The
owner of the property, who lives in the house in front of the small
farm, approached Jeff Newman of Steel City Soils about setting up a
member-owner farm. In March, the land behind the house was simply a
lawn. Today, the sod has been torn up and composted, and the yard
is planted with peppers, tomatoes, cabbages, peas, radishes, and other
produce.

“We
want more people to get rid of their lawns and eat their backyards,”
said Newman, whose truck sports an “Eat Your Backyard” sticker.
The member-owner setup of the farm means that Newman does maintenance
work on the farm and consults with the owner, who pays the upfront costs.
They share the produce.

Newman,
who graduated from college in 2006, actually studied electrical engineering.
When he and his roommate wanted to go into business together, their
first thought was electronics, not agriculture. However, when
they looked at long-term trends, they found that the best option was,
as he put it, “investing in soil.” Newman quit his job and
walked through that old red door and into the composting business.
He now drives a truck that runs on vegetable oil that he uses to pick
up waste from restaurants that he can compost. “The backbone
of organics is in the compost,” Newman said.

He
also pointed out that composting is a way to make money in order to
support this type of urban farming. One of the biggest problems
in getting people involved in the urban agriculture movement is convincing
them that it can be profitable. “It’s really hard to make
money farming or else people would do it,” Newman said.