A yard begets groceries

Entrepreneurs turn clients’ land into household pantry

By Brooke Myers

Pamplin Media Group, Mar 13, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

Donna Smith of Your Backyard Farmer plants and maintains personalized gardens to feed her clients with homegrown produce.

courtesy of your backyard farmer

Donna Smith and Robyn Streeter, collectively called Your Backyard Farmer, are just beginning their second season in business and already are in the black —or should we say green.

Their formula: transform ordinary yards into personal farmers markets, leaving weekly harvests in wicker baskets on clients’ doorsteps. Their vision: create a city of self-sustaining minifarms that could maintain whole neighborhoods in the case of an emergency or natural disaster.

During the gardening high season, March 15 until Thanksgiving, Smith and Streeter are busy lugging soil and tools all over Portland. Each garden they create and maintain is personalized based on the household’s needs and tastes.

At first the pair, who both have degrees in horticulture and are passionate about organic gardening, thought they’d start a community-supported agriculture farm, but the legalese of land and water rights was discouraging. So, instead, they decided to farm on land that already is owned, i.e., backyards.

Smith describes Your Backyard Farmer’s humble beginnings: “We made pull-tab fliers on our computer, and spent all day hanging them on every community board in the city.”

By the time they got home there already were messages on their machine, and they soon had 25 clients and a waiting list.

Space and sun required

Your Backyard Farmer’s average customer is a family of four who loves the idea of eating local, organic produce but can’t make it to the farmers market every week and finds New Seasons or Whole Foods a little expensive.

For approximately $40 a week (prices vary with size of the yard and household) Your Backyard Farmer is committed to doing just that. The only requirements are ample space — 20-by-20 feet is the minimum — that receives six hours a day of direct sunlight.

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