I love veggies from a backyard garden but I have to admit, I am not the most committed gardener. And I definitely have never kept my backyard in event space shape. After visiting Mortimer Farms in Dewey, Arizona, I’m pretty sure I would leave the food production to them and enjoyment to me!

That would be fine to Ashlee Mortimer who’s family started farming this property years ago on a lease and was later able to purchase it. And they are now growing 54 crops here, many open for u-pick customers as well as available harvested for sale in the farm’s market. You won’t want to miss some of the foods they make themselves in the market or the Windmill Kitchen. We talk about all of that in this episode.

An AI generated transcript for this episode is available.

Checking Out Arizona Agriculture

Arizona has always lured me in with that seemingly constant sun. And it’s no accident that some of the first episodes of Grounded by the Farm were recorded there. (Who remembers Jon talking to us about growing lettuce? I have never looked at romaine the same!) The presence of such great light has made Arizona agriculture a piece of lots of our plates!

I was recently in Arizona for a conference and asked my friend Julie if she had ideas on farms I should visit. She is one of the folks behind the Fill Your Plate site that helps you find farmer’s markets, agritourism, etc. reminded me of the Mortimer family. I had met them several times, but never gotten to the farm. I had my plan and headed north from Phoenix toward Prescott. The drive was GORGEOUS and Mortimer Farms was definitely worth the trip.

Overview of Mortimer Farms

Mortimer Farms is right along State Route 169 and it’s probably best known for some of the festivals it runs but it’s so much more!

They grow an impressive 54 different crops, including sweet corn, tomatoes, and also have created an incredible connection with the community through its market, deli, Windmill Kitchen, farm park, and animal encounter. It’s the perfect destination to immerse yourself in farm-to-table culture whether you are looking for the way to spend several hours or just want to grab a tasty bite to eat (check out the Farmer’s Club I had for breakfast)!

Ashlee Mortimer, who handles the farm’s marketing, shares her family’s history in agriculture, and how they transformed their farm into an agritourism destination. And as the family moved from renting the property to purchase, they have been adding infrastructure including several hoop houses to extend the number of fresh veggies available year-round.

The community reaction is a major factor for employees, “when we set our produce out and we see the customers coming in and everyone’s so happy to see the good quality produce, that’s what makes it worth it.”

Join us for a tour of the farm with Ashlee!

Working with Nature, Facing Challenges

One of the best pieces of Mortimer Farms, is that they actively share what’s happening day in and day out so it’s easy to get a feel for the way they work with nature. (Find them on Instagram, Facebook and the Mortimer Farms website/subscriber email.) Like other farms, nature also can hit them with challenges Ashlee points out.

She says farmers and ranchers face many challenges, from unpredictable weather events to market fluctuations. “We have to diversify. Having diversity in our crops helps us to combat challenges like weather events, pests, and diseases,” Ashlee explains.

And she says the team at Mortimer has been able to make some major shifts in water use over the years as science and technology advances. She highlights the importance of efficient use of resources like water, adding, “We’ve been able to water where it needs to be watered and be more efficient in doing so, saving water.”

There are a few things that came together on that including installing pivot and drip irrigation which puts the water exactly where its needed and amounts are closely monitored. Adding in more perennial crops like the new orchard also encourages deep root growth and rotational grazing adds to soil health. 

Farming isn’t just about producing food, it’s common for farmers to be “living and breathing your work,” Ashlee notes. “It’s a passion that farmers and ranchers carry with them every day, even when they’re not on the clock.” 

If You’re Not in the Area

Seriously, I’d love to have a farm like this in my backyard. So much good food, a chance to really track all the seasonal foods (definitely different in Arizona than here in the Midwest). But we have great farms here in my neck of the woods and probably have some farms near you too!

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Urban agriculture. I can’t imagine many people used that phrase 20 years ago but it is certainly a phrase that has grown in prominence. And I think it’s awesome! The more ways we connect ourselves to the production of food — both in the city and the countryside — the more we will appreciate the effort it takes to produce it, the relationship between our food and the environment and I think that simply by prompting us to think more about these things, we think more about eating better. We become more mindful of our food.

