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Blog post by David Shapiro Denver Green School Community Farm (managed by Sprout City Farms) is situated in Denver, Colorado, USA. We are an organic 1.1 acre farm on the grounds of a Denver Public School, The Denver Green School.  We grow vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers and sell/donate our produce directly to the school cafeteria, in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, at farm stands and donate produce to local nonprofit organizations like the African Community Center.  We grow 120 varieties of vegetables, fruits, flowers and herbs on our farm.  The most popular items we grow are varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes and squash. Sprout City Farms grew out of the growing movement to put farms on school grounds in Denver, Colorado.  Our Farm Manager has spent nine years growing fresh produce and serves as both a farmer and educator at Denver Green School.  We have been motivated by serving healthy produce to children and are constantly developing our program to serve the needs of the school and it's students.

We have one full time employee, one part time employee and a crew of four interns working on our farm.  Our farmers come from a variety of backgrounds and are all interested in sustainable agriculture. We farm by hand only.  The size of our farm (1.1 acre) is small enough to be maintained with labor and hand tools.  Through crop rotation and effective planting schedules we are able to grow 100% organic produce.  We supplement our soil with locally produced compost full of valuable nutrients.

Our goals for the future include integrating an education plan into our programming.  The education plan would meet public school core standards.  We would also like to build a high tunnel on our farm to extend our growing season.  Future projects could include adding another school farm or another institutional farm (healthcare facility) to our repertoire. farmhopping is a great idea!  We are trying to achieve financial sustainability, funds from responsible consumers would help us achieve our goal of providing organic produce to children and communities that lack access to this commodity.

We can offer institutional farming knowledge.  We could start a pen-pal campaign where students and families from Denver Green School could correspond with farmhoppers who have sponsored our farm in order to relate stories about how our farm and the produce they are eating is impacting their lives. Unfortunately, we can not accommodate guests. However, we employee several volunteers and interns throughout the farming season.  So, if a farmhopper is in the Denver area, they could certainly help out by working on our farm either for a one-time experience or a spring / summer long internship.