Awareness | Debate | Action
Lost your Job? Start a local Urban Farming Service!
Entrepreneurs turn clients’ land into household pantry
Want a garden without having to pick up a shovel?...
Want to feed your family with healthy organic foods?
Donna Smith and Robyn Streeter, collectively called Your Backyard Farmer, are just beginning their second season in business and already are in the black —or should we say green.
Their formula: transform ordinary yards into personal farmers markets, leaving weekly harvests in wicker baskets on clients’ doorsteps. Their vision: create a city of self-sustaining minifarms that could maintain whole neighborhoods in the case of an emergency or natural disaster.
During the gardening high season, March 15 until Thanksgiving, Smith and Streeter are busy lugging soil and tools all over Portland. Each garden they create and maintain is personalized based on the household’s needs and tastes.
At first the pair, who both have degrees in horticulture and are passionate about organic gardening, thought they’d start a community-supported agriculture farm, but the legalese of land and water rights was discouraging. So, instead, they decided to farm on land that already is owned, i.e., backyards.
Smith describes Your Backyard Farmer’s humble beginnings: “We made pull-tab fliers on our computer, and spent all day hanging them on every community board in the city.”
By the time they got home there already were messages on their machine, and they soon had 25 clients and a waiting list.
"Its bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician". — Meryl Streep
Space and sun required
For approximately $40 a week (prices vary with size of the yard and household) Your Backyard Farmer is committed to doing just that by placing a weekly harvest basket at your backdoor. The only requirements are ample space — 20-by-20 feet is the minimum — that receives six hours a day of direct sunlight.
Your Backyard Farmer also welcomes groups or clusters of homes on the same street. Sometimes one property has a particularly ample yard, so neighbors pool their cash and grow food for the whole block at that location, with the fringe benefit of community and relationship building.
Three-quarters of Your Backyard Farmer’s 2006 clientele have signed up again this year, along with about 20 new ones. As the business grows, Smith and Streeter plan to hire employees, but for this season they’ll handle 40 to 50 yards.
Smith and Streeter cultivate their own seeds, starts, soil and fertilizers. Between them, they’ve worked at retail garden centers, community gardens and many schools; education remains a critical component of Your Backyard Farmer’s services.
They hope to get the people they serve so self-sufficient at gardening that their job becomes obsolete, allowing them to move on and help others. They also are available on a consultation basis if you need a little help getting your garden started but prefer to do the bulk of the labor yourself.
Besides family farms, Your Backyard Farmer has a few “corporate” accounts. Smith and Streeter will be responsible for stocking Pastaworks’ in-store produce stand, and producing many of the ingredients for the scrambles and sandwiches at the Arleta Library Bakery Cafe, a breakfast and lunch spot in the up-and-coming Mount Scott neighborhood.
Smith thinks farmers markets are wonderful but says that, ultimately, “there’s nothing like eating food out of your own yard.”
Visit Donna and Robyn's site at http://www.yourbackyardfarmer.com/
Want a garden without having to pick up a shovel?...
Want to feed your family with healthy organic foods?
Donna Smith and Robyn Streeter, collectively called Your Backyard Farmer, are just beginning their second season in business and already are in the black —or should we say green.
Their formula: transform ordinary yards into personal farmers markets, leaving weekly harvests in wicker baskets on clients’ doorsteps. Their vision: create a city of self-sustaining minifarms that could maintain whole neighborhoods in the case of an emergency or natural disaster.
During the gardening high season, March 15 until Thanksgiving, Smith and Streeter are busy lugging soil and tools all over Portland. Each garden they create and maintain is personalized based on the household’s needs and tastes.
At first the pair, who both have degrees in horticulture and are passionate about organic gardening, thought they’d start a community-supported agriculture farm, but the legalese of land and water rights was discouraging. So, instead, they decided to farm on land that already is owned, i.e., backyards.
Smith describes Your Backyard Farmer’s humble beginnings: “We made pull-tab fliers on our computer, and spent all day hanging them on every community board in the city.”
By the time they got home there already were messages on their machine, and they soon had 25 clients and a waiting list.
"Its bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician". — Meryl Streep
Space and sun required
For approximately $40 a week (prices vary with size of the yard and household) Your Backyard Farmer is committed to doing just that by placing a weekly harvest basket at your backdoor. The only requirements are ample space — 20-by-20 feet is the minimum — that receives six hours a day of direct sunlight.
Your Backyard Farmer also welcomes groups or clusters of homes on the same street. Sometimes one property has a particularly ample yard, so neighbors pool their cash and grow food for the whole block at that location, with the fringe benefit of community and relationship building.
Three-quarters of Your Backyard Farmer’s 2006 clientele have signed up again this year, along with about 20 new ones. As the business grows, Smith and Streeter plan to hire employees, but for this season they’ll handle 40 to 50 yards.
Smith and Streeter cultivate their own seeds, starts, soil and fertilizers. Between them, they’ve worked at retail garden centers, community gardens and many schools; education remains a critical component of Your Backyard Farmer’s services.
They hope to get the people they serve so self-sufficient at gardening that their job becomes obsolete, allowing them to move on and help others. They also are available on a consultation basis if you need a little help getting your garden started but prefer to do the bulk of the labor yourself.
Besides family farms, Your Backyard Farmer has a few “corporate” accounts. Smith and Streeter will be responsible for stocking Pastaworks’ in-store produce stand, and producing many of the ingredients for the scrambles and sandwiches at the Arleta Library Bakery Cafe, a breakfast and lunch spot in the up-and-coming Mount Scott neighborhood.
Smith thinks farmers markets are wonderful but says that, ultimately, “there’s nothing like eating food out of your own yard.”
Visit Donna and Robyn's site at http://www.yourbackyardfarmer.com/
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