We’ve talked to some larger-scale city-farmers in our podcast. Both Natasha Nichols up in Chicago and Tony Tomato here in St. Louis farm in or very close to the city. But urban agriculture can mean a lot of things, even down to pots on a balcony.

Gardens:  Long-Time Urban Ag

Personal gardens have long been a part of the urban landscape. My parents and grandmom liked to garden, my sister has occasionally had a square-foot garden, and I have had container gardens for years and tried raised bed gardening when I moved to St. Louis.  I’m not sure if those things fit the dictionary definition of urban agriculture, but they are all part of my definition of urban ag since they fill a great role in providing people in cities with a touchstone for the farm, soils, and fresh food.

The gardens my parents and grandmom did for years were some of the earliest community gardens in Memphis. We would go to the garden plots laid out at Shelby Farms in the 1970s regularly to plant, pull weeds, water, gather fresh vegetables, and more.

It is great knowing that the gardens continue (at least they are still listed on the Shelby Farms site) and that in recent years they have been thriving! An article from the Memphis Flyer said that interest is gardening had been growing significantly:

“One morning, I saw 30 people,” Griffin says. “The economy probably plays a part. Plus, it seems cool this year to grow your own vegetables. Everywhere you look people are talking about it.”

Early last month, with a phalanx of elementary school children at her feet, first lady Michelle Obama started the first victory garden at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt lived there. But the national attention to vegetable gardening was already under way.

Seed companies are flourishing, with the nation’s largest — W. Atlee Burpee — reporting a 25 to 30 percent spike in seed sales this year. The National Gardening Association says 19 percent more Americans plan to grow their own fruits and vegetables this year. Even the University of Memphis is getting in on the act, starting a pilot project to grow organic vegetables on its main campus.

The reasons are as varied as the seeds people plan to plant: the taste of fresh produce, the exercise, the fresh air, and the joy of seeing something grow.

via Bumper Crop | Memphis Flyer.

More Urban Agriculture

In the last few years, there have been increases in other types of urban agriculture including urban farms. One of the urban farms I got to see spring to life is Urban Farms in Memphis’ Binghampton neighborhood. And more recently I’ve watched as the food roof project by Urban Harvest STL for downtown St. Louis has sought funding.

The folks at Urban Harvest STL have some great numbers that help you understand the current look of the city — they point out there are “13,000 downtown residents, 88,000 downtown employees, 1 community garden, 30 urban farmers, 920 lbs of food grown in 2012, 182 lbs donated to charity and 860 volunteer hours.” I have to say, I look forward to seeing the numbers grow.

If you are interested in helping grow urban agriculture, what are you waiting for? There are projects popping up all over you can support or you could start one. The EPA has a list of steps to help people create a community garden or expand urban agriculture in their area as well as a page filled with urban agriculture success stories. The steps are:

• Survey the property and identify potential risks and contaminants for testing.
• Test your soil. Consider likely environmental contaminants, pH, organic content, and soil nutrients needed for healthy plant growth.
• Clean contaminants and add soil amendments to create a safe growing environment.
• Consider garden design including location, crops, water, sunlight, lighting, and accessibility.
• Construct the garden to accommodate children, the elderly, and people all abilities. Raised beds, wider paths, and benches can all be used to create a more usable space.
• Plant a safe and healthy garden and enjoy your growing community.

And our friend, Natasha Nichols is working hard to grow farming in her urban landscape. She’s got a vibrant online community, and We Sow We Grow is seeking donations to help acquire more space for teaching and community development on Chicago’s South Side. And more recently we talked to Tony Tomato about his farm that’s in suburban St. Louis and serves the city.

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Have mercy do I love talking seed with people! I’m also one of those people who love to know what references and resources someone used, so I put this post together as I developed the talk about seed I’m doing at the We Sow We Grow Summit, September 2020.

