The Neighborhood Farm
A collection of market gardens in and around Needham, MA
About The Farm
2008 was our first growing season. We grew produce at six locations around Needham. In 2009 we expanded and added three more gardens. In 2010 we were growing on a total of about 3/4 of an acre. In 2011 we have about 2 and a half acres of gardens spread across 11 sites stretched in a ribbon through Needham, Dedham, Westwood and Medfield. 10 of our sites are located in private yards, and the 11th site is located on land owned by the Trustees of Reservations.
Although we are not building any new gardens at the moment, we always collect information about potential garden sites that we may be able to use in the future. If you're interested in hosting a garden, please contact us and we'll add your site to our list.
Our gardens range in size from 400 square feet to 60,000 square feet (about an acre and a half). We try to find the best mix of crops to grow in each garden and we rotate our crops from garden to garden each year.
We grow everything without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, although we have not applied for organic certification. We are trying to develop sustainable, low input systems for all our operations. Organic certification is a multi-year process, and is something we may pursue over the next several years.
A number of factors motivated us to start The Neighborhood Farm. The increasing demand for local, healthy food requires more local farms. However, the lack of undeveloped, reasonably priced land in the Boston suburbs forced us to think of different ways to farm. We were inspired by the victory gardens of WWII and felt that many market gardens might be the most practical way to bring a new “farm” to the suburbs.
We are committed to educating people about farming and gardening. We hope to inspire people to think about where their food comes from and to try growing some of their own. Even a tiny garden can grow a lot of food.
Kate Canney is the primary grower for The Neighborhood Farm. Trained in sustainable agriculture, organic farming, and education, Kate wanted to find ways to bring more local food and farms into urban and suburban areas.
In addition to farming, we have a floral design business, Empress Josephine Florals. Many of the flowers that we grow are used for our flower arrangements. We specialize in flowers for "green" events as we try to use either our own naturally grown flowers, or other flowers that are grown locally with as few synthetic inputs as possible. You can see pictures of our flowers on our website: www.empressjosephine.com
