Urby farm revs up for the season on Staten Island
Rabbit’s Garden Farm employs organic practices although it is not a certified organic farm.
By Pamela Silvestri
SIlive
Feb 20, 2020
Excerpt:
Temps might hover in the 40s this week but Olivia Driscoll Gamber’s mind is on spring greens. Urby’s resident farmer cranks up the raised flower beds and rooftop fields at her “Rabbit’s Garden Farm,” a 5,000-square-foot urban agricultural effort in Stapleton.
Gamber plans to sell herbs like basil, cilantro and parsley from her perennial herb patch. There will be ornamental, cut flowers, a popular draw to the farm. Produce this upcoming season includes beets, arugula, carrots, radishes, Asian greens like bok choy, mizuna and chrysanthemum greens.
The taste of mum greens, she says, is “a little spinach-y, a little bitter with a little floral.”
“Our entire harvest is a couple of thousand pounds over all,” she says. Her strategy for the planting season ahead is to grow “small amounts of many things.”
She adds, “I find it so much more fun!”
There are no bees coming to Urby this year for honey. She’ll give another go of peppers, a crop that didn’t fare well in 2019.
