When I think about it, it’s pretty funny that two years out of college, my primary daily activity consists of towing a bike trailer full of food scraps around town for the purpose of making compost.

My Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Sustainability Studies from the University of Florida reflects an enriching experience I had as a student in Gainesville, but for me, my degree was not a ticket to a job. Instead, I’ve worked for the last ten months on trying to create my own job by offering something to the community that I can be proud of.

In Gainesville, you can live pretty affordably, so if you can make even a little bit of money by selling some product or service, then you can live a good simple life and work on your own terms. Whether financially or otherwise, this business experience will benefit my career in the long run. So why not make a job right now doing something you love rather than work at an unexciting job?

I always dabbled to varying degrees in gardening, but in my first semester out of college I got interested in farming. A local organic family farm called Kumarie’s Organic Garden placed an ad on Facebook looking for a paid farm hand. Being financially okay thanks to a small online income, I said ‘Why not?’ and decided to take up this job and take up a new challenge.

And as a city boy from Miami, boy was I challenged. But it felt good.

Having spent much of my time doing freelance and personal web development — indoors and on a computer — I found it curiously relieving to do simple, albeit hard, physical labor as a farm-hand.

I worked 20 hours a week in the hot Florida sun for a wage just above minimum wage, but it felt deeply rewarding to do work that led directly to people being fed — and healthy, organic food at that.

The farm job experience gave me a profound respect for small farmers who toil from sun-up to sundown, for little financial reward, to provide people’s most fundamental need, food.

The farmers were kind and devout people who often pulled weeds and harvested crops alongside me, and they regularly fed me lunch made from their farm fresh produce.

Ultimately the farm’s financial troubles made it an unreliable job, but I look back appreciatively on the time and am glad to have had the experience.

Shortly after leaving the farm job, I met someone doing inspiring social justice work with youth at a farm school in New Orleans. Nat Turner, the founder of Our School at Blair Grocery, teaches young people in the Lower Ninth Ward how to grow food and market it, empowering them and educating them about core subjects with the garden as a learning space and project incubator.

Inspired by Turner’s talk in Gainesville in spring 2011, I was set on an introspective journey to discover my own role in life and work. I was making some income on the web, but I wanted to do work that was more deeply satisfying, like growing food.

I began the Urban Food America blog as a personal initiative to document urban agriculture projects happening in the United States. Still unsure of my own role in the urban food movement, I decided to document the inspiring work of others.

While Our School at Blair Grocery in New Orleans — which I visited last spring — was the seed of inspiration, I have also written about urban agriculture initiatives from a month-long visit to Los Angeles in summer of 2011.

Admittedly, this meager blog does not yet live up to its grandiose name, but it is a work in progress that I hope to develop into a resource for the greater urban agriculture movement.

The initiatives documented on Urban Food America are part of the inspiration for Gainesville Compost.

While exploring urban agriculture initiatives, I realized that there was a common and essential thread among all of them: for maintaining plant health and nourishing the soil, compost (and often, vermicompost) often plays a fundamental role in urban food production.

At the Micheltorena Elementary School garden where I volunteered a few times, turning the compost and creating vermicompost and vermicompost teas — made with earthworm manure — were regular tasks.

After working on my own garden in Gainesville, I realized with the help of friends who were employees at restaurants, that I could create abundant compost for my own food production by combining restaurant food scraps with dried leaves from local trees.

The Fine Print does a great job of explaining the process in a recent story about Gainesville Compost called “Soil Food.”

After seeing the benefits of compost in my garden, I decided to create Gainesville Compost with the goal to develop “sustainable soil for the urban agriculture movement” in Gainesville. In contrast to the daily 30-minute car commutes out to the farm, every Gainesville Compost collection is done by bicycle, relying on no fossil fuels.

The most fundamental need in urban agriculture is soil. Restaurants each day throw out tons of food waste that has the potential to become nutrient-rich soil for food production. This compost can be made right in the city — and by bicycle — rather than having to truck in animal manure from rural areas.

