  It’s incredible thick, darker and much richer in flavors than store bought generic honey.  Contact me directly if you wish to purchase some directly or they are available at the farm stand too.  $10 / 1 Pint raw, local (Los Altos Hills) honey.

September 25, 2014 –

About 20 folks, young and old,  came out for the Los Altos Hills backyard and community farm stand harvest at Jill’s house.  We all harvested some for our selves but picked lots of extra bounty of grapes and apples that is now available at the LAH community farm stand at  14101 Manuella Rd, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022.  The farm stand is actually located on Fremont Road since this property is a corner lot and borders Fremont Rd and Manuella Rd.  It can be hard to find in the trees.

So please come out ASAP to get free bags of table grapes in the two coolers and free apples in the boxes.  The grapes will expire fast as they are very ripe and very sweet!

Come join your LAH neighbors for a community apple and grape harvest and take home some bounty and pick some for others to pick up for free at the farm stand on Fremont Rd.

Date: Thursday 9/25/2014
Time: 4 PM to 5:30 PM

Location : 26530 Westin Drive, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 (Near Pinewood school on Fremont Rd)

There are plenty of apples and hundreds of pounds of table grapes to let folks take some home while others can be used to pass out at the farm stand for free!

Please bring some strong, re-useable grocery bags to take home some of the bounty. If you have a 8 foot step ladder or a fruit picker pole, bring it as well.

Spread the word!

For information on the farm stand, please check the website at
http://urbanfarmstands.org

It’s time for Arugula!

It’s later February at the LAH farm stand and a new farm stand contributor has brought freshly picked organic arugula for the neighborhood to enjoy.  Specially bundled bunches of arugula are in the cooler for $1.00.  Stop by and pick up some for your next salad.  A nice complement to fresh garden salad!

A continual refreshing of books appears to be happening on the free lending library and a few boxes of oranges and tangerines  how fill the free bins and wire baskets.   Hundreds of dollars of honey have been sold at the stand in the past few months.