Granted, some of the things I discussed, I have simply internalized so deeply after 30 years working in the seed business that I don’t have footnotes, but if there was a topic I discussed you’d like to know more about, please leave a comment and I will gladly build this out some more!

Links to Websites I Used

The American Seed Trade Association explanation about what information should be on a bag/packet of seed

What is an heirloom? (Burpee)

List of Crops & GMO Traits in the U.S. (gmoanswers.com)

The process of developing a GMO (gmoanswers.com)

The USDA Organic Standards (usda.gov)

Organic 101:  What the USDA Organic Label Means  (usda.gov)

USDA plant hardiness zone interactive map (usda.gov)

Videos & Multimedia To Check Out

• Give it a Minute: GMOs (Bayer Crop Science)
• Give it a Minute: How GMOs Come to Market (Bayer CropScience)

Farmers Who Talk about These Topics Online

• Brian Scott of The Farmer’s Life — Brian has especially active Facebook page called The Farmer’s Life and great The Farmer’s Life YouTube Channel. He also shares photos, etc on The Farmer’s Life Instagram and Twitter profiles.
• Katie Pratt of The Illinois Farm Girl — Katie’s blog The Illinois Farm Girl has a lot of information about farming and

Resources I’ve Prepared on Seed, Farming, etc.

• All of episodes of the Grounded by the Farm podcast touch on topics related to growing and enjoying foods. Focusing enjoy growing in their backyards, I recommend the interviews with Natasha about the urban gardening effort in Chicago, Jon talking about growing lettuce and you can see video of his lettuce farm, and Randy talking about growing peppers and loved the tour showing all the peppers they grow & pack. but I love the conversations around growing & enjoying popcorn and some many others! 
• A series on some of the basics of farming — Agriculture from A to Z —  and if you’d like to meet more farmers, check out this list of Farms from A to Z.
• I have an entire blog on my love of cotton — farming is part of it but I love wearing cotton too. That site is Hundred Percent Cotton.  

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Interviewing Natasha Nicholes for this week’s episode talking about gardening reminded me about previous years of my container garden. This spring and my need to stay quarantined makes me wonder whether I will get much planted since I didn’t start from seed like I normally did and then I would combine those with a few plants and wow, my local nursery has been flooded. I hope to try again next week.

As I mentioned in the podcast, I have enjoyed gardening over the years but I keep it on a smaller scale than Natasha. Anytime I let it get too big, I felt overwhelmed. I like gardening for the things I love most in small amounts. It works well for me to use containers.

Container Gardening on My Deck

I started growing herbs and a few plants on my balcony way back in my apartment days. I’ve had containers at several houses since. For me, I can always make containers work. The house I live in now, has a fairly small backyard AND I have a massive tree. That means there can be a lot of shade. I do have a nice sized deck to accommodate a table, chairs and grill…. and it gets great sun at least some of the day and I like being int he shade a good bit of the summer.

For all those reasons, I found a corner of the deck that is perfect for a container garden. And it is close to the faucet for the hose too!

Bonus? The happy plants usually keep me from seeing the air conditioning unit!

Selecting Pots for a Container Garden

I bought some fairly big pots a few years ago based on the recommendations of a guy I worked with who paid for college by growing & selling tomatoes! I can’t imagine and luckily I don’t have to because I’ve seen his amazing garden and his daughters are on a path to do the same with their tomato business!

Anyway, I asked Eric about how to pick containers. I had some small pots for house plants I was thinking of using. He said using a few bigger pots usually works better. You can put a few plants in and all have more room to grow.

He also helped me decide to use plastic containers. I hadn’t thought much about it but, he said terra cotta pots can be really heavy if you need to move them and terra cotta also absorbs a lot of the water. This would let the water stay available for the plants, especially important if you are like me and may forget now and then.You do want to put a few holes in the botton of the pots — I used the drill to do it.

So I went big at the garden shop and then went home with pots and some big bags of potting soil. The people at shop helped me figure out how much to buy.