The mission of Gainesville Compost is “From Waste to Food” because no restaurant should have to throw out a valuable agricultural resource.

The Bike Crew distributes waste materials to composting centers in community partner locations, which represent a growing network of composting centers around town.

Because soil-building is important to local gardeners, we have developed what is seemingly the first Compost CSA to provide compost to members regularly throughout the growing season, a program modeled after the local farm CSA’s, which give members weekly produce throughout the season.

The Compost CSA reinforces the idea that soil-building should be done gradually and over time. Compost CSA members get monthly installments (half-share or full-share) of compost and vermicompost foliar sprays, as well as educational information about using the compost to feed the soil and grow better food.

We also recently worked with a local beer bar and cafe, The Midnight, to build a “living art garden” powered by compost made in part by their own food waste. Here is how we built The Midnight garden.

New restaurant gardens are on the way.

Check out Gainesville Compost in the local press.

To stay further informed, visit Gainesville Compost on Facebook.

I first spoke on the phone with Ali Bhai, the project manager on the supply-side of RootDown’s work in a neighborhood near the Central Avenue Corridor. Ali told me about RootDown’s youth entrepreneurial and horticultural training program, where students are equipped with skills in food production, culinary arts, and business.

Ali explained that RootDown uses the terms “supply” and “demand” to describe their programming. The organization frames its mission in terms of supply and demand for local food. Specifically, RootDown works to build both demand for and supply of local food in South L.A.

On the supply side, the youth work with residents to install vegetable and herb gardens and to plant fruit trees around the neighborhood. The produce from this local food network is then harvested and sourced.

The other part of RootDown’s work involves building demand for this food. They recently had a farm stand where produce was given away with an optional donation, and they hope to provide CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) produce subscriptions to residents. The students also cater food to local events and offer community cooking demonstrations that teach residents and youth to prepare and enjoy vegetables.

By giving them the opportunity to create a hands-on enterprise, RootDown motivates young people to be “advocates of food systems change,” Ali said.

The students also gain valuable job skills. RootDown hopes to work with local businesses to certify trainings and offer jobs to neighborhood youth.

Based at Jefferson High School, which I visited last Tuesday, the youth arm of the program is heavily integrated into the school curriculum and vice versa.

Ali gives regular guest lectures at Jefferson High’s Green Academy, a program and curriculum oriented around the principles of sustainability. He speaks in Biology, Art, and Computer-Aided Design classes (Chemistry soon) and ties the subjects back to sustainable agriculture.

Jefferson High School, in partnership with RootDown LA, has recently revived a garden plot that was built over a decade ago but sat fallow for years. Ali gave me a tour of the garden, which is a testing ground and learning space for students and community members.

The garden consists of eight raised beds built many years ago out of concrete blocks, numerous fruit trees, and a greenhouse that is still in development.

In the summer, the youth from the summer entrepreneurship and horticulture training have harvested corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, melons and much more. Some of this produce has gone to the farm stand and to their youth-led catering service.

Ali and RootDown have big plans for the garden. With help from a quarter-million-dollar grant which is still being processed, they will be:

1. planting fall crops,
2. getting the greenhouse up and running,
3. organizing a program to compost scraps from school lunches,
4. helping the students install a drip irrigation system,
5. and incorporating more native edibles into the garden.

By building a local food system on a micro scale — within a 4 or 5 block radius — RootDown LA hopes to set an example that others can emulate.

“It’s all about the return to real food,” Ali said.

He told me that working with RootDown is some of the most rewarding work he has ever done.

Ali said his work with RootDown has placed him “at the forefront of a community food movement” in this small neighborhood in Los Angeles.

Ali is one of only four employees at RootDown. The organization is proof that a few dedicated people can make a truly profound impact on a community.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

Thank you to Frances Tran, a volunteer at the Micheltorena school garden, for referring me to RootDown LA.

A candlelit dinner in Silver Lake’s little Eden along busy Sunset Blvd.

I enjoyed the company and the delicious garden bounty.

