This urban farmer transformed her lawn with collards, amaranth and sweet potatoes
We have a free neighborhood farm stand. We grow extras to offer to our immediate neighborhood. We built a pink farm stand and put it out every Sunday and the neighbors come by.
By Lisa Boone
LA Times
June 18, 2021
Excerpt:
It’s an unlikely location for a farm: the front yard of a shared rental property in a residential neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. But, Siri Lorece Hirth says, her neighbors often stop to admire her 1-year-old edible garden and visit the free farmstand that she and her husband Patrick host on Sundays.
“Only a small portion of land is available for us to grow anything, but we have found a way,” says Hirth of her former front lawn.
Hirth has been gardening and growing food for years and her farm business — Creative Arts Farm — started back in 2015. “We were looking for land to expand and we had a business plan,” she says. “When the pandemic hit, we thought about what we could do to help our community thrive during such a difficult time. I was doing garden consultations and thought, ‘Now is the time to offer wellness in a public way.’ I’m a business person. If I say I’m doing something; I’ll do it. And I’m so glad we did.”
Indeed, Hirth’s business model has taken off. She currently offers virtual garden consultations and restorative yoga classes, and sells her tree collards at the Prosperity Market, a Los Angeles-based mobile farmers market that hosts Black farmers. (While she documents her growing journey on Instagram at @creativeartsfarm, she doesn’t share her home location publicly because she doesn’t want to encourage visitors who might disturb her neighbors.)
