Urban Farms Open Doors

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Farming weeds and farmers

Elsewhere, a more settled immigrant family is developing its own urban niche. Pov Huns, Chaxamone Lor and their four children welcome visitors to Huns’ Family Garden where they grow bitter melon to improve circulation, lemon grass to fight colds, plus a wide range of Asian and Midwestern herbs and vegetables for plain good eating.

Pov points out bok choy, Egyptian spinach, Thai basil and cucumbers. “It’s hard to tell from my garden what’s weed and what’s vegetable,” the native of Laos says. “Arugula is hiding in here somewhere.”

With no irrigation or fertilizer, weeds provide mulch, shade and nitrogen for this garden – and often serve as crops themselves. “We harvest weeds along with our vegetables,” Pov says to a bunch of raised eyebrows. He counts epezote, pursulane and amaranth among weedy best sellers. They can be good for eating, or for what ails you, he says.

Indeed, Pov sees most all plants in a unique light. Take the pumpkin, for instance. Its leaves are more nutritious than its fruit, he says. “At $3 to $4 a pound, it’s more profitable than the fruit, and I don’t have to wait four months for the crop.”

As Pov escorts visitors around the farm and other family members do cooking demonstrations, Daniel Heryer takes admission. A graduate student in urban studies, Daniel believes in sustainable farming and, for him, this is one way to show it. “I want to be a farmer,” the city kid says. “The education’s a distraction.”

Daniel and other volunteers help make this day.

Under a carport at Soul and Soil Rainbow Gardens, three student chefs from Johnson County Community College stir Bev Pender’s colorful veggies into pasta primavera, earning extra credit and enjoying the day. John Spangler talks about the trend toward locally grown produce in the restaurant industry as he swirls squash and onions over the grill. “It’s so much tastier,” he says.

Bev keeps a watchful eye. “Don’t cook it too much,” she jokes. “That’s supposed to be my produce. I got to taste what those chefs cooked up.”

This gardener, if truth be told, prefers her produce raw. Her one-time backyard garden has grown to encompass seven city lots. One by one, as neighbors offered land, she couldn’t resist. Bev sells from a farm stand and at a green market – but also shares a good deal of bounty with neighbors and a nearby homeless kitchen. She hires the homeless to help tend her land, too. “I pay $5 an hour and give them produce,” she says. “It seems to really help them out.”

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