[Pil-pc-oceania] Green Acres II:,When Neighbors,Become Farmer

[Ilan G]

from the Wall Street Journal,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882472974233235.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

also includes a video
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid452319854/bctid1507775670
(be patient its slow to start)
> 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.
>
> "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.
>
> Kelly Spors on opportunities down on the yard farm. 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.
>
> Write to Kelly K. Spors at kelly.spors at wsj.com