Good to remember not only to work, but to play; not only to grow food, but to cook it and savor it.

The L.A. Eco-Village is a permaculture-oriented intentional community and neighborhood comprising two blocks near Vermont Ave and Beverly Blvd in the Mid-Wilshire district.

It is a home to 40 residents who live and work there, and a public space to neighbors who may participate in its community initiatives.

The Eco-Village formed in the wake of the 1992 L.A. Riots and began to offer the promise of a more wholesome and sustainable future, which I was fortunate enough to preview during my recent tour.

The Eco-Village front entrance:

Our tour began in a courtyard area just after the house entryway. This was the garden, a humble but abundant oasis with a wealth of fruit trees, flowers and other foods, some of which I got to taste.

Fruit

As I sampled fruit after fruit, I grew nostalgic for the childhood pleasure of eating just-picked, homegrown fruit — mmm, Miami mangoes — and I fantasized about a world where we are more often surrounded by fruit trees.

Fortunately, the L.A. Eco-Village is doing its part to realize the dream of a more fruitful future, and their work involves much more than planting trees.

Beyond beautifying and nourishing the neighborhood with over 150 fruit trees, the L.A. Eco-Village is working to build a sustainable community “in permaculture style,” said Lois.

Compost

Lois explained to me how the Eco-Villagers, inspired by permaculture principles, repurpose their green waste into a foundational soil and fertilizer for all of the Eco-Village trees and gardens.

Much of the food waste and plant scraps is composted in a pit and in a large wooden worm bin, which produces a worm castings fertilizer that is richer than commercial vermicompost, according to Lois, due to the nutritious fruit and vegetable content and the diversity of plant materials.

The Eco-Village worm composter:

“We are very attached to our green waste at the Eco-Village,” Lois told me as she pointed to a spot in the front yard with small piles of dried up plant matter that they were still trying to figure out a use for. She seemed a bit embarrassed about the mess, but told me I should post a photo of it to encourage them to do something about it.

As Lois showed me cucumbers planted among tomatoes planted among lambsquarter and much more, she explained that “in permacultural style, diversity is the key to maximize beneficial connections within micro-ecosystems.”

Lois said this approach extends beyond the garden, with the Eco-Village working, in the spirit of true sustainability, “to maximize beneficial connections within and among the ecological, the economic and the social systems of the community.”

Crime & Community

In an otherwise unkempt, crime-threatened area, the Eco-Village serves as a microcosm of hope, positivity and sustainability.

Lois once said in an interview that the Eco-Village was founded in part out of a desire to foster a sense of connectedness in a neighborhood where crime was a primary concern.

Crime, she opined, is “symptomatic of the breakdown of community.”

A 2008 video interview with Lois Arkin, Los Angeles Eco-Village founder:

My friend Julia toured the village recently and learned this about its relationship to crime:

Their block is located between two rival gangs right in the middle of Los Angeles. When they purchased the area, they surveyed their neighbors to find out their biggest concerns. The response was unanimous: crime. After six months of the early Eco-Villagers being in the community, they surveyed again, and crime didn’t appear until the third PAGE, and as an afterthought! All the community members did was play ball with children in the streets, meet their neighbors, and encourage their neigbors to meet each other. — excerpted from Grow Your Food

In the last decade and a half, the Eco-Village has developed a number of initiatives that benefit and involve community members.

Each Sunday, Eco-Village hosts a “Food Lobby,” an organic food cooperative to which a local farmer contributes produce. They also co-op on bulk grains and other dried foods, overall saving about 20 percent on food. Neighborhood residents possess membership cards, which they can add funds to and use for produce purchases at the Eco-Village.

Other Eco-Village projects include a volunteer-run bike repair shop, a community tool shed, and the city-approved conversion of a road into one where no car reigns supreme.

