Dayton Urban Grown

Dayton Urban Grown We are a cooperative of sustainable urban farmers in the greater Dayton area DUG is an urban farmer’s group that began as a program at Garden Station.
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We encourage urban residents to grow sustainably produced, chemical-free fruits and vegetables in the city for sale to restaurants, farmer’s markets and through CSA’s. We do this by sharing equipment such as seeders, a scale, and refrigerators; sharing interns; as well as putting in seed, plant, supply and equipment orders together through our affiliate retail shop, Dayton Urban Green at wholesale

; all in an effort to increase urban agriculture in Dayton and create a more resilient community. With the eviction of Garden Station, our long term plan of establishing an incubator/training farm got pushed up as we needed a place to take the hoop houses. We found our own land through the Land Bank and broke ground September 10, 2016. Our incubator farm will provide a shared wash/pack shed and walk in cooler for our members and will be available for course graduates to farm while they are getting their own sites set up. Farming and our food supply are in crisis with the depletion of soils due to industrial agriculture, increasing farmer debt, the aging of farmers and fewer youth in farming. Our year-long training farm program draws from proven models in an intensive, high rotation, year-round, no till system of vegetable production that also helps the environment and blends them with permaculture design principles on a scale that is manageable by a few workers. We are still all volunteers and have no paid staff. We do this to make our community more resilient, healthy and a better place to live! Please call 937-610-3845 or write to [email protected] to schedule a time for your group to volunteer or tour the farm! Lisa Helm is the founder of Garden Station art park and community garden, which reflected her interest in permaculture, green construction and outsider art. Garden Station involved over 300 community organizations and businesses and over 3000 volunteers in its creation between 2008 and 2016, when the city government chose to evict Garden Station to make way for future development in spite of 4000 signatures on a petition to keep it. Since 2008 Lisa has helped form a Dayton Urban Farmer’s group, “Dayton Urban Grown”; organized local Parking Day events, a Sustainable Living Workshop series of over 60 free classes/year, and an Earth Day festival that attracted as many as 5000 attendees. She has also been a speaker for gardening and planning conferences and sustainable living events at the state and national level. Lisa holds a Master of Music degree from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and freelanced and taught for over ten years in several colleges and universities as well as art magnet schools. She is Permaculture Design Certified, a Master Organic Gardener, has taken classes in natural building at Blue Rock Station and urban farming with Will Allen, Jean-Martin Fortier, Singing Frogs Farm, Lean Farm and Neversink Farm; and is a graduate of Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance Seed School. Currently Lisa is completing construction on Dayton Urban Grown Incubator/Training Farm and writing curriculum for training small scale, regenerative year-round vegetable producers.

03/26/2025

Frisée as edible ground cover? 👩‍🌾🤔

03/26/2025

Lettuce overwintered down to -3F

We had some extra greens after csa pick up yesterday so you can get some while they last today at Dayton Urban Green! In...
03/22/2025

We had some extra greens after csa pick up yesterday so you can get some while they last today at Dayton Urban Green! Including mustard mix, Asian greens, Napa cabbage, arugula and super salad 👩‍🌾🥗🥬

Everything inside that overwintered is now bolting 🙄👩‍🌾🌱🌼🌞
03/20/2025

Everything inside that overwintered is now bolting 🙄👩‍🌾🌱🌼🌞

I visited this farm in 2022 to talk to them about their experiences with land trusts. We need more of these kind of farm...
03/16/2025

I visited this farm in 2022 to talk to them about their experiences with land trusts. We need more of these kind of farms not fewer! 👩‍🌾✊🏻🌎🌱

This photograph is difficult for us to fully engage with, the sadness, the light that’s been dimmed after years of fighting.

We never thought farming would come to this.

But here we are—our family, standing together, not just against the elements, the hard work, or the unpredictability of raising animals…but against a system that would rather see us gone.

“Farming = A Sueable Life”

Those words on Jeremiah’s back aren’t a joke.
They’re the truth.

For years, we’ve been harassed, bothered, threatened and dragged through town regulatory battles and now this lawsuit simply for running our farm.
For feeding our community.
For doing what we love.

This fight isn’t just about Vernon Family Farm.

It’s about every small farmer who’s been told they don’t belong.

Every neighbor who thinks food just magically appears on a grocery store shelf.

Every family who believes local food and resilient communities matter.

📢 If you’ve been following our story, if you believe in food freedom, if you want to know the truth behind what’s happening—READ OUR LATEST BLOG. Our latest blog lays it all out. No filters, no sugarcoating. Just raw, honest truth.

Comment: BLOG and we’ll share it with you.
Click the link in bio.
Go straight to our website.
For our Facebook fans: https://www.vernonfamilyfarm.com

Know what’s happening.
Stand with us.
Because if small farms disappear, so does your choice in where your food comes from.

AND SAVE THE DATE 🗓️
Our hearing is on 4/2/25 and while , this isn’t an occasion for the community to physically attend or share support with the court, it is a critical moment that will set the course for what comes next.

Our call to action on this day for you is to shop the farm store.

