Urban NO TILL Farm Growing 200+ Heirloom Varieties on 1 Acre

We're at Edible Uprising Farm located in South Troy, New York. We grow on one acre of land. We are just two miles from the downtown of this small city right on the Hudson River. We're growing in zone 5b and so we have a pretty decent growing season from May to early October is pretty reliable and so we've set things up on the farm to the best of our ability to be able to handle either temperatures or wind or precipitation or whatever it may be. We're on Elm Ridge Fine Sandy Loam so the soil we're working with is extremely well draining. We grow over 200 varieties of vegetables fruits and flowers. We are not certified organic but we grow with organic practices and we do pretty much all direct marketing through the CSA farm stand and restaurants. Well so Alicia and I met when we were in high school and at that time neither of us were really interested in agriculture or farming we just fell in love and we loved food. We love food so food food has always been a central theme. So I grew up in Colorado. I was pretty directionless. I didn't really know what I wanted to do after high school. I could either have gone to Green Mountain College and gotten into agriculture or I was looking at a couple culinary schools. So I was really interested in food one way or the other and after visiting different schools decided to go the agriculture route. I have a background in fine art. Through that work I started kind of questioning kind of my life and what sustained me and where is my food coming from how do I create that too. And then it wasn't until I moved to Vermont that we sort of started to come together with this shared vision of wanting to farm together. When we first came here we were like we're not gonna live in a urban place. It's not fun for us who loves you know a rural lifestyle. It sort of felt like we went backwards you know most people are in a more urban environment and then want to go farm and move and are like attracted to the more rural life. But I would say it was really clear when we visited this property that it was so unique in so many ways and that we could really do something cool something powerful with it. There's a population of hundreds of thousands of people on our doorstep here. There is a huge need for good food in this city where there isn't a lot of fresh food. When we first got here the city didn't really know what to do with us. We've struggled because the city has certain limitations like you can't drill a well and you're basically forced to be on the water supply. And so in a dry year like this year it's been a really big hit to our budget. And so it's a challenge for us to figure out how we can communicate with the city government in order to allow other growers like ourselves to be able to do something like this because that that really can be a limiting factor. So when we first came to this land it was just an empty field and we immediately put up a caterpillar tunnel because it's mobile and you really need covered growing space especially in this climate if you want to extend your season. Now we just need a couple more. It does it doesn't work. The first few months of us being here it was really hard to find other people to connect with. And that presented us with a really unique challenge. Trying to sell CSA shares to people when all we had was an empty field was extremely difficult. Amazingly wonderful people signed up kind of on a whim with us last year and almost every single member from last year came back this year. We were not interested in just selling to you know the wealthier population in Troy. We really wanted to be able to feed people right in our neighborhood and the wheels started turning in my head. I was like how do we do this? I came up with the idea of basically when somebody buys a CSA share from us they're given the opportunity to donate into a fund that then is able to sponsor families that can't afford CSA shares. Being able to see the impact of this program on the families that participate and how important this food is to them is so moving to us. The quick greens harvester hands down has been the biggest time saver tool on our day-to-day rotation of things. Being on your hands and knees cutting greens feels ridiculous and it's just been it's been a game changer really. If food streams collapse, if the big conventional models all struggle to move food around the globe these small community farms are going to be a sort of pillar for neighborhoods and for communities. We call our farm Edible Uprising because we hope that we're kind of part of a movement of small farms that really can set the stage for this to be the norm not the anomaly. When you reconnect with where growing food and where your food comes from there is something that just like lights a fire in you and I see it in all sorts of different people and we feel it really strongly too. And so I get really motivated by the idea of community-based farms where people have more accessibility to their food and that's something that sort of keeps me going. I really love working outside. I really do love the intensity of it even though it's sort of extreme at times and so I really can't imagine doing anything different. One of my favorite parts of the life is sitting outside at the end of the day and grilling the food that we're growing and eating it with good people. I mean that is like such a great sort of conclusion to every day. There is a place for like joy in your growing space. Hi guys, I'm Jonathan with Farmer's Friend. If you enjoyed this video hit the like button and subscribe to see more inspiring stories like this. 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