A shared public street at the intersection of Bimini Pl and White House Pl, which the eco-villagers envision someday becoming car-free:

At one point in the tour, we stood talking in the middle of the intersection, a fact which gave me some anxiety but did not at all concern Lois, who proudly upheld her right to reclaim the road as a shared public space. In fact, Eco-Village periodically hosts an event, CicLAvia, to do just that.

During the next CicLAvia on October 9, 2011, the city of Los Angeles will ban cars from 10.5 miles of street to turn the road into an open space for walking, bicycling, skating and more.

Conclusion

There is plenty to say about the Eco-Village, but what struck me the most was the place’s seeming commitment to create something of true and lasting value in a city where crime and waste are pandemic.

While Lois admits that there is “a long way to go” to closing the waste stream and achieving a truly sustainable community, the Eco-Village works faithfully each day toward this ideal.

Of course, this level of dedication to sustainable living “is not for everyone,” as media are quick to mention and even Lois herself will admit. But that is no reason to discredit the Eco-Village, which serves as a public and powerful example of sustainable community development in Los Angeles.

The Eco-Village manifesto and historical context:

… We must work for transformation wherever we are and with whatever we have to work with. We want to reinvent the way we live in our city. We want to develop a culture where rewards come from a healthy and spontaneous spirit and practice of cooperation. We are people of hope with a desire to heal the wounds in ourselves, one another and the great planet we share. Our cities beg for this healing energy. In his address at the First International Ecological Cities Conference in Berkeley, Australian architect and professor Paul Downtown stated “the purpose of all cities until now has been to develop their economy; the purpose of an ecological city is to develop the ecology….And to the cynics who still measure things against the bottom line, the answer is very simple: no ecology, no economy. No planet, no profit.”

So with this context in mind, the nonprofit organization, CRSP, founded in 1980 by Lois Arkin as a resource center for small ecological and cooperative communities, began planning the Los Angeles Eco-Village demonstration. In the early 90s, in the aftermath of one of the city’s worst tragedies–the Los Angeles uprisings– the demonstration started. It continues to serve as a beacon of hope for many.

Fruit Jam is an annual event organized by Fallen Fruit, a group that works to locate fruit trees in public spaces and compile public fruit maps. The organizers asked participants to bring fruit picked from public trees and pay $10 for a ticket.

Luckily, the day before the Fruit Jam, while on my walk to Moshe’s garden, I stumbled upon a fig tree that hung over the sidewalk, and picked some ripe figs. (In California, if a residential tree hangs over a public space, then that part of the tree is considered public property, therefore you can legally pick it.)

My mouth-watering figs:

At the event, I chopped up my figs (plus other public figs provided by Fallen Fruit) and some lemons to make a lemon-fig jam.

The finished product, in upside down jars so that the heat would sterilize the lids:

Jam Making Instructions

Fallen Fruit posted jam making instructions on the wall, and the event organizers were very helpful to assist attendees in the jam making.

How to Jam with Fallen Fruit:

1. Bring to a boil 5 cups fruit and 1/2 cup pectin.
2. Add 5 cups sugar (I added 4.)
3. Bring to a boil again *briefly*
4. Pour into jars.
5. Leave a jar for fellow jammers.
6. Swap a jar with your neighboring jammer!
7. Enjoy.

I had an awesome time chatting and “jamming” with Chris and Katie, two fun and friendly Machine Project members who were making jam out of an assortment of fruits harvested from their Los Angeles property.

We traded jams and contact info after the event.

Here is my lemon fig jam in the making:

And now, to sample the jams:

Best sugar rush ever!

After the Fruit Jam, I headed out to catch a bus to the Los Angeles Eco-Village, a small “urban ecological cooperative community” in Wilshire Center, one of the oldest districts in Los Angeles. More on that later this week.

Moshe is a volunteer at Micheltorena who has an unmistakeable passion for growing food, and years of experience and knowledge on sustainable gardening, from his former home in Israel and from seven years living and gardening in Costa Rica.

In past volunteer days, Moshe gave me good tips to apply to my own garden, so I looked forward to seeing how he manages his garden at his Los Angeles home.

