Planting the Seed
Living in California filled me with romantic notions of leaving behind the cube monkey life to self subsist on a small, podunk farm. It’s hard to believe an east coast city girl, who spent most of her life cringing at the mere thought of camping, could grow up to pine after a life on a farm. But I think I can relate this personal change back to two key experiences: befriending the daughter of an Alaskan fisherman and working at a farmers’ market.
ALASKAN FRIENDSHIP
Andrew Molera State Park (Big Sur, CA)
Unlike most whirlwind friendships, Tiffany and I did not become fast friends when we first met. We were in the same beginner rock climbing class in Sunnyvale - she was in Silicon Valley because of a boyfriend, who heartlessly dumped her the day before she relocated from Idaho for him, and I was there for work, and there - at the climbing gym - because of a former boyfriend who I was with for all the wrong reasons. It took a couple of classes before we began to talk, and a breakup with the aforementioned boyfriend to begin our friendship.
We embarked on a culinary adventure filled with weekly potlucks, late night runs to Trader Joe’s, random visits to food festivals in San Francisco and long Sunday strolls nibbling goodies through the Campbell farmers’ market. Tiffany cultivated the spirit of enjoying the simple pleasures of human interaction over homecooked meals and urban renewal hikes through local parks filled with rustic, verdant aesthetics worthy of cinematographic cameos.
Her small-town upbringing filled with Ball-brand mason jars with preserved summer fruit, fresh-hunted venison chops, homemade smoked salmon cheek and majestic views of Alaskan icebergs, left me envious of her life so connected to nature. And from this friendship my first inklings of farm lust were borne.
OFF TO THE MARKET!
Menos Farms Organic Produce (Newport Beach Farmers' Market)
Right around when our friendship fizzled, for reasons still unbeknown to me, I took a job in Southern California. I was up and out of NorCal within 2 weeks and found myself miserably lonely in Newport Beach. The only human interaction I had outside of work was with my now-fiance, when he visited from Chicago. During his first visit, we stumbled upon a cutesy farmers’ market in Lido Marina Village with produce and artisanal food vendors neatly lined across a tucked, cobblestone street. I marched up to the information booth and declared to the man sitting at the desk that I wanted to volunteer. He gave me his card and after a few e-mail exchanges I found a new so-called family in Orange County.
I spent my year in the OC looking forward to my Saturdays, interacting with local farmers from Riverside and Fresno, learning about what it means to be organic, understanding the difficulties of being small farmer in America, and developing a culinary appreciation, and palate, for fresh picked, locally grown produce. After a year of cultivating relationships with vendors and discussing random topics with local foodies, food truck operators and urban farming enthusiasts, I said my goodbyes and moved to Chicago in late August of this year.
CHITOWN DREAMIN’
City Hall Green Roof (Chicago, IL) Photo Credit: www.weedmanusa.com
It took a while to find my groove in Chicago; reconnecting with old college classmates, locating the best neighborhood grocery stores, navigating around on the EL. Three months later, my farm lust pangs returned. I began to furiously search for urban agriculture initiatives in the city and stumbled upon Urban Habitat Chicago, whose executive director I incidentally e-mailed back in August (before I moved) regarding volunteer jobs. I know it’s easy to grow in the sun-rich state of California, but my curiosity grew around how farming happens in the long, Midwest winters.
I got a partial (though likely misguided) answer yesterday during my inaugural weekend as an urban agriculture volunteer: cold frames, hearty greens, composting to increase the temperature of soil in order to preserve the seedlings underground… A slew of biological gardening terms flew all around me - an embarrassingly few of which I could recall from my daily two-periods of biology freshman year of high school. But, we all have to start somewhere.
And although at the moment I am only a pseudo-wannabe urban agriculturalist, my weekend as a farm hand has put a paradigm shift into first gear. From harvesting swiss chard and transplanting baby spinach to shoveling compost & sod into a wheel barrow, I’m already starting to feel more connected to where my food comes from, and a greater appreciation for how my food is grown. I’m already more cognizant of my own disregard for the farmer(s) who labored for months to grow the broccoli I so nonchalantly toss in the trash.
So here’s to the beginning of this east coast city girl’s foray into the urban farming world. It won’t be quite the charming, small-town experience that Tiffany grew up with, but it will be a journey through the exciting microcosm of guerrilla farming in Chicago that, hopefully, will lead to a more connected life with nature.
