‘Bad Seed’ urban farm is a labor of love, though it ruffles some neighbors’ feathers

Photo from the Kansas City Star. Bad Seed Farm is an urban farm and a Crossroads District farmers market run by husband and wife team Daniel Heryer and Brooke Salvaggio. Above, Salvaggio fertilizes a bed with turkey manure before seeding.

‘Bad Seed’ Urban Farm

By Lee Hill Kavanaugh
September 1, 2009
The Kansas City Star

Brooke Salvaggio’s arms are strong. Muscled. Her hair, swooped up in two tiny pigtails wrapped with a scarf she bought in Vietnam. Dirt under her fingernails. Dirty jeans. Dirty sky-blue garden Crocs on her feet. And a rising welt from a mosquito bite above her eyes just minutes ago.

But she’s found her piece of heaven. She and her husband, Dan Heryer, both 27, are happiest when they’re here in south Kansas City, playing in the dirt in this place they named “Bad Seed Farm.”

Never did they imagine, as they traveled the world looking for their souls, that they’d find themselves — and each other — in a half-acre of her grandparents’ backyard, smack in the middle of the city.

A place where they can listen to birds warble. Smell the wet earth and grass clippings drying in sunshine as plants grow green and tall, sighing in the summer breezes.

These urban farmers discovered the simple pleasure of planting a seed, watching it grow and ripen, then picking it to feed someone else. They sell their produce on Fridays from 4:30 to 9 p.m. from their storefront at 1909 McGee St.

But their dream of growing food in the city is growing a controversy, too.

A few neighbors want the city to yank out their business by its roots. Not near our backyards, say some, who fear their homes will be devalued by the small farm’s presence on Bannister Road, just east of the State Line.

The city says the couple is violating zoning laws.

Similar disputes are surfacing across the country, as more people want to grow their own food and buy what’s grown nearby.

One of the couple’s customers is Overland Park resident Frank Drinkwine, chairman of the Sierra Club in Kansas.

“Who decided that the standard we should all live by should be a green carpet for a lawn?” he asked. “I feel bad for Brooke and Dan because they want to do something that’s valuable and good for society and (they’re) running headlong into a bureaucratic nightmare.

“That’s unfortunate.”

See the complete Kansas City Star article here.

And here’s another story with further information about the codes.
Bad Seed Farm in Kansas City Brings Urban Farming to the Next Level: Legislation. See it here.