This post summarizes “Moshe’s Methods,” a set of specific, useful tips he has shared with me, some of which I saw in practice in his front-yard garden last Saturday.

Compost Methods
1. Ideally, a compost pile should be at least 3′ x 3′ x 3′ in order to generate high heat and break down quickly. Moshe suggests turning the compost every other day to aerate it. He keeps solid woody parts like twigs and bark chips out of his compost pile because of their high carbon content and long composting time.

2. Moshe’s compost application method:

Use compost only in the immediate planting areas, rather than applying it across the entire garden bed.

When planting, Moshe digs a hole about 12″ deep and fills it with 75 to 80 percent compost, mixed with the soil in the ground.

Mulching Methods
3. Repurpose readily available waste materials to use as mulch. Moshe places a large emphasis on the role of mulch to protect the soil and help maintain moisture. When his neighbors had landscapers remove a tree, Moshe asked them to give him their shredded tree waste to use as mulch. Dried leaves or other plant matter may also be used as mulch.

Fertilizing Method

4. Aside from compost, Moshe’s main fertilizer is from a resource that his neighbor has been disposing of all along: rabbit poop. Every week, Moshe’s neighbor gives him a bale of rabbit bedding mixed with poop.

Moshe soaks the bale in water to make a “tea” out of the rabbit manure. He waters his plants with this rabbit poop tea and uses the finished bedding both as mulch and as a cover for his pathways.

Irrigation Methods
5. Moshe has a pipe drip irrigation system that he runs for 20 minutes every few days. He gives other plants a deep hand watering “every now and then.” Moshe’s garden requires less water because of the rich organic matter content and the mulch coverage, both of which improve moisture retention.

Fruit Growing Method
6. Aside from the pomegranate tree at the very front of his yard, Moshe is starting many fruit trees, including papaya, mango, and citrus. Some fruit trees he propagates from parts of other trees, and other trees he has started from seeds of fruits he has eaten himself. He later transplants them, mixing the soil with compost.

Be mindful of shade when planting trees, however. Moshe lamented the fact that some of his tomato plants were being shaded by his pomegranate tree.

Plant Placement Method
7. Moshe told me he regrets that he didn’t plant his rows from North to South this season. He said he “could not emphasize enough” that planting your rows perpendicular to the sun’s East to West path is optimal because it ensures that they receive more sunlight and less shade.

Moshe’s garden had bushes of tomatoes. He said he eats six a day. He still had many to spare so he gave me this handful:

Tomatoes like these can change your life. They are so plump that water flows out of them when you cut them. The taste is rich and flavorful even without seasonings.

Gardening with Moshe’s Methods

Moshe is a practical gardener with a keen understanding of sustainability that he applies to his garden and his life.

We would do well to consider Moshe’s methods for our own gardens.

As a result of my California avocado binge, I’m left with a heap of empty avocado shells. Instead of sending them to the compost, I decided to take them last Saturday to the Micheltorena Elementary School garden for a fun garden project.

Avocado Shell Seed Trays

By planting seeds in avocado shells instead of plastic trays, the seedlings can be transplanted directly in the ground along with the biodegradable avocado shell.

How to plant seeds in avocado shells:

1. Fill the shells with compost or soil.
   
2. Plant 2 or 3 seeds per shell. (Thin down to one later.)
   
3. Poke about three holes in the bottom for drainage.
   
4. Place in a container with a layer of water at the bottom, then close the container to create a “hotbox” for the seeds to germinate. Make sure there is some opening in the hotbox to allow for airflow.
   
5. Sprinkle the avocado shell seed trays with some water and store in a dark spot until seedlings emerge.

If all goes as planned, we’ll have seedlings growing out of the shells soon and we can plant the whole avocado shell directly in the ground.

In turn, the seedlings are not disturbed by uprooting, and the shell provides nutrition for the plant as it breaks down beneath the ground.

We look forward to corn, cucumber, and green beans in these avocado peels.

Thanks to a few committed neighborhood volunteers, this public school is now the prideful home of a beautiful and productive community garden.

