May 2023 Newsletter 2

Food for Thought: Wild Field Urban Farm

In an effort to connect our community with the work and people behind the Market’s products, staff member Livia will be conducting interviews with our producers. This feature is on Wild Field Urban Farm, who does a seedling sale with us every spring. Thank you to Stephanie Ciner for taking the time to tell me more about all the great work she and other urban farmers have been up to in Erie.

Wild Field Urban Farm, located on the lower East Side of Erie, PA, is a small but lush oasis growing wild with veggies, flowers, and the ‘tonic’ of community connections. Established in 2020, Stephanie Ciner has used the empty lot next to her home and the backyard space as a place where people of her neighborhood can gather to grow, learn, and reconnect to the stories of our foods. She grow foods that are traditional to her culturally-diverse neighborhood and otherwise difficult to find at conventional grocery stores, such as okra, collard greens, and many varieties of herbs. This consideration and care extends to nearly everything she does and how she does it: from no till to no pesticides/fungicides/herbicides, Ciner aims to “nurture soil and respect its web of life” through her organic and pollinator-centered practices according to her website.
“I feel like it [the farm] doesn’t just provide calories and access to vegetables and fruits, but it provides nourishment and reconnection to the whole story of our food and building those relationships with plants that isn’t so fragmented” said Ciner.

The seedlings Ciner raises and sells each spring embody this stewardship to the plants. “During seedling season, a lot of the hours of the days are spent keeping an eye on the weather, the wind, the temperature and moving all the plants around, knowing the conditions each of the plants need to thrive and to be able to grow and become strong enough to live outside. So there’s constant care and attention on these seedlings” explained Ciner on her raising process.

Below are the seedlings we have available for sale at the Market (as of May 19) and some more information on the sale off the farm.

“We’re all friends doing similar things, and we often find ourselves working really hard by ourselves, and we were like ‘why don’t we all invite people interested in what’s going on, and be open together?'” This idea of community collaboration and connection is truly at the heart of Wild Field Urban Farm, and what makes the urban farming movement so refreshing as we collectively remember how to reconnect with each other and the land that provides for us.