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A Sense of Where You Are: The Quickening

Part 6 in a Series

By Brian DeVore
January 16, 2025

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Note: This is the 6th installment in the 12-part “A Sense of Where You Are” series. 

When your context is farming in the city, everything is a little faster, denser, and louder.

“We grow everything very intensively,” said Elyssa Eull on a warm evening in early September while she stood near the entrance to California Street Farm, an urban vegetable operation that grows food on a third-of-an-acre. As she said this, a BNSF train engine rolled by a few yards away.

“Because it’s such a small area, the challenges I’m experiencing with soil health are quickened,” says Elyssa Eull, shown leading a field day on her vegetable operation in Northeast Minneapolis.

Aspiring and newbie farmers had gathered here on this particular day to see how this Northeast Minneapolis operation was able to make a go of it on land tucked between a set of railroad tracks and an open lot, just across the street from a collection of artist spaces called the California Building. The event was being put on by the Twin Cities Metro Growers Network, which is an initiative of the Sustainable Farming Association.

During the field day, staffers with the University of Minnesota’s Extension Service, as well as the local office of the NRCS and the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, were on-hand to share information on resources available to farmers raising food in urban areas. As she provided a tour of the well-tended vegetable plots and two hoop houses she uses to raise over 50 varieties of vegetables, Eull fielded questions about soil health, fertility issues, government cost-share funding that’s available, and the economics of producing food in the city. It was clear the field day participants were here to learn how to make a go of it in agriculture, even if the setting was concrete and curbs, rather than fields and fencelines.

During the 2024 growing season, the farm had 37 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares and marketed produce through a farmstand set up next to the plots, as well as via the Northeast Minneapolis Farmers’ Market. Eull, who’s 30, makes enough during the growing season to pay two part-time employees and to support herself. But she didn’t sugarcoat it: urban agriculture comes with plenty of potholes, particularly when it comes to soil health.

“Because it’s such a small area, the challenges I’m experiencing with soil health are quickened,” she said. “It’s like in one year I have three years of accumulation of disease, or stress, or using up those nutrients.”

The farmer has responded by focusing on utilizing cover crops and low-till methods to build the soil’s resiliency. Eull also removes the plastic from the hoop houses periodically so that natural precipitation can dilute salts that tend to accumulate in the soil.

Eull, who is a graduate of LSP’s Farm Beginnings course, feels she has the confidence to tackle such problems because raising food in the city on a commercial basis is starting to be taken more seriously. She’s benefited greatly from U of M Extension research and NRCS conservation cost-share programs that have in the past been mostly directed at bigger row crop farmers in rural areas. For example, one of her hoop houses was funded by the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), an initiative of the NRCS.

“I think  there’s a real awareness of urban farming being real farming,” said Eull as she headed over to California Street’s farmstand on a nearby street corner, brimming with late-summer bounty.

Brian DeVore edits the Land Stewardship Letter and produces the Ear to the Ground podcast.

Give it a Listen

  • Ear to the Ground 348: Urban Agrarian (Elyssa Eull)

Installments in the ‘A Sense of Where You Are’ Series:

  1. Introduction to the Series: A Sense of Where You Are
  2. Red Dresses & Magic Management
  3. In the Blood
  4. Seeking Signs of Life
  5. Forest for the Trees
  6. The Quickening
  7. Food Bank Booster
  8. First Things First
  9. The Big Picture
  10. The Snowball Effect
  11. 7 Years Later
  12. Against the Grain

 

Category: Blog
Tags: A Sense of Where You Are • California Street Farm • CSA • Elyssa Eull • Farm Beginnings • soil health • urban agriculture • vegetable production

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September 2025

Monday September 1

All Day
Final Deadline for LSP's Farm Beginnings Course
Monday September 1
Final Deadline for LSP's Farm Beginnings Course

Beginning and prospective farmers are invited to apply to the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course, a year-long training program that focuses on the goal setting, marketing, and financial skills needed to establish a successful farm business. The Farm Beginnings course creates a space for folks to name their vision, acquire the tools and skills needed to make it happen, and become part of a community of support to help them succeed.  

