This is the story of our city's urban farm looking backwards – its land, leaders say, was a place of horrific forced removal and plantation slavery – in order to shape the future.

Why?

"Healing," says executive director Melonie Lusk.

"We want to honor the land and the story of the land."

In the spring of 2022, a young African American man living downtown wanted to farm. But where? For young farmers, especially farmers of color, land access is one of largest barriers.

Melonie Lusk, who is white, invited the man – his name was Jamar, she said, and he is now deceased – to Crabtree Farms, the 22-acre nonprofit urban farm a quarter-mile off Rossville Boulevard, and offered him access to a dormant field.

Here's a 100' x 100' plot, she said. We'd love for you to grow food.

Lusk, Crabtree's executive director, had been considering what she quietly called an Emerging Farmers Program. This man would be the pioneer.

The work began as pursuit of data: how much food could be grown on a 100' x 100' plot? How much economic impact could be gained?

Soon, the work turned from data-collecting to the heart.

Jamar began.

Slowly, the outline of his garden took shape.

He built a chakra garden. Spiraling out from the center, the food grew in concentric rings, not traditional rows.

Lusk had never seen this before.

She'd also never seen what happened next.

Others began joining him. Instead of one person, there were 10, 30, even more. The solitary work had become communal.

"He introduced about 80 new people to farming. He got their hands in the dirt and made that healing possible. Numerous people told him: 'I want to grow food at my home now'," Lusk remembers. "This was the turning point."

What began as an idea around data – how much food can you grow in a 100' x 100' space – turned into soul and freedom work, community-building and life-changing agriculture.

"This is what happens when you give access," Lusk says.

Crabtree Farms is a 22-acre farm in the heart of urban Chattanooga. Deeded in 1998 to the city of Chattanooga under the promise it remain agricultural, Crabtree is a few turns from Rossville Boulevard in the Clifton Hills neighborhood.

It feels unlike any other place in our city. Leave the din of downtown hustle, turn past the tire discounters and pawn shops on Rossville Boulevard, and here's Chattanooga's urban farm:

Beautiful in so many ways.

As if tuning forks in our chest draw us there.

Rows of crops. A community of volunteers.

The wildly popular spring and fall plant sales and annual 100 Dinner.

The greenhouses alone are worth the trip.

"Aren't they gorgeous?" Lusk asks.

There are work-share opportunities, on-site farm schools, classes and events, facilities rentals, a table at the Main St. Farmers' Market and gobs of community support.

Today, as an institution, Crabtree is looking backward, acknowledging the brutal, violent history of the land and its people. Forced indigenous removal. Forced African presence.

"This was the largest slave holding plantation in Hamilton County," Lusk said. "Until now, that history has been ignored."

Today, Crabtree is maturely, sensitively and effectively redefining itself as an urban farm committed to offering land access, community gardens and healing.

"This is a place of healing potentially," Lusk said. "As good stewards, we work to honor the land and the story of the land. People need to know the history of the land. We want to honor the land and the story of the land."

Here's how they're doing it.

Today, only 1% of American farmers identify as Black. In the 20th century, Black farmers lost an accumluated $326 billion of land, three times the rate of white farmers.

Not only did pervasive forces discourage and deny Black farming, there can exist an aversion to agriculture and soil-labor within Black consciousness. As Crabtree began opening its doors and gates to residents – Black and Hispanic – the farm faced understandable resistance, generational and historic.

Walking a sensitive and narrow road, Lusk persevered. She was faithful to community meetings, listening sessions, just letting people step foot on Crabtree without any expectations or agenda. Language classes, cooking workshops, talking on doorsteps and porches.

"Trust to be built takes time," she said. "How can we cross language and cultural barriers?"

Over time, hearts and minds shifted. Folks attended the language and cooking classes.

Then, Crabtree formalized the healing idea that's carrying it forward today.

"Community gardens," Lusk said.

Near the berry orchard next to the pen where sheepdogs watch over a goat named Boy George, there are some two dozen garden beds.

Half belong to residents in the 37407 zip code.

Half are leased to other Chattanoogans for a minimal fee.

It represents one of the most integrated agriculture sites in Hamilton County.

Each 4' x 8' cinderblock garden bed is full; the program has been wonderfully successful. When we visited in the late fall, most plants were turning with the seasons, only a few still producing remnants of summer's three sisters – corn, bean and squash – and tumbling down okra stalks. Hand-painted gourds hang from a nearby oak.

Initially, the gardeners were assigned one garden bed; soon, they approached Lusk: can we have more land to grow communally? Not separately, but together?

Crabtree will continue to expand its community garden space while adding larger growing spaces for community partners like La Paz, Orange Grove Center, the AIM Center, Lifespring Community Health.

More than 100 people have been impacted by the program.

Like Cortina Jenelle Caldwell.

"For me, it felt like a homecoming," she said.

For nearly 10 years, Caldwell studied ecology, leading land access projects and growing herbs, the first in her biological family to do so. Her website – House of Soleil – makes the beautiful declaration:

Nature is our legacy.

"There is no program that I have ever seen ... that has such an accessible and inclusive community gardening program like Crabtree Farms." - Cortina Jenelle Caldwell

In 2023, as the chakra garden was beginning to fruit, Caldwell moved to East Lake, near Clifton Hills, from North Carolina.

"Originally, I did not know about Crabtree because it's not one of those places that you arrive at by accident," she said. (Her full-length interview can be found at the end of today's feature.)

"From the first day, I knew the land had a deep and long story to tell," she said.

Over time, she became involved in the community gardening program, connecting with residents and Crabtree staff she calls "some of the most brilliant, talented and empathetic people I have ever met in my life."

"Each season, my relationship with the Farm and its stewards has continuously evolved," she said.

Caldwell, who’s farmed in North Carolina and worked with land projects and communities all over the world, says this:

"There is no program that I have ever seen throughout the 10 countries I've been to that has such an accessible and inclusive community gardening program like Crabtree Farms."

"There's always something inviting you back in."

This invitation will deepen in 2024.

Last week, Crabtree made a big announcement: it was awarded a three-year USDA grant allowing the Mary Navarre Moore Emerging Farmer Mentorship and the Crabtree Community Garden Program to expand in the coming years:

• From 30 community beds to 54, nearly doubling the garden space.
• Four emerging farmers will receive land access, training, support in order to grow seed-to-market produce.

All of this supports Crabtree's vision:

"Providing land access and opportunity," said Lusk. "For all our neighbors to come to farm, to allow African Americans and LatinX and others access to land and to switch the narrative to empowerment.

"It’s revolutionary to grow your own food."

As volunteers, supporters, donors, gardeners, we can participate in the renewing of Crabtree Farms, its land and community.

"It’s a story that needs to be told," she said. "It’s a story that keeps evolving. We can reintroduce people back to the land."

And healing, long delayed for so many of us, can begin.

All photography by Julie Ellison. (Contributed self-portrait by Cortina Jenelle Caldwell.)

All words by David Cook. This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.

All design by Alex DeHart.

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in sponsorship or advertising opportunities? Email us: david@foodasaverb.com and sarah@foodasaverb.com.

Food as a Verb thanks our sustaining partners for their generous support.