Is Green Acres the Place to Be?

Tie-dye is making a comeback in the fashion world (though most higher end shops are calling it "dip dye"), and it's not uncommon to hear Phish or The Grateful Dead playing at a coffee shop on Bedford Avenue...but are all of these signs that hipsters are becoming hippies? It seems the proof is in the homegrown pudding, as The NY Times reports on many young city slickers trading in their tight-jeans for some overalls (making their thrift store 4-H t-shirts no longer ironic). That's right, hipster librarians are so over, all the cool kids are taking up farming now -- and even current city-dwellers are cheering them on. One commented on the winds of change a-blowin', saying, "our rock stars are ricotta makers.”

The Times piece follows a small flock of these farmsters, who are certainly not the first to leave Pitchfork for a pitchfork. Benjamin Shute abandoned his Brooklyn Lager-imbibing Williamsburg lifestyle (where he played in a dart league) to get back to his roots in food production. After growing strawberries on his roof, he headed to Tivoli, New York to start Hearty Roots with his partner-in-farm Miriam Latzer. This is just one example of a small-scale farm popping up near the city, and one small part of a positive growing social movement. In Tivoli (which is like the hipster mecca of farming) they are joined by KayCee Wimbish and Owen O’Connor (pictured), who both moved there earlier this month to start the somewhat unfortunately named Awesome Farm.

Do you want to try out farm living but fear leaving the big city for more desolate digs? This summer, Just Food's City Chicken Project will build you a new chicken coop and give you chickens for your garden! There are some rules you'll need to follow: "Applicants must be NYC community groups of 8 or more people, must have 8 square feet of space for each hen, and should have a plan to use the eggs to feed their communities. Application deadline: April 18th." Ready to get dirty? Contact Owen at Just Food for more information: 212.645.9880.