Certified-organic agriculture avoids most of the synthetic pesticides and herbicides found in conventional agriculture. These substances have been linked to birth defects, obesity, diabetes, ADHD, Alzheimers, Parkinson’s disease, and cancer. Each time you choose organic, you choose to leave these chemicals off your plate...

Modern conventional, production-intensive agriculture has literally sucked the life out of our soils. That means more and more outside fertilizer, water, and pesticides are needed to keep up yields but this comes at an enormous cost to our farmland. And dead soil is like an empty bank account, environmentally and nutritionally...

Bugs, bugs, bugs. They’re everywhere! And fungus, blights, and mold oh my! These are the bane of farmers everywhere—after all, they know good food when they see it, just like us.

But, left unchecked, they can destroy entire fields and orchards, not to mention leave our fruits and veggies looking pretty ugly. And that has sparked the heavy use of very poisonous pesticides...

Cover crops are plants grown specifically to help enrich the soil during the off-season or when certain fields are given a rest for a season to regenerate. They are planted just like any other crop but then are eventually tilled back into the soil, where they decompose and add to the organic matter already in the ground. We conduct annual soil tests to determine exactly which plants to grow where.

Legumes (like beans, peas, and peanuts) are the wonders of the plant world because their roots absorb nitrogen. All plants and animals need nitrogen to exist, but while it makes up 80 percent of our air, it’s in a form that they can’t access. But, with the help of specific bacteria...

We’ve all been hearing a lot more in the media about carbon sequestration and the role it can play in slowing down climate change. In the simplest terms, carbon sequestration means removing carbon dioxide from our air and sequestering (storing) it in other places.

Plants absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and store the carbon in their trunks, branches, leaves, and roots. Since farms and their associated forests and natural areas take up a lot of land, their potential to remove significant carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is huge and probably underestimated...

To enrich our soil, we use compost. Lots of it. What exactly is it?

Simply put, all organic matter rots. Over time, bacteria and other organisms break down everything from chicken poop to old zucchinis into a dirt-like substance that’s highly nutritious for plants. Compost is fantastic for building fertility, giving soil structure so it can better absorb and retain water (always an issue in dry California), and even suppressing certain plant diseases. It also increases the microorganisms in the soil, which helps our plants and trees produce better-tasting fruit and vegetables for you.

What goes into our compost?...

Farms produce a lot of waste. A fruit-and-vegetable farm like ours generates huge amounts of spoiled produce, branches, spent plants, leaves, and weeds. Zero-waste agriculture simply means that nothing ever goes into a landfill that sits and produces harmful methane gases—instead,...

At the Urban Edge, we are currently digging holes and prepping the ground to plant hedgerows (lines of small trees, shrubs, perennial flowers, and grasses) on both the north and east sides of the farm. (That’s so we don’t have to look at our neighbors. Just kidding!)

So far, we have chosen Western redbud, California lilac, flannel bush, and toyon. Lower-height plants will be planted next to the taller shrubs; they include deergrass, yarrow, aster, salvia, and other California native plants.

We plant hedgerows for many reasons...