Community enCompass adding ‘hoop houses’ to lengthen urban farm growing season

Carlos Avrard, strategic program director for Community enCompass, works on affixing the metal supports for a hoop house that is being assembled behind the Goodwill Industries of West Michigan’s corporate headquarters. Photo: Chronicle/Kendra Stanley-Mills

By Dave Alexander | Muskegon Chronicle
November 29, 2009

Community enCompass is taking the concept of the urban garden to the next level. Officials call it urban farming.

Playing off the successful half-acre garden plot that grew last summer on a vacant lot owned by Goodwill Industries, the Christian community development organization in Muskegon’s McLaughlin Neighborhood has created the McLaughlin Grows Urban Farm at Iona and Sophia streets.

With the help of the Community Foundation for Muskegon County and its Richard and Marilyn Witham Fund, the urban farm is adding “hoop houses” to extend the growing season year-round. The idea is to create business opportunities during economically tough times.

McLaughlin Grows is a for-profit, micro-enterprise venture designed to produce locally grown, healthy food; energize the neighborhood; and provide potential employment opportunities. The foundation funding — more than $50,000 — has given McLaughlin Grows coordianator Teri VanHall three years to make the urban farm a viable, self-sustaining operation.

“Urban agriculture initiatives are springing up across the United States,” Community enCompass Director Sarah Rinsema-Sybenga said. “It is exciting to see Muskegon on the cutting edge of this trend.”

Community enCompass and Goodwill have an agreement for the use of the vacant lot. The McLaughlin Grows initial farm garden began in May with plantings of greens, tomatoes, peppers, okra, cabbage, squash and other crops.

The business used neighborhood youth workers through the Muskegon County Department of Employment and Training to keep the garden going throughout the summer along with providing volunteer opportunities for local residents.

The vegetable harvast off an initial 2,400-square-foot plot was sold on site, through a stand at the Muskegon Farmer’s Market and to the nearby Mia & Grace restaurant, which practices “farm-to-table” food sourcing.

The estimated future revenues for the urban farm are annually about $12,500 per hoophouse and another $12,500 from the outdoor garden, VanHall said.

McLaughlin Grows is practicing organic farming, said VanHall, who was trained in the agriculture processes through Michigan State University. The urban lot was a good producer, she said.

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