WSJL Green Acres II: When Neighbors Become Farmers
Papadillos
Suburban Arugula Is Organic and Fresh, but About That Manure...
By KELLY K. SPORS
April 22, 2008; Page A1
BOULDER, Colo. -- When suburbanites look out their front doors, a lot of
them want to see a lush green lawn. Kipp Nash wants to see vegetables, and
not all of his neighbors are thrilled.
"I'd rather see green grass" than brown dirt patches, says 82-year-old
Florence Tatum, who lives in Mr. Nash's Boulder neighborhood, across the
street from a house with a freshly dug manure patch out front. "But those
days are slipping away."
A growing number of suburban Americans are earning extra cash by growing
food in their backyards. WSJ's Kelly Spors reports.
Since 2006, Mr. Nash, 31, has uprooted his backyard and the front or back
yards of eight of his Boulder neighbors, turning them into minifarms growing
tomatoes, bok choy, garlic and beets. Between May and September, he gives
weekly bagfuls of fresh-picked vegetables and herbs to people here who have
bought "shares" of his farming operation. Neighbors who lend their yards to
the effort are paid in free produce and yard work.
A school-bus driver, Mr. Nash rises at 5 a.m. and, after returning from his
morning route, spends his days planting, watering and tending his yard farms
and the seedlings he stores in a greenhouse behind his house.
Farmers don't necessarily live in the country anymore. They might just be
your next-door neighbor, hoping to turn a dollar satisfying the blooming
demand for organic, locally grown foods.
INDEPENDENT STREET BLOG
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Kelly Spors on opportunities down on the yard farm.2 Read the latest post
and share your thoughts.
Unlike traditional home gardeners who devote a corner of the yard to a few
rows of vegetables, a new crop of minifarmers is tearing up the whole yard
and planting foods such as arugula and kohlrabi that restaurants might want
to buy. The locally grown food movement has also created a new market for
front-yard farmers.
"Agriculture is becoming more and more suburban," says Roxanne Christensen,
publisher of Spin-Farming LLC, a Philadelphia company started in 2005 that
sells guides and holds seminars teaching a small-scale farming technique
that involves selecting high-profit vegetables like kale, carrots and
tomatoes to grow, and then quickly replacing crops to reap the most from
plots smaller than an acre. "Land is very expensive in the country, so
people are saying, 'why not just start growing in the backyard?' "
Environmentalists embrace the practice because it cuts the distance -- and
the carbon dioxide -- needed to get food from farm to consumer. It also
means less grass to water and fertilize and fewer purely ornamental plants.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that nearly a third of all
residential water use goes to landscaping. Why not use it to grow food
instead?
But for the neighbors, the new face of farming can have a decidedly ugly
side. The sight of vegetable gardens -- and the occasional whiffs of manure
from front-yard minifarms -- is not their idea of proper suburban living.
Many homeowners associations ban growing food in the yard, believing it
damages a neighborhood's appearance and may ding property values.
Kris Rickert, 39, who lives with her husband and four-year-old son about a
block from three of Mr. Nash's front-yard farms, says she particularly
doesn't like looking at the farms when nothing is in bloom. "In the winter,
it looks pretty yucky," she says. Before they moved to the neighborhood two
years ago, the Rickerts toured another house that was for sale where Mr.
Nash had recently started farming the yard. "I just kept thinking about how
I'd have to tear it all up and plant grass again," she says.
Still, for an increasing number of residents in the suburbs, it's the
reverse -- turning grass into edible greens and maybe even greenbacks --
that is proving so alluring.
Start-up costs for a one-eighth-acre farm run about $5,500, says Ms.
Christensen of Spin-Farming. That includes a walk-in cooler to wash and
store fresh produce, a rotary tiller and a farm-stand display. Annual
operating expenses, including seeds and farmers-market stall fees, can add
about $2,000. Such a farm can generate $10,000 to $20,000 in annual sales,
she says. That's "an entry point into farming to see if they have a talent
for it," Ms. Christensen says. "Those that do will eventually be able to
expand and increase that income level quite substantially."
Susan and Greg VanHecke planted a small, 6-foot-by-20-foot vegetable garden
in the back of their house in Norfolk, Va., two years ago to help teach
their two children to grow and eat more vegetables. Reaping a bumper crop
last year, Mr. VanHecke asked the owner of a local restaurant called Stove
for whom he once worked as a sous-chef, to buy vegetables. Soon, Mr.
VanHecke was making weekly deliveries to the restaurant, averaging about
$100 in sales per week. The VanHeckes have added another restaurant customer
this year and are tearing up all their backyard flower beds to grow more
vegetables.
They're also trying to figure out how to more easily fit farming into their
otherwise busy schedules. Even minifarms take a lot of time, and
suburbanites with full-time jobs find themselves a little stretched.
The VanHeckes decided to be practical and replace their labor-intensive
lettuce crop with easier vegetables. "My husband would come home from his
all-day job [as a Navy officer] and snip leaves and wash them one-by-one,"
says Ms. VanHecke, 43. "Things like tomatoes, you can just rinse them. You
don't have to spend your whole evening [on] them."
Close quarters in suburbia and in inner-city neighborhoods pose other
problems. Growing vegetables takes sunshine not always abundant in yards
with shade trees. And protecting the soil is another challenge, as is
keeping manure out of the house and off the sidewalk, especially when pets
run loose. Mr. Nash sweeps dirt off the sidewalks, and has to remember to
clean his dog's paws each time she runs inside from the backyard.
Meanwhile, even modern yard farmers who know what they're doing aren't
protected from the age-old bane of farming: nasty weather. One early frost
or bad storm can wipe out a crop. A midsummer hailstorm in 2006 shredded Mr.
Nash's first attempt at farming yards. "It's just one of those things you
have no control over," he says.
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AllEmailDeletedImmediately
"Papadillos" <papad...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:C433F105.D537%papad...@hotmail.com...
a great idea!!!
George
> Green Acres II: When Neighbors Become Farmers
> Suburban Arugula Is Organic and Fresh, but About That Manure...
>
> By KELLY K. SPORS
> April 22, 2008; Page A1
>
> BOULDER, Colo. -- When suburbanites look out their front doors, a lot of
> them want to see a lush green lawn. Kipp Nash wants to see vegetables, and
> not all of his neighbors are thrilled.
>
Somehow I can imagine the biggest complainers about terrible disgusting
dirt and vegetables would be the ones with the personal aircraft
carriers in the driveways and also probably wasting thousands of gallons
of water trying to have perfect green lawns...
Dennis
wrote:
I expect the biggest complainers would be those who secretly envy his
results but don't personally have the ambition to try it themselves
and resent the constant reminder of their shortcoming.
Dennis (evil)
--
"There is a fine line between participation and mockery" - Wally
Seerialmom
George...you're most likely right on that. These would be the same
ones who would go so far as to dictate what color house you have or
whether you can park a "pickup" in your driveway (a few years back my
mom lived in a condo, my brother couldn't park there with his newly
purchased Chevy S10). And though I'm not crazy about the idea of
front yard vegetable gardens in suburbia, there are ways to mask it to
not make the neighbors go crazy. If brick walls or fences are
allowed, that'd be a way to do it. Personally I'd rather the garden
be in the backyard and reserve the front for a rock garden with
drought tolerant plants.