A small but mighty farm: The story of Shemesh Farm

PE we built something truly beautiful a program and an Enterprise nestled in the Malibu mountains where people of all abilities come together to grow herbs for salt and Herb Blends sheemish means sun in Hebrew and The Sun Shines on all of us this is more than just an herb business this is a family this is a community creating purpose connection and meaningful work to adults with diverse abilities we had an online store we were selling our products at farmers markets they were in small boutique stores around the country then the woy fire hit in November of 2018 begin with that breaking news a state of emergency in California as deadly fires explode across the state everything that we had built was destroyed damn this was devastating for everyone who worked at sheemish farms we were offered space at the Malibu Jewish Center in synagogue where we built sheemish 2.0 which was a smaller and actually more efficient sheemish Farms we aren't what you think of when you think of a farm cuz we're really a big Garden space however we're small and mighty now the Jewish Center is renovating and so once again we had to pick up and leave and we're starting over though it's difficult especially for a farm gives us the ability to be creative and work in new ways so here we are we're at sheemish farms 3.0 being hosted at the Malibu United Methodist Church in beautiful Malibu California just down the street from Zuma Beach today is day one of building the farm so our plan is we are leveling off this whole space and we are making room for primarily raised beds this whole Space is um actually a septic field so we have to get as creative as possible with our spaces we didn't have a ton of options but this is an awesome space and we've got the whole team coming out today to get it ready get it beautiful additionally we've got our hydroponic towers that we're going to be setting up I love the Hydroponics for so many reasons they're water efficient they are transportable look at how we were able to transport such a huge portion of our farm they grow so many different things look we're even growing cayenne peppers here little Cayenne experiment the towers are super versatile they're super simple energy efficient they were an experiment for sheemish farms and now they're just how we are the storage sheds uh we're donated from a wonderful group called hand inhand connect the tool shed and the garden shed are essential to our operation because we need place to store all of our gear we need to dry our herbs plants that are coming from this property we'll be part of the raised beds we'll make a nice pile of this to help start up our new compost operation friends at Circa cultivation connected us with Kellogg organic Kellogg is a like one of the biggest providers and makers of organic soil in all of Southern California and they donated 200 bags of soil for our operation it was amazing we moved our old compost pile from sheemish 2.0 we're really excited to bring all the compost that we've been working on that's going to be in all of our beds of our new space so this is where she begins humble beginnings right over here is where we're going to be having our brand new compost operation doesn't look like much but it doesn't need to look like much to be awesome compost I picked the vgo uh raised beds for a number of reasons I really like the look The durability Factor the movability factor as we plan on sheemish farms continuing at our Mothership site in a few years because our garden space is in such an open exposed area we also wanted the garden bed to look well cared for so that the community feel engaged and respectful of the space as well the raised bed space is designed for function and also for accessibility each bed is 3 ft apart so that we can get wheelchairs Walkers and all of our farm fellows into the garden space comfortably [Music] we are stewards of the earth and we Foster a sense of responsibility for an appreciation of the earth we find W by connecting with nature working with nature and appreciating the natural world respectfully recognize the sh our people have store this land throughout the generations the land that we call H will equate and Sh us been so gly passed down to us we acknowledge we live in occupied land that was for posibly TI it from its original lus and we affirmed that while we cannot change history we can work for justice and that Justice begins with recognition and acknowledgement good job thank you the farm is an incredibly special space it's built for the farm fellows it's built for their hands for their perspectives for their abilities but it also is so deeply engaging in healing for everyone who comes through the coaches the volunteers the staff the passers by it's a healing space the future is really bright each conundrum has presented new opportunity for growth and Partnerships and it's that optimism and that sense of openness that propels us to go forward thank you for watching people of the 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