Reflecting on the Urban Farm 2025 Season

As the 2025 season comes to a close we are reflecting on all the meaningful and transformative work that has been done at our urban farm and throughout NACDI’s food sovereignty program. This season has seen the continuation of signature programming such as our annual seedling giveaway and summer internship as well as new projects, including our expansion into our third site to create a medicinal garden.

We have been engaging with community over the last year to develop the third site of Four Sisters Farm into a medicinal garden. This site is located on East 29th Street between 16th and Bloomington Ave South. Working from an initial site concept developed by Sam Olbekson from Full Circle Planning, we held a series of engagement activities to further refine the design and are now working with Metro Blooms’ installation team to make this vision a reality. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of this year with plans to hold a community planting event next spring. Before any work on the site began, we held a Ground Blessing ceremony in October with the help of community member Fred Dejarlait and our elder advisory council. This, and the engagement process as a whole, highlight the importance of how we do this work – slowly, intentionally, and with community connection at the center.

It is exciting to see what all can happen when we reimagine urban spaces. We are grateful for all the wonderful contributions from community partners that help make our little urban farm a big success. As we feel confident in the foundation we have built, we continue to dream of ways to activate this space, create new connections, and grow our relationship with land and with each other.