Urban Farmers Unite!

[Dan]

I know there are more of you out there. You've made the leap from obsessive gardener to full fledged urban farmer. At one time you were ripping up your lawn to fit in another 2 rows of tomatoes and corn and now you have somehow found enough land in the city to grow enough vegetables to start selling your produce. Maybe you just have a small, "honor system" produce stand. Maybe you've found a small, local restaurant to buy all of the heirloom tomatoes you can produce. Maybe you've started your own mini-CSA from veg grown in your yard and the piece of yard your neighbor has let you borrow.

I want to know what all of you are doing out there! Where are all of the urban farmers in the burgeoning local food movement?!?! We can't have truly local food without urban farmers. Let's share what we're doing and shift this discussion into high gear!!! Let's see how many new, small scale urban farmers we can inspire to start growing by spring '09!

What am I doing to pull my weight in this challenge? Well, I'm glad you asked. I'm one half of an urban farming business in Portland, OR called City Garden Farms. We grow on about 1/3 of an acre spread out over 12 yards to supply a 30 member CSA. This is a very "do-able" proposition for the motivated grower. You won't make a million dollars doing it, but it can provide a nice little side income and you get to connect with all of your neighbors through the food you grow! And isn't that one of the most important pieces of the local food movement? Connecting farmer and community...reaping all of the benefits of all of the positive outcomes that grow from this relationship. Let me answer that for you...yes it is.

--Farmer Dan in Portland, OR

[guerry bradley]

As a fellow florida gardner I understand your pains Iam slowly replacing my lawn with lasagna garden style raised beds ,with my best crops being grown in winter as a mastergardner I recommend for summer you try sweet potatoes ,seminole pumpkins,okra and peas ( black eyes) plus the legumes will build your nitrogen levels for free.

A Small Victory Garden said:

I unfortunately cannot tear up my whole lawn (since I'm renting) but I am in the learning process of creating my little farm, garden. Here in S. FLA the soil is sandy and so I've made a few raised bed boxes of which I'm starting some corn, squash, peppers and tomatoes (so far). I plan to expand this through out the year (as our growing season is kind of reversed with the rest of the country). Florida is the home of the manufactured landscape, so putting some beds on the lawn where big holes were developed due to the drought, feels like a great way to reclaim the earth.

So for now it's "cold weather vegetables" (though it doesn't get cold) and I'll plan on some more summer, warm weather vegetables towards the end of spring. I'll probably take the summer off, since the son is brutal and unforgiving to a lot of non native plants.

[Sherri]

We live on the 3rd floor of a condo with two small balconies, but we do what we can ... look closely and you'll see a lemon tree with a few lemons, 4 green pepper plants and 2 borlotti bean plants -- all in the same vase! Last year we planted cherry tomatoes instead of the peppers, they did just fine too. Cozy! :-)