Early in the season these few plants look like I could plant more in there but peppers get pretty tall & can bush out quite a bit so you want to be sure you have space.

Choosing the Right Plants

As Natasha says in the podcast, planting vegetables you like is a good start. But I’d add if you can find ones you like that aren’t too finicky, you really hit the sweet spot.

For me, snacking tomatoes are perfect.

Part of that is I just love them. Regularly buy a container from the store & wash them, just leave the container on the counter in the kitchen and pick a few up every time I walk through.

The last few years I even put one container out by my front door so I could grab tomatoes as soon as they ripen!

The Sun Sugar is my favorite. It’s more orange than red which I think has been helpful because big red tomatoes kept having squirrel or bird damage on them. That wore me out! I didn’t get a single red tomato off the vine one year. Dang squirrels and birds!

I also love peppers. Usually have some jalapenos, maybe serranos, banana peppers…. And I use all the herbs. Sometimes I grow from seed that has been very carefully selected and other times I just get whatever seed or plants are available. They both have worked!

The post Tips on a Container Garden — What I Learned by Trying Containers appeared first on Grounded by the Farm.

Building a community garden & the community that inspires more people to grow food in their backyard has driven Natasha Nicholes to do great things on Chicago’s South Side & online.

Family Passion for Gardening

Natasha talks happily about the sense of wonder her Granny Blackburn created for her as a child. Going to visit her grandmom would yield exciting times in the garden and great meals to come.

Now, years later, Natasha is not only creating that excitement for her own children, but by building a community garden, she’s making it available to children throughout the neighborhood. The photo below shows Natasha, her husband Shomari & their younger children to the left with some of the garden’s volunteers.

A Community Garden Growing Pride

We Sow We Grow is a community garden non-profit that offers a lot of educational opportunities to the neighborhood the Nicholes family now calls home. The garden teaches residents about plants, pests, how to provide fresh vegetables for your home and more.

There are a number of volunteers in Chicago, others who get exposure to the program and feel empowered to garden at home too! And the community has grown to support gardeners across the US too thanks to a We Sow We Grow Gardening Chat Facebook group.

Natasha says she loves how many in the neighborhood see the urban farm as a point of pride. She says neighbors even tell people in other burbs that “you’ve got to see this.”

Growing in Containers & Square Foot Gardening 

Natasha got her start 7 years ago, planting a few things in containers and once she found square foot gardening, she says she realized everyone should be doing it!

To plant a square foot garden, you learn what plants do well sharing space with each other and can grow corn along with vining plants that will use the corn plants as a trellis and the like.

A Visit to the Community Garden

Last May, I was in Chicago for work and had a chance to get to the garden with Natasha and the younger Nicholes. You can get a feel for the number of raised beds they have in this live video I shot while there and knowing they are all managed by the foot… wowzers!

Ways to Get Involved with We Sow We Grow

With the excitement and promise of gardening seeming to resonate with more and more people, the We Sow We Grow Gardening Chat community on Facebook is a great place to go for ideas and information.

The group is really active and includes both new and established gardeners across the US. Personally, I love that everyone there remembers and celebrates that joy of a first seedling, the first pepper of the season or whatever it is you want to celebrate!

You can support We Sow We Grow through PayPal donations as well as buying various products like the “Dirty by Nature” t-shirts on TeeSpring. I love mine and had to wear it last spring when I went to the garden!  

Natasha Nicholes’ blog Houseful of Nicholes includes a category that shares a lot of gardening information including making a mason jar garden with your kids she walks through basics like how to read a seed packet

Listen to the Podcast to Hear

Some of the other topics covered in this podcast includes:

• Becoming a master urban farmer / master gardener 
• Talking about tough years & good years
• Creating community & a non-profit
• Lots of people turning to gardening 
• Difference in scale farm – garden 
• Growing all the things 
• Planning to Plant 
• Where to Start 

You may also enjoy hearing from these other black farmers.

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