Stanard Farm, part of the Cleveland Crops program promoting urban farming

Cleveland, Ohio is in the heart of the ‘rust belt’. A visit to that city reveals block after block, neighborhood after neighborhood of deteriorating old industrial buildings and poor, seemingly run down residential areas. But upon closer inspection, one finds a virtual beehive of gardening and farming activity on the local level. There is an active slow food movement, a busy municipally supported urban farming effort and a very strong farm-to-fork restaurant delivery system in place. There is also a panoply of urban farming initiatives. Investigate further, and one name will be repeated through many of these various efforts: Kari Moore.

Local food advocate Kari Moore

Describing herself as “a dedicated local food advocate, long-time locavore, and curious cook” Kari is one of the leaders of Slow Food of Northern Ohio and founded Farm Share Ohio a few years ago to bring good local food to a wider audience through a business model that takes the CSA idea to a new level. Basically Farmshare Ohio has relationships with farmers and producers throughout the Northeast Ohio region through which Kari organizes and delivers fresh produce and food to her clients at centralized locations.  This way individuals don’t have to actually join a CSA with one farm, they can let Kari do the heavy lifting and bring the food to them. For busy folks her business is a huge help, and it brings the benefits of locally grown and created food to a broader marketplace. Each share is sized for a family of 2-4 people who enjoy eating good healthy food.

recycled brick raised beds for herbs in hoop house

The farm shown above is one of Kari’s suppliers, the Stanard Farm, located in an old school parking lot whose asphalt was dug up to create the farm. The farm is run by Cleveland Crops, which is a program of the County Board of Developmental Disabilities, which uses the farm to train it’s clients to grow produce for the public (purchased through programs like Kari’s and other more traditional venues like farmers markets) and for some of Cleveland’s best restaurants. It’s a win-win-win – good healthy food is grown and made available right there in the city, local disadvantaged people are taught usable skills, including farming and gardening basics as well as how to interact with other local businesses, and a piece of neglected property in a poor neighborhood is repurposed and put to productive use. The neighbors watch out for the farm & help keep it clean and safe; since having it there improves their environment and the people who work there live nearby.  The local residents have a vested interest in helping it succeed.

harvesting heirloom tomatoes at Stanard Farm

Cleveland Crops farm supervisor Rudy Moyer enthusiastically took me to another of the program’s projects, a wonderful vegetable and flower garden featuring the three sisters, in the shadow of city hall and within sight of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Willard Park. The three sisters is a classic native American planting combination of maize, beans and squash. In addition to the obvious nutritional benefits of growing the three crops, the corn provides the beans a place to climb, the beans add nitrogen to the soil which helps the nitrogen-hungry corn roots and the large squash leaves provides shade and living mulch which helps to deter weeds and hold moisture in the soil.

maize, beans & squash make up a typical 'three sisters' garden near the Cleveland City Hall

The garden beds are laid out in a curvilinear pattern that snakes through the park and includes ornamental flowers and herbs together with the vegetables, which are also sold through the farmers markets and to local restaurants.

herbs grown for local consumption in Willard Park, Cleveland, Ohio

One of my favorite aspects to this program is the fact that this edible public garden is across the street from the US Federal Building, which houses the Ohio US Homeland Security office and which towers over the park. While I am pretty sure that office is more concerned with catching evildoers intent on harming US citizens and property than it is with watching over herbs and squash growing a couple dozen feet below it’s linoleum floors, I would daresay this garden does tenfold more for our security than most of the efforts put forth in those high-storied cubicles.