eatlocalfarm's photostream

This series of photos document turning a former community garden into a micro-farm and CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). We took on this project, only having organic gardening experience, in an attempt to fully document what it takes for a "newbie" to start a small farm and CSA. Tracy & I are the founders of Colorado Local Sustainability, an organization which helps market Colorado farms & ranches and advocates sustainable agriculture and the development of more urban farms.

This farm is a pilot study for the Grow Your Own CSA Co-op and is done in collaboration with HeartEye Landtrust (the landowner), and LandShare Colorado. We designed, and use the Fantastic Farm and Garden Calculator (aka FFGC) to plan the farm, an CSA. This online software was design to help make it easier to plan biointensive farms and gardens, and to easily determine how much food you need to grow for a given number of people. The FFGC is currently being used by farmers and gardeners across the United States, Canada, and France. 100% of its low yearly fee goes to support LandShare Colorado.

Our goal with the farm is to make it as sustainable as possible, which also means limiting fuel use as much as possible. Apart from the initial use of a tractor to break up the hard clay soil and to till in horse manure and other organic matter, as well as the use of a rototiller to dig out the pathways (but not till the rows), we are experimenting no-till (or minimal in the beginning) methods. The rows were tilled by hand with a broadfork.

We use beyond organic methods and biointensive plant spacing to maximize food production on around 4000 s.f. of planted space. Within the first year, we have greatly improved our soil quality from a fairly heavy clay to a much richer soil teaming with life. During our first growing season, 2009, we produced around 1 pound of food per planted square foot, and fed 25 CSA members, as well as sold at our farmstand and to a restaurant and a food co-op.