Eden Urban Gardens LLC

Eden Urban Gardens,LLC Story

Eden Urban Gardens,LLC Story

All people have a story and so do all businesses. Eden Urban Gardens, LLC is no exception. We began with three hand tools, a vision from God and a lot of elbow grease. After fifteen years of working in the health and wellness industry, April felt called to leave this line of work and move into the agriculture field. Always having been a grower from a young age, but with no agriculture education, she went back to school as a nontranditional student and studied and graduated the Sustainable Agriculture Managment Program at Cincinnati State. Eden Urban Gardens,LLC started growing on several land parcels in the area. Operating a multi-site patchwork urban farm with several locations within five miles of each other was a haring process. We soon realized we needed to grow closer together and centralize our operations. In our second year, Eden Urban Gardens,LLC acquired a lease on .5 acre of land in historic Wooden Shoe Hollow. This was fine for the time being, but was leased land and limited what permanent crops we could grow and no long term security of the land. Hence, the land search began. This process of finding and buying urban land was an act of faith and an ongoing test of pacience. Eden Urban Gardens,LLC went through 2 years and countless offers to purchase land and continued rejections of our offers for various reasons. Much of the urban land was often too high of a cost for the resources we had available. The lower priced land was wanted by neighborhood development corporations for houses and they refused to sell to us for urban farming production. The banks and farm financing bureaus would not give us loans for land and the insurance companies would not insure us. Finally we found an insurer for our business who met our needs. We did not come from a farm family, no relative would or could finance us. Many others suggest to just go to corn county and buy cheap land. Unfortunately, this was not fesible and for many other reasons it did not meet our business goals.

At times, it seemed like the odds were stacked against us. Furthermore, many people were skeptical of what we were doing urban farming, taunting that we would never find land, support ourselves as an urban farm or even succeed as a business. We had to stay positive, avoid giving life and head space to the negativity. We had to stay in faith. Although we did not see a way for land, God had a way. We kept believing. In May 2018, 7 months before our lease was set to end at our Wooden Shoe Location, April found a property that looked promising though it was in active foreclosure. After conducting extensive research on the title, water branch access, liens, taxes and more, April decided to go to Sherrif’s Auction and make a bid for Eden Urban Gardens,LLC for the property. Having a set amount to bid with only a couple hundred dollars of wiggle room, the auction began. After forty-five minutes the case # was called, April made the opening bid which was uncontested. When the auctioneer said “sold” the feeling of pure joy and euphoria flowed through April like a rush of rapids through a river. Eden Urban Gardens,LLC now had some large land for our production that we owned and could now put down permanent roots both literally and figertively. A huge accomplishment after 2 years! The adventure continued. The install of water hydrant $4640, the cost of the land which was 9 years of back taxes and court fees, title searches,deed fees that added up close to $6ooo, the $1100 + of compost/topsoil, delivery cost, organic fertilizers and cover crop seeds all had to be paid upfront in cash as we had no financing. This excludes the cost of labor, hours of shoveling wood chips, amendments, digging, building and hauling materials, etc. It was just the beginning of a large undertaking and huge financial investment all while maintaining two other sites in production, going to markets and delivering to wholesalers. Incially, after purchasing the property we had no idea how we would get the funds to install the yard hydrante for water. Eden Urban Gardens,LLC did not have it. The questions of this and other needs were daunting and the answers few. We kept believing, knowing this was our calling and that it was possible and it would happen. God would find a way because so far he found this land for us and worked that miracle. Somehow we would get another miracle and find the funds for water. Three months after taking possession of the land, the funds came together to make the second miracle of water happen, mostly from additional unseen sales. The water hydrant was installed and paid in full, the land was purchased in full, the compost/topsoil was paid in full, and we even received a local grant for our fruit plants and fruit trees along the way. Eden Urban Gardens,LLC is so grateful for all of this, our supporters. It is not easy, long days, tired muscles and the naysayers. However, Eden Urban Gardens,LLC also has the shreholders, the believers, the volunteers and the community neighbors encouraging and buying from us along the way and of course, God, the biggest guide in the journey. It has been said that the word vocation means ones' calling, what a person is called to do. We at Eden Urban Gardens,LLC , are called to urban farm, to grow, to create and to enrich peoples lives through produce! Although urban farming has it’s challenges, we feel that the positive advantages far outweigh the challenges we face. We hope to continue to increase our production to serve the urban communities in our city.