Oakland Farm Heritage
Established as the town of Oakland in 1852, Oakland was once a significant agricultural producer in the Bay Area. The 1896 Facts and Figures of Alameda County report a prolific soil in Oakland. The report lists a John Potter living in the heart of the city between Second and Third Street, Clay and Washington Streets who grew a squash that tipped the scales at 320 pounds (without the use of synthetic fertilizer). The article claims that there is no vegetable that cannot be grown in Alameda County and reports a gentleman having raised 130 market varieties of vegetables. Though since then the city has become a dense urban area, it is still possible to pull a bountiful crop from the fruitful soil of Oakland.
In more recent times, local residents of Oakland have been returning to the agricultural heritage of the city through backyard urban farming. While many take on urban farming as a project to explore their own food culture and consumption, recent efforts convey backyard farming may have a greater role to play. In May 2006, Oakland’s Office of Sustainability and the UC Berkeley Department of City and Regional Planning released the report “A Food Systems Assessment for Oakland, CA: Toward a Sustainable Food Plan.” In this assessment, the authors ask us to use a “food lens” to evaluate some of our most pressing issues of today, obesity, energy consumption, and job preservation. These challenges can be hard to grasp and the concerned citizen can be quickly overwhelmed by the complexity of these issues. By applying the food lens to urban systems that account for flow of resources, capital, community wellbeing and the corresponding ecosystem, it is possible to develop a food system that contributes to “livable neighborhoods, meets the health and nutrition needs of residents, and promotes economic vitality, social justice, local self-reliance, and environmental sustainability.”
Alameda urban farmer, Stefani Leto, a rival to Isabella Beeton in household management, engages her family in raising food, chickens and turkeys in her backyard. She began growing food for her family in her backyard because she was drawn toward self-sufficiency. Stefani felt disempowered by being dependant on industrial scale business to meet daily needs. She felt compelled to have a hand in the means of production for basic living. While she could not fix her computer or her car, she could knit, bake bread, make soup and grow food. Starting with what she knew she could do for herself, has led Stefani to understand more deeply the interconnectedness among health, food, and community. A mother of four, she wants her children to know that “food does not come on a Styrofoam plate wrapped in cellophane, it comes from whole plants and animals.” Stefani believes that whether you are learning about good food, improved communities, or carbon emissions reduction, growing your own food organically is a gateway to understanding these issues.
The Oakland food assessment suggests that it is possible for the city of Oakland to grow as much as 30% of their food regionally. While the bulk of acreage included is from the greater proposed regional foodshed, which extends as far as 300 miles south, the calculation includes small scale farming within city limits. In fact, of the acreage included within Oakland, backyard farming alone composed 71%. This was not including acreage possible through edible landscaping, school gardens or other potential locations for urban agriculture. But what does urban farming mean and how can it be done? Most backyard farming is a form of subsistence agriculture in which a plot of land produces only enough food to feed the household or small community working it. The space required for growing all the food for only one person is more than most have available to them. However, it is still possible and meaningful to grow a portion of food within your own backyard.
The road in for Chris Hwang was through the exploration of identity. Chris and her husband Tim moved into his childhood home with his mother. Chris was looking to create a sense of her own space. She started with a discreet space she could claim to herself, an unkempt patch of weeds in the back of the yard. This brought more attention to gardening and soon the other household members were joining her. They mapped the backyard into designated areas for each household member. Chris and Tim now grow natives and edibles that are more costly to purchase, like blueberries and raspberries, and they keep honeybee to harvest honey. When she started, Chris had no knowledge of organic, resource efficient permaculture techniques. She just knew when something she planted wasn’t working out. Plants were struggling or not surviving. So she sought out information on better methods. She says, “growing plants is not esoteric knowledge. Between information available on the internet and elbow grease anyone can do it.”
When Culinary Chef, Lauren Lyle Olwell, first started keeping chickens, turkeys, and rabbits in her former West Berkeley location, she did not think of it in terms of urban farming. Since the preparation of these animals for food was every aspect of her life, keeping livestock felt like a natural extension of her lifestyle. However, when asked how she learned, she said at first, she “did not know anything from anything”, a statement that seemed to be shared across the board for many local urban farmers. Stefani, Chris and Lauren were asked how they first started their gardens, coops, hives and compost piles, they said first and foremost you need to have enough interest to make the time commitment. You also need to be willing to go through the trial and error of learning. The next and most important step seemed to be to seek out information, talk to people, read and attend classes. If planting food, learn how long the plant needs to grow before it is ready to eat, what parts are edible, how to harvest it and prepare it.
The next step is to redefine your idea of a “yard” to include space for food and livestock. Consider that a plant’s success depends on available light so it is important to consider sunlight patterns and duration. Know which plants do well with part shade (leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables), which with full light but cooler temperatures (beans, summer squash) and which require hot weather full sun (tomatoes, okra). Much of the East Bay rests on clay soil, which requires preparation. This means digging 18-24 inches to break the soil up to allow for roots to grow, mixing in horticultural sand for drainage, and compost for soil health. If you plan on keeping livestock you have to ensure your city ordinance does not prohibit it. Then designate the area. The next step would be to plan your irrigation. With irrigation there are several approaches. Some use hand watering or sprinklers in a pinch but this tends to be the most time consuming and least water efficient. You can also use timed drip hoses, drip lines or grey water systems. Stefani runs a hose from her upstairs bathroom window to drain the bathtubs. Chris and Tim moved their washing machine to high ground in their sloped yard and placed an underground drainpipe so that the discarded water runs downhill to a large bucket that has been set into the ground. From the bucket the water disperses along a meandering swale through the lower portion of their yard, a lush area which requires no further irrigation throughout the year. Their grey water system was featured in MAKE magazine February 2008. When possible, include in your design functional space for compost and seed propagation. Once these areas are in place you can select your plants. Include long lasting edibles (strawberries, swiss chard, celery), natives, and cutting flowers in surrounding space around beds. They provide overall structure, beauty, and build biodiversity. When making planting decisions, consider companion plants that facilitate each other’s growth, attract pollinators, and help protect one another from pests.
Understanding what is needed to obtain a successful harvest takes time, practice and observation. Keeping a farm journal is highly recommended to note when plants are started, results, harvests, and animal behaviors. For anyone new to gardening and wanting to try edibles, place them in an easy to access location and try hardy evergreen or perennial herbs such as lavender, sage, epazote, rosemary, and leafy greens such as lettuces, kales, Asian greens, collards and other cruciferous veggies. Though the total percent food each urban farmer has grown compared to what their families consume is low, for them, urban farming is to deepen their understanding of the food system. Each makes a point to try to incorporate something from the garden in a daily meal. It may be a small amount but the gesture is meaningful.
