- Author: Betty Homer
In June 2014, I attended the Urban Farm Tour organized by the Institute of Urban Homesteading located in Oakland, California. To clarify, these are not farms in the traditional sense, involving large swaths of acreage; but rather, people who try to incorporate agricultural concepts in their backyard by raising livestock, keeping beehives, and growing mostly edible plants rather than ornamentals. Because the sites are private residences, with rare exception, addresses for them will not be disclosed to preserve and protect the privacy interests of the urban farmer-homeowners.
Last month, I featured Dog Island Farm located in Vallejo. This month, I am featuring Good Egg Farm, also located in Vallejo. Good Egg Farm is considered a "small-medium" site in that the lot size consists of 4,682 square feet. Of that square footage, 1,200 square feet is used for urban farming (i.e., 25% of the total lot size).
Good Egg Farm is located in a beautiful, quaint neighborhood in Vallejo, by the water. The owners of this site designed their backyard space to be a work-play space. They began work on their backyard five years ago with the creation of outdoor "rooms" interlinked by circular paths. The backyard garden/consists of a chicken coop and run for a small flock of chickens, and a small vegetable and fruit garden. There are winding paths circling a sculptural iron tree that supports various plants such as tomatillos and sugar snap peas. Along these pathways, the owners have planted sages, lavenders, and other bee and butterfly friendly plants. This past spring, the owners have added to their collection of plant, bush beans, scarlet runner beans, strawberries, tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, squashes, and corn. They have rescued from the rubbish bins, lemon and lime trees and blueberry bushes which were at point, literally a stick In an effort to be water conscious, the owners are in the process of implementing an irrigation system which uses water from their sinks and tubs to water the garden.
Note that this Urban Farm Tour only occurs once a year, so you will have to wait until June 2015 for the next round of tours (the tour is organized by the Institute of Urban Homesteading and the sites change annually. so there is always something new to see and explore). The good news, however, is that in 2014, these tours have extended into Solano County; hopefully, this trend will continue.