The Micheltorena garden is a real-world testing ground for students to apply ideas and values learned in the classroom, and a cherished community space that brings the neighborhood together.

When you volunteer at the garden — as I have done twice — you get a genuine sense of the value it offers to the school and community.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays, various people come and go from the garden not just to offer a helping hand, but to learn, to mingle, and to enjoy the harvest with fellow volunteers. Some are students, some are neighbors; some are younger, some are older.

Last Saturday’s workday consisted of turning the compost, watering, weeding, and fertilizing the garden with compost tea, all tasks endowed with much meaning and purpose after enjoying the resultant harvest.

Enrich LA

The workdays are organized by Leonardo Chalupowicz, who has led the garden project throughout its one-year existence. The experience inspired him and others to co-found Enrich LA, a non-profit organization whose mission is, “A Garden in Every School.”

The group manages 11 school gardens at various stages in the Los Angeles area.

The Micheltorena Garden Compost

Like most sustainable gardens, the Micheltorena school garden develops compost as the primary foundation of the soil.

For the compost contents, the Micheltorena gardeners receive surplus fruits and vegetables donated by the Silver Lake Farmers’ Market, which takes place twice-weekly just three blocks away.

The school uses a four-stage composting system:

1. Food scraps are initially placed in a black plastic bin provided by the city.
2. After a week, the semi-decomposed contents of the first bin get moved to a second wooden bin.
3. A third wooden bin is filled with the contents of the second wooden bin.
4. And the final heap is moved to a chicken-wire cylindrical container.

This multi-stage process is an efficient, flowing system that provides tons of compost, especially during the summer months when the heat helps accelerate the decomposition.

Alongside the school’s composting setup is a vermicompost bin, a system where worms work with bacteria to digest food waste and produce a potent “worm manure” fertilizer. The finished vermicompost is dissolved in water in a trash bin, and then used to water the plants.

Seeing that vermicompost is a primary fertilizer for this garden reaffirmed my faith in vermicomposting as a way to develop a sustainable, local fertilizer. Vermicompost is a foundational medium also used heavily at Our School at Blair Grocery in New Orleans.

Soil quality at the Micheltorena garden is monitored by Frances Tran, a Silver Lake resident and PhD student in Biology, who is the garden’s resident soil tester. Frances occasionally brings pH strips from her lab to determine the garden’s soil quality and amend it accordingly.

Pickling Workshop

After the workday — which was leisurely overall, given the shared workload — volunteers worked to harvest and chop fresh carrots, beats, cucumbers, green tomatoes, peppers, beans, and more.

Half of the produce went into a salad, while the other half was reserved for the day’s pickling project. Neighborhood volunteer Jason Jones brought the materials for the pickling, including a brine recipe adapted from his home state of Alabama.

Student Workdays & Garden Classes

Each Wednesday during school hours, the students have a workday in the garden with help from parents and community volunteers.

The Wednesday workdays are a chance for students to engage in positive work in an “experiential, cooperative classroom,” while reaping rewards in the form of fresh garden produce and knowledge acquired from the classes on food and sustainability that are taught in the garden. In the evening, children and their families are invited to a garden potluck.

School gardens like Micheltorena’s are an asset to the communities they serve. While schools across the country struggle with funding and political problems, volunteers nationwide are building sustainable school gardens in what is literally a grassroots approach to positive educational reform.

I stand wholeheartedly behind Enrich LA’s mission to put “a garden in every school.”

Micheltorena Garden Mission

“The Micheltorena Elementary School garden will be shared with the Silver Lake community and will provide numerous opportunities for teaching and education, as well as plenty of food and flowers for both students and community members. Ongoing garden projects include a garden of drought-tolerant and native plants, a rose garden, and a reading garden on the patio outside the new school library. Planned education activities in the garden include participation in the Harvest of the Month and Farm to School programs, permaculture classes, cooking classes, canning and preserving classes, and composting classes taught by local experts.”

