2025-2026 Farm Beginnings Class
LSP is now accepting applications for its 2025-2026 Farm Beginnings class session. For details, click here.
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By the time Elyssa Eull moved back to Minnesota a few years ago, she already had several years of experience working on vegetable farms. But she felt that in order to successfully launch her own farming enterprise, she needed to learn more about business planning and marketing; Eull also wanted to connect with other folks who were interested in producing food for a living. So she enrolled in the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course. The course is taught by farmers and other ag professionals, and helps participants form networks with other beginners as well as established farmers. For Eull, who is 30, those connections paid off. She is in the midst of her fourth growing season on California Street Farm, a small vegetable operation tucked between railroad tracks and a commercial building in Northeast Minneapolis.
California Street is located on land leased from the owners of the California Building, and was originally founded by Jim Bovino and Jillia Pessenda back in 2012. A few different people have grown on the land over the years, and the farm was reinvigorated in 2019 by Ashley Thorfinnson and Chris Barth. The couple are Farm Beginnings grads as well, and Eull met them through the course. When Thorfinnson and Barth were ready to move on, Eull took over California Street.
Today, Eull’s operation grows some 50 varieties of vegetables on a third-of-an-acre. She has two employees during the growing season, and the farmer has used initiatives such as the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program to set up infrastructure. The farm markets its produce via a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) enterprise. It also has a farm stand on-site and sells produce through the Northeast Minneapolis Farmers’ Market.
Eull is farming in a metro area at a time when urban agriculture is gaining traction with beginning farmers, as well as eaters and city governments, university researchers, and government agencies. For example, the USDA has launched urban service centers for farmers in various places around the country, including Minnesota’s Twin Cities.
Eull recently talked to the Land Stewardship Letter about why she took Farm Beginnings, the challenges and opportunities that come with farming in the city, and why she thinks urban agriculture is beginning to catch on. Below are excerpts of that interview. To listen to the full conversation, see episode 348 of LSP’s Ear to the Ground podcast.
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Urban Soil’s Challenges
“How do we prioritize soil health when I’m trying to make a living for myself and for my two employees off of a third of an acre? Soil health is so important when you’re farming on such an intense scale. Most beds are turned over two- to three- times in a season; it’s like I have three years packed into one year of accumulation of disease or stress or using up those nutrients. Because everything is so tightly planted, disease transfer from plant-to-plant is very quick.
“We also have problems with high phosphorus accumulations as a result of long-term use of manure-based compost. So we’re trying to get away from using that source of fertility and are incorporating more cover crops.
“I learned about no- and low-till several years ago, specifically when thinking about heavy tillage in the soil and how that really weakens the soil and disrupts the fungal communities. So on my farm, I call what we use low-till because our only form of tillage is with a broad fork; I’m never flipping the topsoil upside down in a way that disrupts the natural layers of things.
“We have two hoop houses and I started noticing a pretty severe drop-off in production after year three. So I got involved with the University of Minnesota Extension’s project that offers free soil testing in high tunnels and fields at 100 vegetable farms across the state. As a result of soil tests they did on my farm, I’m working on rotating crops in the high tunnels and taking the plastic off my hoop house every few years to expose it to the elements.”
Grant Programs for Urban Ag
“There’s actually getting to be a fair amount of resources available through agencies like the Natural Resources Conservation Service and U of M Extension for urban agriculture.
“For example, I used cost share funds from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to build my second hoop house. And because I built a fairly small hoop house, the funding that I got was able to cover the entirety of the structure, which is really, really great for me. I have also received funding through the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s demonstration grant program and through nonprofits like the National Young Farmers Coalition.”
Making a Living in Urban Ag
“This is my income for the whole year. The income is all made mostly in the summertime, with a little bit in the winter because of the CSA. That income lasts me for the whole year and I pay two part-time employees. So margins are very tight but it can make money. And every single year we look into what kind of grant funding we can gain access to.
“I don’t have a mortgage and I’m low income enough that I don’t have to pay for my student loans. So it’s sort of what works for you. It does work for me. It does pay the bills.”
Why Farming?
“I did not come from a farming background, and I think originally what connected me to farming was food, cooking, and just having a growing connectedness with my food and where it comes from. I also took international studies in college and I learned a lot about industrial farming and how food is shipped around the world and gets processed in so many different ways. I became very frustrated about what felt like an extremely inefficient system that was very extractive.
“And about seven years ago, I took my first job at a diversified vegetable farm in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, and I think I knew pretty quickly into that job that not only did I love to grow food, I loved how varied farming is. It really helps me wrestle with some of these big questions of social issues around land access and climate. I just think it puts me in a place where I get to think about some of those really big and tough questions while also just getting in the dirt and working with my hands and putting my head down.
“I had been farming in Massachusetts for a couple of years and when I moved back here I felt I needed to take a course like Farm Beginnings to connect with other farmers in this community and to learn things about money and business planning and marketing. And it just helped me get connected to so many people who I consider peers as well as mentors. It continues to just weave this web for me. That all helps support me; it’s part of my insurance.
“And I was connected to the folks who sold me this farm, so ultimately, the Farm Beginnings network was essential for me starting my own farm business.”
Urban Ag’s Moment
“I do think there’s more awareness of urban farming being a real version of farming, and that feels really good. I think that part of the prejudice around who’s a farmer and who’s not gets passed down to all of us, even us urban farmers. And it can be easy to think like, ‘Oh, I’m not a farmer. I’m a gardener or, you know, like at what point do I qualify as a farmer?’
“But I think that if you’re growing food for other people and you’re curious about what programs are available to support that, you should register your farm with the USDA so they know you’re out there and you can start understanding what kind of funding opportunities might be available.
“There are so many people who are interested in how we make changes to positively impact the climate. Farming is a huge player in making those changes, and urban farming feels approachable to people in a way that large-scale farming doesn’t.
“If anything, urban farming is more visible to the general population because it’s right here where they’re walking their dogs and walking their kid to school and they see it when they drive to work. They’re like, what’s going on? I absolutely think that urban agriculture is having a moment. I hope it’s having a moment —that would be beneficial for all of us.” ♦
This profile originally appeared in the No. 1, 2025, Land Stewardship Letter. To read other Farm Beginnings profiles, click here. You can hear the stories of Farm Beginnings grads on our Fresh Voices podcast series.
