The best thing about being a farmer?

“The fact that you can grow something from a tiny seed,” says Natasha Nicholes.

“I hold on to that tightly every single season, because we never ever know what we’re going to get with the seeds that we plant. But that’s the best thing about it,” she says.

It’s a sentiment shared by every Illinois farmer. Hope springs eternal, no matter what seed you’re putting in the ground — or where you’re planting it. That’s because instead of a vast 40-acre field, Natasha plants her seeds in raised beds, on a vacant lot, on a quarter-acre corner of a block in West Pullman, on the South Side of Chicago.

Like many Illinois farmers, Natasha dreams of expanding her acreage. She enjoys a good meal with neighbors. She’s frustrated that people don’t understand where their food comes from. Oh, and regulations — you say you’re not happy with EPA? Just try working with the red tape spilling out of the city of Chicago.

The fact that she grows crops on a different scale doesn’t make her less of a farmer.

“We are still growing food. We are still providing our communities with fresh produce and fresh eggs. We’re just doing it in a different way than our rural counterparts do it,” Natasha says with a smile. “And we’re still working hard and loving it.”

But she did meet Harry Connick Jr. along the way, which might be a departure from the average farmer.

‘That could be something’

Natasha and husband Shomari moved to the neighborhood in 2014. They helped build their home with Habitat for Humanity, and Natasha put out a garden the next year. Then she eyed the big vacant lot across the street. It was an eyesore. But she imagined something better. Maybe a community garden, where everyone would chip in and help.

“She kept looking over here, saying, ‘That could be something,’” Shomari says, shaking his head and smiling. “I knew that ‘something’ was gonna be a lot of work for me!”

Shomari wasn’t wrong. They started cleaning up the lot, hauling out many trash bags of debris with the help of their four kids. They push-mowed for hours. Then they built raised beds and started planting. Turns out the neighbors didn’t want to garden, but they’d buy produce, so Natasha pivoted to a community farm. She never looked back.

“And here we are, eight seasons later!” Natasha says, laughing and gesturing to 48 raised beds.

By 2016, she’d founded a nonprofit, We Sow We Grow, based on the idea that it’s possible for anyone to grow fresh fruits and vegetables. In effect, Natasha wants to grow gardeners.

Since then, Natasha and Shomari have worked with community organizations like Community Food Navigator, The Morton Arboretum, Habitat for Humanity, Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation, Contemporary Farmer and more. They’ve welcomed Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton to the farm, and they’ve written funding grants. Natasha joined the Illinois Farm Families coalition to visit corn and soybean farms, as well as cattle and hog operations.

She’s learned.

And she met Harry Connick Jr. Natasha went on his daytime talk show, and he presented We Sow We Grow with chickens and a chicken coop. Eight years later, they’re still raising chickens and producing eggs, which they sell to neighbors.

We Sow We Grow is one of about 75 urban farms in Chicago, plus nearly 650 community and school gardens. The Urban Growers Collective is another nonprofit that operates eight farms on 11 acres across Chicago’s South Side, including a lot in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood. The rooftop garden at Gary Comer Youth Center produces 1,000 pounds of food annually for farmers markets and restaurants, and provides educational opportunities for local youth.

Throughout the year at We Sow We Grow, Natasha and Shomari work to bring the neighborhood into the farm, and they take the farm into the neighborhood. They’ve partnered with South Holland Public Library’s Youth Services department to host a seed starting class and hosted an evergreen wreath-making class with the University of Illinois Extension. They’re also teaching composting.

They’ve sponsored block parties, hosted outdoor Movies on the Farm, and put on a Harvest Festival. That festival brought in their ward alderman and his staff. And Natasha starred in an Illinois Farm Bureau docuseries on YouTube called Fields Apart: Rooted Together, featuring farmers from rural and urban corners of Illinois.

Farm work: Not for naught

Like every farmer, Natasha and Shomari have had their share of crop failures — from the watermelons that wouldn’t produce to the great rip-out, redesign and replant of 2022.

“The hardest days are when nothing is going right. 2019 was rough for us,” Natasha recalls. “It never stopped raining. My brother passed away.”

But there are best days, too. Like when the harvest is exceptional, and people come and get what they want.

“We have someone who is anxiously awaiting our Patty Pan squash, and she started singing to it today because she saw that it was growing!” Natasha says. “Those are the best days, because you realize that the community is really, really invested, and the work we’re doing is not for naught.”

Natasha’s been eyeing three more vacant lots, and she’s working with the city to get access to them. But a long-ago paint factory in the neighborhood means the soil has lead in it, which means it all has to be remediated. Mobilizing bulldozers, dump trucks and topsoil is no easy feat in a city.

Still, she’s not deterred. She can see a “full green corridor” in her mind, which would take them from a quarter acre to 2¼ acres.

“That’s a small amount when you’re talking downstate acres, but when you’re working it by hand, it’s a lot of land!” she says.

“We want to create the We Sow We Grow farmstead,” she adds. “And that will be a space for people to come through to eat, commune together and learn more about growing their own food at home.”

Natasha remembers reading “Little House on the Prairie” when she was a child and growing things with her grandmother and aunt. That was the simple, every-day-little-kid stuff that nurtured her farming dream.

“I quickly realized that farming is the act, rather than the location or the gender of who’s growing the food,” she says. “And the fact that we’re growing food and providing food and services for a larger community than just our own is what makes me a farmer.”

The seed, as it turns out, never looks like the harvest it contains.

Help a neighbor

Want to support We Sow We Grow? Check out its giving page at wesowwegrow.org. Email Natasha Nicholes at [email protected], and find her on Instagram @wesowwegrow.