A green thumbs-up to urban farming

Walking up a slope to the fruit-tree nursery, Tall points to the plants growing in shallow beds on the roof of his shed.
“See the vegetables growing on the roof?” he asks. “You can grow vegetables on top of your roof. But be sure to ask your mom and dad first.” With older kids, he might talk about conservation or show them how to start a compost pile at home.

Tall recalls his parents telling him that, before World War II, they and many of their neighbors had vegetable gardens. But as buying produce from grocers – and growing flowers in what had been the vegetable patch – became a sign of postwar prosperity, growing vegetables became less fashionable. Tall believes that growing your own crops makes sense, especially now, with food-contamination crises and rising food prices. It’s also a way to teach children about complex ideas such as leaving a small carbon footprint and water conservation, he says.

“If you can plant an ornamental plant ... why not exchange it for something edible that uses the same amount of water?” he asks. “This is teaching kids conservation. Instead of asking for a new DVD, maybe they’ll go home and say ‘Can we grow vegetables in our yard?’ ”

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Tall feels good about what he’s doing. Three years after he visited one high school for its career day, a woman who’d heard him speak that day called him for advice on opening her own nursery.

Another time, he says, “a woman came in and asked if I remembered her,” Tall says. “When she was 8, her mom brought her here to see the horse, and now she’s bringing her own kid.”

His favorite story though, is of a 4-year-old boy who gives Tall $5 whenever he visits, to help buy food for the animals.
Adam Johnson, 16, started working at the nursery after he visited on a high-school field trip. Now he helps out with watering plants, loading bags of soil into customers’ cars, and whatever else needs to be done.

Tall is “one of those out-there guys who loves to interact with people,” Adam says. “He loves to answer questions, and he knows everything. He’s really cool.”

City Farmers attracts customers from afar, like Shannon Rizzo and her family of young gardeners who recently drove more than 30 miles to get here. “I only buy organic, and I don’t want to buy from a big-box store,” says Ms. Rizzo. “The first time I called, I was just looking for dirt, but he was so friendly on the phone, I decided to come down.”

On that trip, the family bought necta-plum and pomegranate trees. Today, the four Rizzo children – Isabella, Heather, Luke, and Jake, each of them sporting a different color of Crocs – look for items to add to their personal gardens, and settle on strawberries, lavender, butternut squash, corn, and cantaloupe. Isabella is thrilled to find organic chocolate mint and pineapple mint to add to her herb collection,

“The other places we went to were not very good. They didn’t have a lot of organics,” says Isabella, 11. “I like this place because it seems kind of mystical and like an island.”

Tall says he has lots of customers like the Rizzos. “I have so much diversity here. We get [people from] the professor over to the city employee. That’s what’s neat about gardening. It’s not for any particular type of person.”

Francisco Garcia, a teacher, stopped by one recent Saturday to pick up wood stakes for the garden he’s starting. He hopes to be raising half his family’s produce by autumn.

“There’s a paranoia about the food you buy at the store ... the more I read, the more I’m horrified,” he says, referring to recent contamination episodes. “We have a third of an acre that’s going to go from being a useless space to something sustainable for my family.”

Mr. Garcia pauses for a moment and adds: “I’m going to grow things in my front yard,” he says. “I don’t care what the neighbors think.”

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