Article and photos by Kelsi Nagy

Life on an Urban Farm

Married couple Rod Adams and Amy Yackel always wondered what it would be like to live on a farm. This year they made their dream a reality without ever leaving their front yard. They now produce hundreds of pounds of vegetables at their home near Dunn Elementary and provide seasonal, organic produce to the people they are closest to, their neighbors.

Rod and Amy decided that they couldn't put off the list of things they had always wanted to do after Rod was injured in a serious car accident last summer in which he suffered a broken neck (an injury he has fortunately recovered from fully). The accident gave Rod the opportunity to reevaluate the way he was living life. "What if I had died?” Rod asked himself. “Would I be content with what I've done so far?"

The answer was to start doing those things he and his wife had put off as soon as possible—like live on a farm. Instead of quitting their jobs and moving to the country, they bought the rental property next to their house, ripped up the sod and installed some raised beds, bought six chickens, and started farming. To view the rows of hoop houses, beds of flowers, deluxe chicken coop (complete with a shelter heated by passive solar), and abundant produce, anyone can observe that they haven't wasted a minute since Rod's recovery.

An organic farm that sustains most of their food requirements was important to Rod and Amy because they want to minimize their impact on the environment. They are engaged, conscientious members of the community—Rod is a philosophy teacher at Front Range community college, which he commutes to by bike, and Amy is a wildlife biologist for the US Geologic Survey. Using organic farming methods ensures they are eating food grown without synthetic chemicals, petroleum based fertilizers, or genetically modified organisms.

Growing a garden instead of bluegrass has other environmental benefits. This year they reduced their water use by a quarter to a fifth of the water they used last year to water just one lawn. They achieved this remarkable savings by hand watering instead of using sprinklers to water crops. Producing food in their front yard also significantly reduces their carbon footprint. Food travels an average of 1500 miles to end up on our plates, propelled across the globe almost entirely by fossil fuels. By farming their front yard Rod and Amy are keeping their environmental impact to a minimum and because they produce enough food to sell, they help reduce the impact of those in their neighborhood as well.

To distribute the abundant amount of produce they have grown, Rod and Amy adopted the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, where people pay a flat fee at the beginning of the growing season and then pick up a share of vegetables every week until the season ends. Though they constitute a small percentage of the market, CSA's are one of the fastest growing segments of the food industry next to farmer's markets. Rod and Amy wanted to feed the people in their immediate vicinity, so they called their share program Neighborhood Supported Agriculture. Speaking with Rod and Amy, it is clear that deepening their relationships with people in the community was a reason they wanted to start a farm instead of just growing enough food to meet their own requirements.

Rod and Amy have the kind of calm, present, and centered demeanor most people try to achieve with hours of yoga or sitting meditation. But when telling me about the neighborhood children that come by to sift compost, feed chickens, collect eggs, or help with the harvest, their even keel demeanor is punctuated with animated enthusiasm. Their conversations with passers-by who have enquired about their gardens and their weekly visits with their NSA members have brought them noticeable joy.

At their weekly NSA pick-up a multitude of baskets full of bright unblemished produce are displayed on their back porch as if they were prepared for a gourmet magazine photo shoot. Members receive a list of what they can take and pick out and weigh their own produce. In contrast to my own personal CSA pickup, where I drive to the farm and collect a box of prepared vegetables, Rod and Amy's system facilitates even more questions, conversations, and intimate interaction with food than some larger CSAs. Their care for and love of their community infuses every aspect of their urban farm.

Their love is returned in kind by their share members, many of them good friends. The majority of their share members belonged to other CSAs in the area, but say the Adam's NSA is their favorite so far. It is not just the convenience of being able to purchase produce in their own neighborhood, but the sheer variety of food that Rod and Amy grow that makes their vegetable share so unique. One basket of hot peppers had six colorful choices, including Hungarian carrots, Checz black, and Santa Fe grandes, and the gourmet basil selection had a diverse array of cinnamon, thai, purple fringe, lemon, and lime basil. Rod and Amy save their own seeds from previous gardens or buy seeds from the organization Seed Savers Exchange, a company that protects varieties of rare domestic fruits and vegetables that are not typically cultivated by industrial agriculture.

The diverse variety of plants has arguably helped them manage pests that can plague a garden with less variety. When only once kind of crop is grown, as is the case with monoculture, only the pests that are attracted to that crop appear. With a diverse array of plants a smaller number of any one pest will be drawn to the garden, some pests keeping the others in check. Growing a variety of different types of plants also insures that if one kind of plant or crop fails other crops will likely succeed ensuring food security.

While it was not their intention to associate their farming model with the National Security Administration (also NSA), Rod and Amy are part of a movement to provide citizens with real food security. People know that their food is free of chemicals, was suited to be grown in this climate, and was grown by citizens who have not been exploited for their labor. By supporting a local living economy their members have minimized their carbon footprint, and the expansive front yard garden has enriched the beauty of their property and has incited discussion and education in the neighborhood.

The biggest surprise of all? "By focusing on farming for our neighbors, we have actually widened our community. We have met so many farmers who want to help us succeed that we are now part of a much larger community than we were before," they said. While they weren't sure if they turned a profit this first year of farming, it seemed beside the point. Rod and Amy have found real abundance in bushels of peppers and tomatoes, farm fresh eggs, and a steady stream of friends stopping by.

Kelsi Nagy lives in Colorado.