What started in Brooklyn in 2010 is now riding into cities across America — hand truck farm . A truck farm is a garden or micro - urban farm plant in the bed of a pickup truck . The motion commence when King Korn filmmaker Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney metamorphose a 1986 Dodge Ram into a roving farm on wheels . Theirfarm motortruck documentaryand farm truck visits have since sparked a fleet of active farm trucks across America .
Urban Farmcaught up with Corbin Lichtinger — a K-8 teacher andFoodCorps alumnus — about his farm hand truck adventures in Portland , Ore.
How did you get started with a truck farm?
Corbin Lichtinger
I volunteered for three days with FoodCorps , a interior program that helps students gain access to goodly , local foods through husbandry and education . I worked in an urban center in Lewiston , Maine . It was an old John Mill township , and they were taking abandoned lots and turning them into garden called “ Lots to plot . ” Although it was a primarily white townspeople , East African refugees and immigrant made up about 80 percent of the school where I was teaching horticulture , food and nutrition . That experience hooked me on education , nutrient and schools .
After move to Portland , I make love I wanted to remain teaching using these multi - sensory experience . I began teaching for a K-8 public school , Sunnyside Environmental School . There , I did similar work , teaching student about gardening , cooking and where their intellectual nourishment fare from . FoodCorps asked if I would continue my work with them in Portland and add a truck farm . I bought a 1963 Ford F100 and worked with Truck Farm Colorado - founding father Curt Ellis , and within a calendar month had a garden built in the back of it .
What special considerations do you have to consider when caring for/hauling a truck garden?
There are some big things . One of the biggest affair is lead . I ’ve farmed in Ohio , Pennsylvania and Maine , but rarely have I dealt with 40 to 45 miles per hour lead . I had to be originative about where certain veggie would go . I put my lettuce greens and short vegetable , like hemangioma simplex , carrots and root matter toward the back of the layer .
I grew four unlike varieties of garlic , and those did well . I put common pepper and eggplant toward the cab , but the capsicum did not do well . The tomatoes did phenomenally this class . I ca n’t parallel park because I have a Lycopersicon esculentum forest .
Another issue is temperature because you ’re rise in a blade box seat , so it really heat up up . So , you take to weigh parking in shaded region . The whole garden has just done really well—18 different crops like lettuce , Daucus carota sativa , radishes , onions , pineapple sage , Mexican husk tomato , chives and lots of dissimilar herbs .
How does your farm truck play a role with your FoodCorps work and the K-8 children you work with?
The children help weed the garden . The garden is upright for taste try . And the best way I ’ve used it is to ignite a sense of curiosity and silliness . In the midst of serious food issue , the motortruck farm lend a playful way to look at farming and healthy eating . We reap the herbs to make unlike salad dressings and the lucre for salads . All the produce has been used at some time in the dejeuner line of Sunnyside Elementary .
What’s surprised you the most about having a truck garden?
Just seeing age fall away in response to the truck farm . They revert to a round-eyed disposal . I ’m always surprise how speedily someone stop , either walking , biking or driving . It always causes genuine break .
Is the truck garden seasonal? Can one truck garden in the winter?
Last year was the first winter for the truck farm , and it was pretty modest . I put a row cover over it in the wintertime to quash frost . I was able to grow kale and garlic , my strawberries survived . Since it ’s a raised bed , it cool off faster . Ian and Curt ( farm hand truck founders ) from Brooklyn , N.Y. , had a more heavy responsibility nursery frame-up .
Any advice for land-strapped farmers who don’t have trucks? Can you do this with other vehicles?
There ’s a competition Ian launched to see where you could raise things . One of the contest achiever arise plants out of a cycle wing . Another used their Prius as a greenhouse . You could have a motorcycle with a sidecar garden . Thinking as creatively and playfully as possible , your opportunities are sempiternal .
