Donna Smith and Robyn Streeter want you to take "eat local" very, very literally. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is great, but the choice of produce is the farm's not yours; no custom tailoring to your needs or tastes. Organic grocers offer more variety, but sometimes they can be a hassle to get to and often their prices are high. Look around you—Smith and Streeter urge—look closer. The best source for fresh produce might just be your own backyard.
Smith and Streeter are the owners and farmers behind Your Backyard Farmer, an organization that can transform your yard into a major source of food.
The duo met while they were both attending the Horticulture program at Clackamas Community College. They talked about starting a CSA together, but were soon frustrated with how difficult it was to find and procure land. While they scoured the Portland area looking for the right space, it dawned on them that there were plenty of people with plenty of space to grow their own food, and sometimes enough earth to grow food for their neighbors as well. They wondered if this idea would resonate with said landowners, and decided to make flyers.
"We had no business plan and zero dollars to start," Smith confesses. But by the time they returned from posting their first set of flyers, the phone was ringing with interested people. "We started working the next week, and haven't stopped since," Smith says. They are now preparing for their fifth growing season.
They start the process with a visit to the site. They evaluate the property—the amount of sunlight, the access to water, the size of the area available to farm. They evaluate the homeowners—how many people will they be feeding, how often do they expect to cook, does anyone have any food restrictions? Before a spade hits ground, they also evaluate the soil—for fertility and for lead to determine if it is suitable for growing food at all.
"We won't put any plants in before the lead test comes back. If you've ever seen a child with lead poisoning, you'd understand." Smith insists. "It is my responsibility as a farmer to make sure the people I'm feeding are safe. If I don't pay attention to the soil, then I shouldn't be doing this."
If a client has unsafe levels of lead in their soil, they can still have a backyard farm—just in raised beds with brought-in organic soil. Raised beds are also recommended to people who may have trouble reaching vegetables that are low to the ground.
After the assessment is complete, Smith and Streeter share their vegetable availability list. Currently, they have nearly 40 different varieties of vegetables to choose from. They will then visit one day a week, over the next 37 weeks, preparing soil, planting vegetable starts and sowing seeds, weeding, watering, pruning, and harvesting. In their weekly visits, they will check for and manage any disease or infestation, and pick ripe veggies, leaving them right on their clients' doorsteps. It really is like a personalized CSA. Subscribing to their newsletter also offers clients a plethora of recipes that correspond with their vegetable offerings.
"We also let them know about all of the great resources available to them for food preservation, food-related events, and things," Smith says. "We hate to see food go to waste, so we help our clients figure out how to make the most of their produce."
Smith and Streeter use organic practices to grow food biodynamically and intensively. They start by using a practice similar to sheet mulching—laying down cardboard, soil, and compost to break down grass and create a fertile growing medium. Beginning in March, they start their once-a-week management system, putting in drip irrigation systems and hardscape like trellises; they manage their carbon footprint by foregoing gas-guzzling rototillers; they keep the soil healthy season after season by practicing crop rotation.
They found early on that many people after their first year or so were interested in learning how to farm themselves. This inspired Streeter and Smith to start a mentorship program two years ago. For two hours a month, March thru November, Smith and Streeter teach a different aspect of backyard farming—from lessons on soils, pest and disease management, garden planning, crop rotation, succession planting, trellising, weeds, transplants versus seeding, cover cropping and more. At the end of the eight-month mentorship, the new farmers are ready to start the next season on their own.
"They often contact us afterwards—sending us pictures and updates. It's so nice to hear about their progress," Streeter beams.
Other people, in places across the country and as far away as Spain and Australia, are looking to Your Backyard Farmer for advice on starting similar organizations in their community.
"What we're doing is unique, so people from all over want to know how it's done," Smith explains. "It is so simple of an idea that people feel compelled to complicate it."
They both admit that their practices are hard to define because of the pioneering nature of what they're doing. Just like their farming practices, Smith says, the business has grown organically.
Looking to the future Smith muses, "Whatever unfolds will be what happens."
The duo has added an employee this year, to manage their ever-growing list of clientele. They are also interested in tackling the problem of Food Deserts, or areas lacking access to healthy foods, that occur across the country, mostly in low-income areas, including the Portland Metro area.
"It's a big problem, and it is just starting to be addressed," Smith explains. "I think it is everyone's responsibility to step up, identify these areas and work to alleviate the problem." She and Streeter are dedicated to finding out how they might play a part in solving this problem.
After hearing about all of the work ahead of them (this is a very busy time for them as they set up farms for spring plantings), I feel compelled to let them go, though I find the discussion immensely interesting. Through hands-in-the-dirt hard work and dedication to providing organic produce to the masses, they are inspiring people from near and far to pay more attention to the food they feed their families. Donna Smith is right—it is such a simple concept, and one that in earlier eras was just a way of life. How do you get the freshest food to your dinner table? You grow it in your own backyard, of course. Your Backyard Farmer is removing the 21st Century excuse of "I just don't have time to grow food." Just give up a patch of dirt, and Donna Smith and Robyn Streeter will do the rest.
Photos: Your Backyard Farmer
