Slow Food Nation '08

Civic Center | Friday, August 29 - Sunday, August 31, 9am - 4pm

In collaboration with Victory Gardens 2008+, Slow Food Nation will herald the era of self-sufficiency through the creation of an ornamental edible garden in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center. Planted on the same site as the post-World War II gardens 60 years ago, the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden demonstrates the potential of a truly local agriculture practice that unites and promotes Bay Area urban gardening organizations, while producing high quality food for those in need.

Featuring a wide variety of heritage organic vegetables suited to the Bay Area microclimate, the garden displays the diversity of urban food production practices. It is a garden of communities: all food grown in the garden will be harvested and donated to those with limited access to healthy organic produce through our partnership with local food banks and meals programs.

Project Timeline

• July 1 – Groundbreaking
• July 1 - 11 – Garden Installation
• July 12 – Community Planting Day
• July 12 - September 21 – Garden Operation, stay tuned for workshop schedule!
• August 29 - September 1 – Slow Food Nation, Harvest, food donated to those in need

Participating Organizations

The Slow Food Nation Victory Garden is designed by the Garden for the Environment’s Victory Garden 08+ Program and CMG Landscape Architecture. Seeds and starts have been donated by Seeds of Change and numerous individuals from around the country. City Slicker Farms and Ploughshares Nursery are managing seed propagation and providing garden advice, and the Coevolution Institute is providing pollinator attractor plants.

• San Francisco Victory Gardens
  Victory Gardens 08+ is an organization that designs, builds, and maintains edible landscapes at a variety of scales throughout San Francisco focused on garden-based education and community food production. This year the organization will give away 15 free backyard starter gardens and create the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden at Civic Center.
• CMG Landscape Architecture
  CMG is a landscape architecture firm providing collaborative design and management services to a wide range of public, institutional and private clients.
• City Slicker Farms
  City Slicker Farms increases food self-sufficiency in West Oakland by creating organic, sustainable, high-yield urban farms and backyard gardens.
• Ploughshares Nursery
  Ploughshares Nursery is an environmentally sustainable retail and wholesale nursery located in Alameda, California.
• Co-Evolution Institute
  The Coevolution Institute’s (CoE) mission is to catalyze stewardship of biodiversity.
• Seeds of Change
  Seeds of Change is committed to providing 100% certified organic, open pollinated seeds of the highest quality including many heirloom, traditional and unique Seeds of Change varieties.
• The Studio for Urban Projects
  Founded in 2006, the Studio for Urban Projects is a research and working group that works within art, architecture, ecology and the public realm to generate projects that re-imagine the urban landscape.
• Garden for the Environment
  Garden for the Environment, through its nationally acclaimed one-acre urban demonstration garden, offers environmental education programs about organic gardening, urban compost systems and sustainable food systems.

Thank you to our Supporters:

• Cole Hardware
• Ecology Action
• Invisible Structures, Inc.
• The Reuse People of America
• Restoration Timber, LLC