In addition to backyard farming and engaging families in the farming enterprise, Green City Growers offers consulting on a number of services, including micro-livestock, mushroom culture, indoor/four-season growing, soil remediation, alternative energy, recycled windmills, passive and active solar power, beehives, composting, straw-bale and green-roof construction, and more. They use and teach organic, sustainable practices, and are excited to help people remember to use the land.

Backyard CSAs

Community Supported Agriculture came to Massachusetts in 1985, and has been growing ever since, with currently over 1000 in the U.S. Backyard CSAs (which may have started with Spin Farming in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, about 15 years ago) are a more urban version of CSA, and they are on the rise, too.

A farmer running a backyard CSA farms a network of other people's small backyard gardens in the city. In return for the use of the land, owners receive a CSA subscription that includes one basket of freshly picked, organically grown produce every week, once the gardens start producing. Each mini-farm produces much more food than the land owners can eat, thus supporting non-landowner shares. Non-land-owners pay a subscription fee to the farmer, usually early in the season.

City Garden Farms
In the spring of 2008, Dan Bravin ran an ad on Craigslist: “City Garden Farms wants to farm your lot, plot, or yard. The more we grow, the less you mow.” He and Martin Barrett had a successful first season, as City Garden Farms found a willing audience in Portland, Oregon.