✨Let’s make it the busiest day in our 11 year history. ✨

We are endlessly grateful for the support we receive and continue to receive from this thriving community. ♥️

Re-share this for more eyes to see and more hearts to understand. 👀

📸

Finally trying to get this rotted baseboard replaced! There was a narrow bed there and we have about 30 buckets of good ...
03/11/2025

Finally trying to get this rotted baseboard replaced! There was a narrow bed there and we have about 30 buckets of good soil with lots of worms available, though it will probably be weedy and we need the buckets back 👩‍🌾🌱🪣

It’s ridiculously hot in the hoophouses even with sides and doors open 😞👩‍🌾🌞🌱🥗 might be the earliest we ever put shadecl...
03/11/2025

It’s ridiculously hot in the hoophouses even with sides and doors open 😞👩‍🌾🌞🌱🥗 might be the earliest we ever put shadecloth on…

03/08/2025

First week of March update

Harvesting and transplanting as much as we can this week. It was 100 degrees in the hoophouses by noon even with one rol...
02/25/2025

Harvesting and transplanting as much as we can this week. It was 100 degrees in the hoophouses by noon even with one roll up side open. Stressed plants are starting to bolt. Today was warm enough for shorts! 🌱👩‍🌾🌞

02/23/2025

👩‍🌾🤞hoping that’s the last long stretch below freezing!

Took a week off from our super salad csa so we could harvest extra this week to donate to feed hungry organic farmers at...
02/11/2025

Took a week off from our super salad csa so we could harvest extra this week to donate to feed hungry organic farmers at Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association conference this week 👩‍🌾🥗 https://conference.oeffa.org/ -114213 there’s still on site registration available for you to join us!

Trying to enjoy the warm weather today as we repair raised beds that have rotted out before tariffs on lumber hit, while...
02/03/2025

Trying to enjoy the warm weather today as we repair raised beds that have rotted out before tariffs on lumber hit, while news of an unelected person gaining control of the government computers hangs over our heads 🌞👩‍🌾😞 time to call your elected officials!

01/31/2025

End of January state of the field 👩‍🌾🌱❄️

01/29/2025

UPDATE post -3 degrees

01/27/2025

Remember, heat rises 🌡️👩‍🌾🌱

Thanks to everyone who came out to the CSA fair and requested more info about our super salad! I just sent an email to e...
01/26/2025

Thanks to everyone who came out to the CSA fair and requested more info about our super salad! I just sent an email to everyone who signed up so if you didn't get one, message me here! I probably got your email spelled wrong or something.

If you are curious about our Super Salad Subscription CSA, come see me at 2nd Street Market CSA fair today 11-3 at the e...
01/26/2025

If you are curious about our Super Salad Subscription CSA, come see me at 2nd Street Market CSA fair today 11-3 at the east end pavilion of the market!

Tomorrow marks the end of our “Persephone days” the time of year that has less than ten hours of daylight, that begins o...
01/25/2025

Tomorrow marks the end of our “Persephone days” the time of year that has less than ten hours of daylight, that begins on November 15th. During that time crops grow veeerry slowly so our farm is basically a giant refrigerator. The key to winter harvesting is to have crops full sized by then. Now that we are getting longer days, growth should speed up significantly, as long as it’s not too cold. By March, greens are going gangbusters 🌱🥗👩‍🌾 I usually start plants the first of January to be ready to be transplanted about now and I have a ton that are getting way to big but it’s been so cold it’s been hard to get them “hardened off” or acclimated to colder temperatures than inside my house. These got two days outside the last time it was above freezing overnight. I’ve got a bunch more flats that need to go outside soon! ❄️🌱

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933 Xenia Avenue
Dayton, OH
45410

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Videos

Frisée as edible ground cover? 👩‍🌾🤔

Lettuce overwintered down to -3F

State of the farm
State of the farm

First week of March update

Update!
Update!

👩‍🌾🤞hoping that’s the last long stretch below freezing!

End of January state of the field 👩‍🌾🌱❄️

UPDATE post -3 degrees

Remember, heat rises 🌡️👩‍🌾🌱

Too hot!

Too cold outside but too hot inside 🙄👩‍🌾🥶🌱

The field is sad, not much light with the snow load

Break in the weather update

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Dayton Urban Grown Cooperative

DUG is an urban farmer’s group that began as a program at Garden Station. We encourage urban residents to grow sustainably produced, chemical-free fruits and vegetables in the city for sale to restaurants, farmer’s markets and through CSA’s.

We do this by sharing equipment such as seeders, a scale, and refrigerators; sharing interns; as well as putting in seed, plant, supply and equipment orders together through our affiliate retail shop, Dayton Urban Green at wholesale; all in an effort to increase urban agriculture in Dayton and create a more resilient community.

With the eviction of Garden Station, our long term plan of establishing an incubator/training farm got pushed up as we needed a place to take the hoop houses. We found our own land through the Land Bank and broke ground September 10, 2016.

Our incubator farm will provide a shared wash/pack shed and walk in cooler for our members and will be available for course graduates to farm while they are getting their own sites set up.