Kansas City News Blog

Steve Mann

Mann is 59 years old and says things like, "We're on the ground floor of a revolution." He's an old hippie who grew up in St. Joseph and learned how to garden from his grandfather, planting his first seeds at age 8 behind his father's barbershop. Mann missed the Vietnam draft by two lottery numbers, got a degree in construction engineering technology from Missouri Western State University, and raised a family. He eventually ended up working at Sprint as a systems analyst.

But his passion has always been for gardening, so when Sprint offered buyouts in April 2008, he happily accepted one and threw himself into a new project: Prairie Trading.

Prairie Trading is what Mann calls an "in-yard CSA program." CSA stands for community supported agriculture; a typical CSA program involves a small farm or collection of farms that grow food for people who have paid a fee in exchange for a share of the produce.

In Mann's program, people who start their own small gardens can use their harvest to buy in, if they agree to donate a percentage of the yield to the CSA, a percentage to a food bank or charity, and a percentage to Mann in exchange for his materials, time and knowledge. (In addition to the CSA-donated fruits and veggies, Mann sells produce from his own 2.5 acres at the Bad Seed farmer's market at 1909 McGee). If all goes according to plan, members will enjoy the fruits of their own labor while receiving boxes of produce from the other members as well.

Since the Prairie Trading planting got underway this spring, Mann has plotted eight new farms around Parkville and Kansas City -- a total of 9,000 square feet, or just over half an acre. He started with three volunteers, and now he can count 30. Although he currently has an apprentice, it's mostly still a one-man show.

In the future, Mann hopes, "We'll have master gardeners leading the efforts in different quadrants of the city, paid with a share of the produce," he says. "There are hundreds and hundreds of vacant lots in this city. Our food source should be right outside our doors." 

Mann says he watched his fellow progressives relinquish the revolutionary spirit of the '60s and '70s for McMansions in the suburbs. His secret for avoiding hippie burnout is to stay connected to causes that are pro rather than anti. Using food as the center of a culturally transforming revolution, especially in an uncertain economy, seems particularly intuitive. Who doesn't like to eat?
 
My conversion from cynical grocery store devotee to smug gardner happened after I spent a day helping to cover my friend's 40-by-60-foot garden plot in Parkville with layers of newspaper (a no-till gardening method) and truckloads of free mulch -- a gift from the city's brush collection program. With Mann's help, the whole farming thing seemed much more within reach.

Coincidentally, my Midtown neighbors had been rumbling about turning their front lawns into vegetable gardens, while my sun-drenched lawn was an explosion of dandilions. I mentioned this to Mann, who practically jumped up and down at the thought of transforming three side-by-side lawns in the middle of the city. Once he signed on, there was no wussing out.

So far, my biggest discovery has been that, much like walking a dog, wading around in a yard full of of mulch and fertilizer inspires conversations with strangers that otherwise would have never happened. Neighbors who haven't said hello in the two years we've lived on our block suddenly swing by with their extra seedlings. One kindly affixed a spigot to our unfinished rain barrel. And just the other day, a woman riding by on her bike while we were planting sweet potatoes let out whoops of encouragement, pumping one fist in the air as she passed.

Mann's summer Communiversity Food Not Lawns session starts tonight on UMKC's campus and today's the deadline to sign up, either online or by calling 816-235-1448. You, too, can join the growing club of smug urban gardeners.