Hilltop Urban Farm to focus on farming
The Hilltop Urban Farm got the go-ahead from Pittsburgh Public Schools to hold its Summer Dream Academy this year, but in April had to switch to virtual.
With everyone learning from home due to COVID-19, Ned Brockmeyer was faced with this question: How do you dig in the dirt on a computer?
You can’t, of course. So the nonprofit’s executive director shifted gears as waves of layoffs and furloughs left thousands of people desperate for food.
“We have all this land prepared for farming and now we have a new tractor and three tillers, so we’re doing what a farm does,” Mr. Brockmeyer said.
A strong component of the farm’s mission is to train youth in the city’s hilltop neighborhoods, but the St. Clair site has been nearly bereft of young volunteers except for some members of the Student Conservation Association.
During this quiet summer, farm staff have been delivering 100-120 pounds of produce each week to the Brashear Association, a 103-year-old nonprofit on the South Side. Deliveries from the farm supplement Brashear’s food pantry offerings to 185 clients per month, said Ron Brown, director of programs and services.
The bulk of what clients typically receive is in cans or packages, he said, so having this much fresh, local produce every week has been a welcome extra.
“We’ve had a 30% jump in clients since March, and those numbers are holding steady among families with children,” Mr. Brown said. “But we are seeing more young adults” in recent weeks.
The Hilltop Urban Farm is a work in progress on a 23-acre site within the footprint of the former St. Clair Village public housing complex. The homes were built in the 1950s and had a peak of 465 units. It was fully demolished by 2010. The farm coalesced under the umbrella of the Hilltop Alliance, a community development organization based in Allentown.
About 10 of the acres are currently producing food, including a fruit orchard and incubation space for three farmers who are new to the site this year. One is John Boujoukos, who is donating about half the produce Brashear receives. Mr. Boujoukos said he hopes to launch a viable family-farm business within three years on the site.
His crops include broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers, squash, corn, peas, green beans, mustard greens, bok choy, “a ton of herbs,” garlic and onions, ‘Golden Pearls’ wonderberry, ground cherries and watermelon.
Hilltop’s goal is to rotate in new farmers every three years or so to give more people opportunities to make a go of agriculture on a local scale, Mr. Brockmeyer said. As more land is prepared for planting, he said, the farm wants to give more Hilltop residents a chance to be farmerentrepreneurs.
Mr. Boujoukos, who lives on the South Side, studied plant science, agro-ecology and horticulture at Penn State University. After getting his bachelor’s degree in 2017, he apprenticed at small family farms around the country, including at a student farm in State College.
At the hilltop farm, he has a quarter acre, and he is also farming a quarter acre in Hazelwood. He provides food boxes to 28 weekly customers of his Community Supported Agriculture enterprise.
“I am starting to sell to little groceries, starting with Dylamato’s in Hazelwood, and I’m hoping to get into a farmer’s
market,” he said. “I think I could farm up to three acres.”
Improved refrigeration at the farm this year is giving farmers capacity to scale up their enterprises, he said. The farm also has three new tillers and a tractor purchased with a $17,000 grant from Dollar Bank.
The Hilltop Urban Farm may never use all of its 23 acres, but there are plans for more hoop houses and livestock on the less arable center meadow, Mr. Brockmeyer said. It has taken this long to get 10 acres in production because backhoes have dug out bricks, chunks of foundation and decades of household debris as new plots are prepared for growing. It also took several years to mitigate damage to the soil.
The farm was an idea advanced by Aaron Skuenik, executive director of the Hilltop Alliance, in 2013. The idea gathered a host of partners that included Grow Pittsburgh, the Penn State Center and the Allegheny Land Trust, which has bought the land from the federal government.
Over the years, its funders have included Neighborhood Allies, PNC Bank Foundation, Heinz Endowments and Henry L. Hillman Foundation, which has been the largest contributor.