Photo by Bianca Benson

How luxurious and convenient, to arrive home after a long day of work and find a wicker basket overflowing in ripe vegetables from your own yard. The magic of this idea wowed Portlanders from the first year Your Backyard Farmer began, bringing Smith and Streeter more eager clients than their small operation could accommodate.

From 20-year-olds to the elderly, from the wealthy to those living paycheck-to-paycheck, Smith and Streeter’s clients don’t fit into a single mold. And their reasons for signing up are as varied as their lifestyles: the convenience of having someone else take care of one more activity they wish they could fit into a hectic day; the value of bringing in experts to improve their soil quality, build trellises, and schedule plantings; the simple charm of looking out of their bedroom window onto healthy plants; and the satisfaction of feeding their family from their own land.

A formal relationship with Your Backyard Farmers begins with a consultation: Smith and Streeter visit the home, bringing with them a list of produce and herb varieties from which their clients can pick and choose. Pending six hours of strong sunlight on the backyard plot and the commitment of the landowners, the duo designs the backyard farm. Foremost in mind are the resident’s household size and eating desires: Your Backyard Farmer will do for a client’s palate what a personal shopper will do for their wardrobe — target their tastes and then expand their options.

In February, Smith and Streeter build soil for their clients. In order to create a vibrant ecology, Smith divulges that the women use “lasagna layering” with coffee grounds from First Cup on SE Woodstock and cardboard from the auto body shop up the street. In March and April, Smith and Streeter plant the farm.

In some cases, Your Backyard Farmer tends land for people with disabilities who otherwise struggle or are unable to manage a vegetable patch. Smith came to the business from a medical background, having received her Horticulture Therapy Certificate in 2004 from Legacy Emanuel Hospital. “Horticulture Therapy is a way of communicating without words,” she discloses. “You work through plants and growing, which connects the person with something other than what they’re stuck in.”

Perhaps that’s the great irony of their initial business model. It doesn’t involve the homeowners in farming. Like an electrician, Smith and Streeter arrive with their own private skill set and perform their job. But the pair is quick to assert that although they carry out the majority of the upkeep, their patrons are more connected to the process and their land than one might imagine. Week by week, families experience the changing season — from April rhubarb to mid-May strawberries — through their harvest basket and time spent observing.

For many homeowners, sponsoring a miniature farm is a big first step toward rediscovering their relationship to raw ingredients and growing plants. “My generation was the first that didn’t have or that had very minimal food grown in yards,” Smith says. “We learned that food comes from the grocery store.”

Many clients slowly ease their way into backyards they hadn’t set foot in for years. “Suddenly we’ll discover a bench or a lawn chair next to the beds,” Streeter recounts. Consistently, the backyard farm compels residents to take further action toward home improvement and ecological conservation, becoming avid compost-users, unplugging their downspouts, and collecting water in rain barrels.

After the first year, Smith and Streeter discovered that many of their clients wanted to till their own land. “We get a lot of people who one year ago didn’t know how to put a plant in the ground, now striking out on their own,” Streeter says. Recognizing the vast potential to support the efforts, this past year Your Backyard Farmer began a nine-month consulting service: For $100 each month, the women guide homeowners through running their own backyard farm. During hands-on lessons, Streeter and Smith teach about soil preparation, organics, and succession planting.

The two women have more than business prowess leading them forward; they have a vision for our city’s future — a fixation on the power of backyard farms to feed the urban population. Whatever their clients’ reasons for signing on, the two endow larger significance to their activities, namely, the establishment of food-secure communities. Their vision helps explain why the pair so adamantly insists that they’re not working with gardens but rather with farms — a subtle yet important distinction. They grow food first and foremost for sustenance.

“We must prioritize securing a reliable food source within the city limits in case everything shuts down,” Smith declares. “Eating food that is fresh, safe, and local is imperative.” Your Backyard Farmer reduces the eco-footprint of food distribution to the steps it takes from backyard to doorstep.

Both women feel frustrated by current city planning. “Look at the standard house that they’re building now,” Streeter fumes. “There’s no property around it. How would you grow food on it?” Smith has a concrete vision for revising our city planning laws: For every new development, enough land would be allotted to grow food to feed all residents.

Streeter remarks, “if Portland city officials are going to talk about ‘green building’ projects, bring it down to the food level. Our basic need is food. If we don’t have a dependable food source, we’re not going to be alive. Our work demonstrates that a tiny space can feed your family.”

Ashley Griffin is a Portland-based freelance writer who has also written for Portland Monthly, Northwest Palate, and The Oregonian.

Lola Milholland is a Food & Farms program assistant at Ecotrust. She recently graduated from Amherst College with a B.A. in Asian Studies.

Contact:
Your Backyard Farmer
Email Donna or Robyn

More information:
The changing landscape of Portland urban agriculture