Youth farm garden gives kids a valuable experience with dirt

BY STEVE BUTCHER

On a recent Tuesday morning, the Youth Farm garden at the corner of Portland and 32nd Street contains about two dozen people, most of whom are teenagers. Under a blistering sun, staff, volunteers and participants sweat their way through several routine but vital tasks, including thinning crops, mixing compost, and planting bulbs.

Halwaa, a 12-year-old Muslim girl, gathers clover, telling an observer that as an edible weed, it can either be consumed on the spot, or sprinkled on a salad. Nearby, staffer Peter Jensen helps a couple of kids load and turn a large drum containing partially decayed organic matter. “We’re mimicking the forest floor,” he says. The composting produces heat, which will eventually turn leaves and other organic matter into dirt. Jensen reaches into the drum and sifts a handful of eggshells, hay, coffee grounds, and something he describes as “green, slimy stuff.” “The key is nitrogen composition,” Jensen says. “You want to cook it, not let it get too wet or too dry.” After an hour or so, Powderhorn program director Zoë Haas announces a break, and everyone gathers in the nearest shade. It is soon apparent that the whole crew—staff, volunteer, adolescent gardener—has one thing in common: hands darkened with rich Minnesota soil.

The Youth Farm and Market Project is headquartered on the second floor of a remodeled firehouse at 821 East 35th Street in South Minneapolis. Visitors enter through a side door, mount a flight of stairs, and pass into a large common room stocked with what looks like Salvation Army furniture. The atmosphere is Gen-X casual, with some adolescent mischief added for good measure. A rumpled blue futon lies unrolled next to the office, across from a common bathroom, which was occupied, one morning, by half a dozen teenagers gingerly preparing an arsenal of water balloons.

Youth Farm leases its space from the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association, owners of the building since early 2005, and first floor occupants of what used to be the firehouse vehicle bay. The only vestiges of the building’s original life are the exposed brick walls and a couple of brass sliding poles that extend through the ceiling. Elena Gaarder, executive director of PPNA, is happy having Youth Farm as a tenant—she believes that the two organizations share common goals. Besides which, she adds, “they have a great staff.”

Since its inception, in 1995, as the brainchild of Lyndale resident David Brandt, Youth Farm has expanded into three Twin Cities neighborhoods: Lyndale, West St. Paul and Powderhorn. Over the years it has introduced hundreds of city kids to composting, crop rotation and plant pairing, while imparting complex, yet essential, lessons on such topics as pricing and profit margin. It charges no fees. In the Powderhorn neighborhood, two of Youth Farm’s three gardens are on private property, where they flourish rent-free. The Bahai Center, at 36th and Chicago, cited a fundamental belief in service as the primary reason for opening to the organization a part of its property that was otherwise clotted with weeds. “Allowing the land to be gardened is a very small cost compared to the benefits to the children taking part,” said the Bahai Center’s Rhonda Richardson. “We had no immediate plans to do anything with that area, [so] the project additionally beautifies our property with little effort from us.”

That most of Youth Farm’s participants come from urban settings is not by chance. The organization’s mission statement encompasses a wide variety of goals and objectives designed to get city kids to reconsider their relationships with their diet. Program director Zoë Haas began her association with Youth Farm when she was 15. Haas is especially pleased with the way the program radically challenges common notions about food. “City kids are not likely to understand the idea of food beyond what they see at the corner store,” she said. “We try to teach them the importance of buying locally grown food. Some of our kids find out for the first time that potato-chips come from potatoes, not from a bag.”

Youth Farm succeeds by involving participants in the whole multistep process—from seed selection to dinner table. As Haas says, “We never let our food out of our sight.” That is why a visitor to the Youth Farm booth at the Midtown Farmer’s Market will encounter the same teenagers who, earlier that week, were thinning radish plants in the 90-degree heat. Those teens will be happy to count your change, discuss varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and set you straight on the difference between a banana pepper and a chili pepper.

One of the organization’s biggest fans is Lucia Watson, owner of Lucia’s in Uptown. She is a frequent buyer of its produce, and her restaurant regularly employs Youth Farm alumni. “They grow nice basil,” Watson said, “and it’s organic.” A member of the organization’s board, Watson shares, along with Youth Farm staff, an acute understanding of how food has become another commodified product—what executive director Gunnar Liden refers to as “food politics.” “The food I buy nourishes two ways,” said Watson. “It nourishes customers who eat it, and it nourishes the kids who grow it.”

Peter Jensen eagerly describes his experience working on organic farms in Central America where he got to know farmers who traced their methods and their technique back hundreds of years to the pre-Colombian natives. He is currently using his knowledge of Mesoamerican culture to help Youth Farmers develop a play centered on agricultural folklore.

And there is plenty of dirt in Zoë Haas’ genes—her mother is professional gardener Sue Haas. “This is a great neighborhood, but there are a lot of struggles,” she said. “This is a chance for the kids to see what they can do in their own communities. Our garden is located here for a reason. When we’re done, I would like people to say, ‘Wow, look at those kids!’”

Call 612-872-4226 for more information about the Youth Farm.