The course will run from November 2025 through March 2026, with some additional educational opportunities to take place later in 2026. 

The deadline for applications is Sept. 1. Early bird applications submitted by Aug. 1 will receive a $100 discount if you are accepted into the class. Partial scholarships are available.

More details are at http://www.farmbeginnings.org or Annelie Livingston-Anderson at annelie@landstewardshipproject.org.

You can apply to the course here.

Friday September 5

9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Soil Health Field Day on the Cotter Farm: Austin
Friday September 5
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Soil Health Field Day on the Cotter Farm: Austin
50203 205th St, Austin, MN 55912, USA

 Sign up today for a get-together down on Tom Cotter’s Farm. This field day brings together food companies, local farmers and other professionals in agriculture — a perfect opportunity for networking and discussion.
Hear from soil health experts, then board the Topless Bus to take a tour of Tom’s farm. A FREE TACO BAR LUNCH will featureTom’s own grass-fed beef, along with authentic, homemade tortillas and rice. Featured speakers include soil scientist Kris Nichols and agronomist Joe Ailts.
 
You can check out the field day flier here. For more details and to register, click here.

Saturday September 6

9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Soil & Food Health Field Day: Austin
Saturday September 6
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Soil & Food Health Field Day: Austin
50203 205th St, Austin, MN 55912, USA

Details are here.

Monday September 8

7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Anne Biklé in conversation with Ross Evelsizer: What Your Food Ate
Monday September 8
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Anne Biklé in conversation with Ross Evelsizer: What Your Food Ate
Pulpit Rock Brewing Company, 207 College Dr, Decorah, IA 52101, USA

Join Anne Biklé (co-author, What Your Food Ate: How to Restore Our Land and Reclaim Our Health) and NEIA RC & D Natural Resource Projects Director, Ross Evelsizer, for a conversation and Q & A session followed by a book signing. Everyone is invited to this free event sponsored by the Oneota Valley Literary Foundation, with support from Pulpit Rock Brewing and Dragonfly Books.
 
Details on the Sept. 8 event are here.

Tuesday September 9

9:00 am – 3:00 pm
'Growing Resilience' Field Day at Churchill Reserve Grass-Fed Beef
Tuesday September 9
9:00 am – 3:00 pm
'Growing Resilience' Field Day at Churchill Reserve Grass-Fed Beef
36001 63rd Avenue Way Cannon Falls, MN, 55009

Spend a day with Clean River Partners and farmers discussing their experiences with different conservation management practices as they navigate the challenges of making a livelihood, accessing land and markets, and dealing with unpredictable weather conditions.

Join farmers Bryan Lips (BT Farms), Wendy Johnson (Jóia Food & Fiber Farm), Todd Churchill (Churchill Reserve), Helen Forsythe (Feed the People Farm Cooperative), and more, to discuss topics like wide-row corn and cover crops, the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program, agroforestry, growing small grains, and prescribed grazing. 

For more information and to register, click here. 

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Recent Posts

  • Farmers to AG: Take Action to Counteract Community-Killing Consolidation August 27, 2025
  • Tell the MPCA by Sept. 10 to Focus on Clean Water, New Crops & Living Cover August 22, 2025
  • Land Line: Farm Finance Crisis, Mental Health, Inflated Inputs, Crop-Livestock Synergy, Bread Bloat, Pesticides in Water, Soil Health & MAHA August 9, 2025
  • Farmers Gather in Madison to Discuss ‘Bringing Small Grains Back to Minnesota’ August 6, 2025
  • Land Line: USDA Changes, Climate-Smart Ag, Dead Zone, Nitrate Pollution, Feedlot Regs, Soil Bacteria, the Power of Diverse Farming July 28, 2025

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