See my photo album of Micheltorena School and Community Garden on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.251150344903430.67581.245417525476712

NEW ORLEANS — Last weekend while in New Orleans, I visited Our School at Blair Grocery, an alternative, hands-on school and non-profit organization focused on teaching youth in the Lower Ninth Ward the principles of urban farming and sustainability. Our School at Blair Grocery is not just some agricultural magnet school. Rather, it is a place of hope and empowerment for youth in one of the nation’s most impoverished and crime-ridden communities — the hardest hit in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

I first learned about the Blair Grocery initiative when it was covered in the New York Times last month. See: New Orleans School Sows Seeds in Lower 9th Ward. I was moved by the story and shared it with a friend who is a New Orleans resident.

A couple weeks later, I received an invitation on Facebook to a talk in Gainesville by someone with a familiar name, Nat Turner. Turner, as he prefers to be called, is the founder of Our School at Blair Grocery. At the event, he told of his journey from public school teacher in New York City to pioneer of one of the nation’s most inspiring urban agriculture initiatives in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward.

Dissatisfied with his job in New York, Turner moved to New Orleans to help with the restoration effort after Katrina. He described a period of uncertainty where he knew he wanted to make a positive impact but was not sure how to apply himself. Given a little time and a number of revelations — including the reminder that, whoa, food comes from the ground! — Turner taught himself all he could about growing organic vegetables. Meanwhile, he began offering free tutoring sessions to kids in the Lower Ninth Ward out of his now-iconic blue school bus, and acquired a plot of land from an old, rundown grocery store to convert to a school. That, in a nutshell, is how Our School at Blair Grocery was born.

Although class was not in session when I visited, it was evident that the school is a thriving enterprise. Upon arriving with a couple of friends, we were greeted by a group of people who were laboring to renovate the building’s exterior. After knocking on the classroom door expecting to find Turner and perhaps a few others, I was startled to see 10 or 15 adults turn their heads toward us as we interrupted a strategy meeting.

Turner was kind enough to take a break from the meeting and show us around. The tour began at the giant compost heap, which is comprised of food scraps that are acquired free from local restaurants and grocery stores. The scraps in the pile decompose and are then fed to worms to produce nutrient-rich castings. “Everybody poops, but worms poop gold,” Turner joked. This golden poop is the lifeblood of all of the crops grown at the school.

The compost pile was an appropriate starting point for the tour, given that compost is, as a hand-painted sign on the property reads, “the foundation of our food system and thus, the source of all LIFE.”

We were then shown inside one of the school’s many small greenhouses (or “hoop houses”), which contain shelves of sprouts that are sold at $20 per pound to high-end food establishments in New Orleans, including Whole Foods and Emeril’s Restaurant. The sprouts are an easy sell because businesses love the idea of supporting local food and disadvantaged children, Turner said. This revenue is an important source of funding for the school, along with earnings from a weekly farmers’ market, which we also attended on Sunday.

It is clear that Our School at Blair Grocery is deeply driven to not only produce local food (and a bunch of it), but to enrich the lives of young people in the process. We were not fortunate enough to meet any of the students — since class is in session Monday through Thursday, and we visited on Friday — yet their presence was evident in the youthful character of the school. The school walls are painted with inspirational quotations and the property is adorned with signs that teach human values.

The students work hard, and they reap the rewards. Not only does the school award them fresh produce and a minimum wage — both of which help to support their struggling families — but they are taught that they can be somebody in a world that otherwise regards them as nobodies.

In his talk in Gainesville, Turner spoke of the skeptics and nonbelievers who have little hope for the youth of the Lower Ninth Ward. In a community with such poverty and a serious juvenile crime problem, keeping kids out of trouble — nevermind inspiring them to lead rewarding and successful lives — is next to impossible.

Luckily, to Nat Turner and his team, “impossible” is not a forbidden territory, but an alluring challenge. One that they are seeing through.

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” – Muhammad Ali

Follow Our School at Blair Grocery via the school’s blog and Facebook page.