Apr 28, 2021
Editor’s note: The following information is derived from an interview Agritecture conducted with Wendy Coleman, Partner & Founder at LA Urban Farms, along with Partners Melanie Dorsey and Jennifer Crane.
Farming Begins With Family
Almost 8 years ago, Wendy Coleman was searching for a passion as the youngest of her three children was graduating high school. With her daughter, Jessica, creating her own college degree in sustainability and environmental awareness, and sharing what she had been learning, Wendy was inspired by the intersection of sustainability and food production.
What really stood out to Wendy was vertical farming, a term she’d never heard before. The possibility of being able to feed our growing population, set to reach over 9 billion people by the year 2050, was daunting in her mind. But, vertical farming drew pathways that could help reduce this burden and ensure food access for everyone. Wendy decided to test out her green thumb with vertical farming with three gardens in her own backyard.
After joking for years about having only fake plants in their house, to their surprise, 30 days after setting up their own vertical farm, the Colemans were growing their own produce. “It was thrilling that we could step outside and harvest our own spinach, arugula, and lettuces for green smoothies, make salads and grill vegetables. And, from there, we started sharing our passion for what was happening in our own backyard with our friends and family”.
Hitting The Road Running
After firmly establishing their own ability to farm vertically in their own backyard, Wendy looked ahead to step two: understanding the technology behind vertical farming. “We met with the developer for the patent of the technology of these farms (Tim Blank) who had a wealth of hydroponic knowledge from working for 12 years at Disney’s Epcot attraction called The Land, managing their greenhouse pavilion”.
With this knowledge base, Wendy, alongside partners Jennifer and Melanie, and her children, Jessica, Tara, and Chase, moved forward with developing “the very first aeroponic rooftop farm on a commercial office building in our city of Los Angeles. It was actually on the old Google building in Santa Monica, California”. According to Wendy, “we had over 1000 edible plants, but we didn't really have a plan for where they were going to go, we didn't have an end user”. With no definite plan in place, the team started conversing with local chefs and restaurants, “we started sharing our produce and bringing freshly-grown harvests to their kitchens, creating an interest”. This was the beginning of step 3: increasing farm visibility.
Bringing Vertical Farming to LA
According to Wendy, when LA Urban Farms first started, “there were no other vertical gardens that were visible in our city. There were only two locations up on rooftops, but the public didn't have access to them. And so, most people weren't even aware that you could grow your own food vertically, or that you didn't have to have soil”.
The team strove forward putting these gardens up in highly visible locations, starting with their town’s neighborhood restaurant Cafe Vida. With just three in the restaurant’s alley, Wendy shares that “it was amazing to see the interest the gardens got right in our little neighborhood”. The team expanded their restaurant base by installing a farm for Chef Helen Cavallo on the Sunset Gower Studios Movie Lot. Wendy explains that the team “took an old smoking area and transformed it into a bountiful garden for her restaurant, Food And Bounty, that’s 15 steps away from her kitchen door, and grows over 600 edible plants”.
From here, the team dreamt bigger, and eventually installed a vertical farm at The Getty House, home of Mayor Eric Garcetti and his wife, Amy Wakeland. Wendy shares that the Mayor always calls himself their best marketer. “The couple hosts many different events throughout the year, which we are often invited to. We love getting to share our knowledge and experience with this vertical farming technology, and spreading the vision and creating an awareness for growing food in a sustainable way”. As a bonus, most of the produce that’s grown at The Getty House is donated to The People Concern, an organization working to help people who are experiencing homelessness across LA.
The Technology That Made It All Possible
LA Urban Farms uses aeroponic technology in their vertical farms. By excluding soil from the equation and using air or mist environments to grow the crops, the plants better absorb water, oxygen and nutrients. “And so, our system, which has a 20 gallon reservoir filled with water, is also filled with the 13 Earth minerals that all plants need to grow. Additionally, there's a low-wattage submersible pump that brings the water to the top of the gardens, and on the way down the tower, it showers all the roots that are hanging in there with nutrient rich water, recirculating over and over again until the plants absorb it or it evaporates,” explains Wendy.
As a result of this constant recirculation, the tower gardens utilize 90% less water and are able to grow 10 times more in the same amount of ground space. Wendy claims that the really fascinating part of aeroponics is “that when you harvest the plants, the roots are attached. And so, it's living produce, you're eating a living plant with 100% of its nutritional value and flavor”.
Building A Relationship With The Community
Wendy shares that “she’s so grateful to have found her passion, and to be able to have a business that makes a positive difference by helping people to grow their own healthy food. We have witnessed first hand the enormous impact it has on people’s lives, because you gain a different awareness and appreciation for your food, you feel a special connection to your own food when you grow it yourself”. The team highlights how “when you plant a seed, you watch that seed grow into a baby seedling and then finally into a full mature plant that you can harvest and enjoy, you appreciate your food in a different way. You understand the journey your food takes to get to your plate, and as a result, you make healthier food choices”.
So far, LA Urban Farms has worked with families in their backyards, with chefs to grow at their restaurants using only 30 inches of space, with developers to use unused spaces like rooftops in their planning to grow healthy food for their communities, with businesses like IKEA in their corporate offices for their employees to enjoy, with universities to inspire their students and use in their dining halls, with Hotels growing on site to inspire their patrons, and with organizations providing access to healthy food for those in need. Will you be their next customer? To learn more about or to collaborate with LA Urban Farms, go here.
