During my trip to NYC, I visited Jonathan Sumner, the Farm Manager at Riverpark Farm, one of the most unusual urban farms I’ve ever visited.
He grows in 3,200 individual milk creates on real estate that’s probably some of the most expensive in the city. All of the produce goes to Riverpark, a celebrity chef-owned high-end restaurant right on the water, surrounded by the Bellevue Hospital and the UN building.
In this long tour, we dive deep with Jonathan and learn how he’s producing such epic harvests out of what looks to be a challenging growing space – many small crates, crazy wind, and minimal sun.
IN THIS VIDEO
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Other links may be affiliate links in which we receive a commission.
– https://www.instagram.com/farmer_jonathan_nyc/
– https://www.instagram.com/riverparknyc/
SUPPORT EPIC GARDENING
→ Buy Birdies Raised Beds: https://shop.epicgardening.com
→ Buy My Books: https://shop.epicgardening.com/collections/books
→ Support Directly: https://www.patreon.com/epicgardening
LEARN MORE
Epic Gardening is much more than a YouTube channel:
→ 2nd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/epicurbanhomestead
→ In-Depth Articles: http://www.epicgardening.com/blog
→ Daily Podcast: https://apple.co/2nkftuk
→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epicgardening/
→ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/epicgardening
→ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@epicgardening
→ Discord Server: https://discord.gg/cuXxvKRwKN
→ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/epicgardening/
→ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/epicgardening
→ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/epicgardening
DISCLAIMER
Epic Gardening occasionally links to goods or services offered by vendors to help you find the best products to care for plants. Some of these may be affiliate links, meaning we earn a small commission if items are purchased. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. More info on our process: https://www.epicgardening.com/disclaimer/
0:00 – Intro
1:04 – Greenhouse
3:10 – Surrounding Area and Growing Challenges
4:03 – Growing Fresh Lima Beans
6:43 – Why Grow In Milk Crates?
8:59 – Cover Cropping Milk Crates
11:51 – Irrigating Milk Crates
15:11 – Growing Okra and Sorghum
17:15 – Walking Tour of Beds
23:46 – Growing Indigo to Dye Cloth
26:05 – Sun Challenges and Crate Rotation
33:22 – Outro and Taste Test of Different Produce
This video is beautifully inspiring. I am having lots of trouble finding any follow up info about Jonathan and his garden? Is it still going this spring? How did the indigo project go?
Roses love sun and it makes great jellies and scents , Sunflower cleans the soil and it has a small root ball. The flower of course is amazing. There is sunflowers like teddy bear. I hope you can use this. I love what you're doing. Fennel seeds are great.
Fennel pods are great with fish.
Day lillies the root leaves and flowers are all eatible.
Now I call this truly sustainable agriculture. NO slugs. NO weeds. NO washout or erosion. NO toxic and oxygen-zapping algal blooms. VERY few pests. NO burrowing rodents. NO deer. NO watermelon thieves. Very little waste. Grains on our highest roofs, right? Imagine roof farming and the incredible changes we could see. We probably do not have enough roofs, but we are headed for both food and water megadisasters so. ☹
Incredible garden.
Shipping department at the local milk outlet is saying "Where are all the crates".
Fascinating! I love this!
Farm Manager-Manhattan, what an inspiration.
I love how you have become the ambassador of sustainable gardening all over the world. Thank you for introducing all the other techniques and not appear to be competing.
❤❤❤❤❤
Seems to me that filtering the chlorine out of the tap water would be less labor intensive and more cost effective than reinoculating repetedly.
how does this work land wise? in Vancouver bc where i live we have "community gardens" where developers allow people to grow plants for a HUGE tax write off. they pay 0 property taxes on lots worth 10/100s of millions of dollars.
is that what's happening here?
WOW… amazing! TFS Be Blessed
This is impressive.
Cut some black drain board to fit an air barrier at the lower crates.
It would be a good idea to check in with Jonathan to see how things are going for him now that Riverpark is permanently closed… Would be a good episode to catch up with how he is doing.
I feel like it would be very stressful to run a high-end restaurant in Manhattan, especially during and after COVID.
Humans are so weird xD So much effort, work and time put into creating a city and then so much effort, work and time is needed to turn that place back into something that can produce food… This guy is great, very dedicated. I can't imagine the cost of that many crates, trucking in soil, irrigation etc.
Fantastic Tour!
Excellent video!!
16:54
You get to eat the greens plus the plastic chemical that leech out to the mix.
The fanatical okra hooghly march because egg rheologically earn down a measly arch. defiant, ashamed fur
I drive a milk truck, now I know where all my milk crates keep wandering off to.
How did all these efforts to secure the 3200 Milk Crates Farm, post Covid for the High-End Restaurant in Manhattan pan out or did the farm survive?
Happy growing.
Make with what u got do huh
Lima beans come from Lima, Peru.
Lee-ma