Practicing regenerative farming

Amy Yackel and Rod Adams have been operating Sunspot Urban Farm since late 2008. Located on the edge of Old Town Fort Collins, the farm originally offered a CSA from 2009-2020. Because the farm is located in a residential neighborhood, and because the majority of members were neighbors—able to walk or bicycle to collect their week’s share of produce—we referred to our CSA as THE NSA (Neighborhood Supported Agriculture). But times have changed. Currently we grow for local grocery stores and restaurants. If you are looking for a CSA, we recommend visiting farmshares.info.

This farming adventure began in autumn 2008 when Amy and Rod completed an 8-week course called Building Farmers, offered by the Boulder County Extension Service. Immediately, we founded Sunspot Urban Farm to practice regenerative agriculture in Fort Collins. We emphasize holistic farm practices, which means we have two aims: to enhance the soil community and the human community. Though often working alone, we weekly gather with friends to move us forward in building healthy, biologically-rich soils to enhance nutrient quality of produce. A guiding principle for all our farming operations is to have a very small carbon footprint while having a very large idea footprint, consistent with our name: a sunspot is a small spot on the sun's surface which exerts a force beyond what one might expect due to its small size. 

FARM SPECIFICATIONS

Soil– Fertile clay
Farmers – 2
Workers– billions of microbes
Interns –  several
Land – 4.5 acres total
Chickens – 16

ACTIVITIES

Hand cultivation
Soil amendments
Composting
Seeding
Planting
Harvesting
Season extension
High tunnel growing

AMENITIES

Neighborhood setting
Autumn leaf drop site
Solar panels
Pollinator gardens
Workshops
Tours