Growing a Garden City by Jeremy N. Smith

Author:Jeremy N. Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2011-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

There are 3.25 acres total on the property, which includes a house and yard. I take care of all the land, but we occupy only about two acres. On the rest, I expand the vegetable farming a little bit every year, but the other part of expansion is infrastructure, and we haven’t dived into that because the land is leased. We’re in an urban area that’s been intensely in-filled over the last ten years, so the setting is perfect for urban agriculture, but the long-term security of it is fifty-fifty. In Iowa and Ohio, big ag pays $200 an acre. This land is roughly $150,000 to $250,000 an acre—housing development prices—a half million to a million dollars for the whole property. As an organization, we’re making an effort to secure the land, but can we really pay that price to farm?

Of course, emotionally for me, there is no price. I’m a pretty pragmatic person, but for me community isn’t sitting in a movie theater, it’s not sitting in a restaurant, it’s not even being at a political rally. People have to interact with each other. There are over 300 people directly involved with this site. From all different aspects of our culture they interact under a value system of caring for a piece of land, getting their food from it, and letting nature work in and around it. You can read The Omnivore′s Dilemma all day long, but you’re not going to fully get what community means unless you get out and participate. You’ve got to have hands-on experience to gain that appreciation.

Satisfaction comes when I see other people make the connection. It may be the youth home kids realizing where food comes from. At the end of the year they look me in the eye and say ”Thanks” and I know that they got something from me. It may be a volunteer that one day sits down and says, ”Man, I had no idea. This kale is incredible. After that kale and egg breakfast that you told me to eat I feel like Superman.” Likewise, I’ve had that same experience without people—with the ground, with insects, with birds, foxes, skunks, and deer, with the soft cartoonish light in September setting over the garden, and the vibrancy of flowers, with all these beautiful plants growing nutrition for our community.

Farming, in general, is hard physical labor. There’s a little more romanticism about it than I can tolerate at times. Because if it were so romantic then where is everybody wanting to farm? Day in, day out, it’s a rhythm of very hard work, punctuated by profoundly romantic moments. But I sit quietly and I think about some of those things when I’m in the garden. Sometimes at night I just sit by myself and listen.

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