Omnivore - Freewheel Farm: The little urban farm that could

• Laura Sullivan
• FREE WHEELING: Freewheel Farm's Monica Ponce (left) and Brent Hall tend their crops

On one of the first sweaty-hot Saturdays this year, Brent Hall and Monica Ponce of Freewheel Farm could be found pinching zingy arugula from long, colorful rows, getting ready for the Grant Park Farmers Market. Held each Sunday along the southwest edge of the park - just .3 miles from their farm situated near the border of Grant Park and Summerhill - it is their home market.
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Freewheel sits on a piece of land any typical, smaller house in Grant Park sits on. Translation: it's tiny. Even so, Ponce and Hall manage to grow an impressive array of veggies there - swiss chard, tomatoes, leeks, kale, beans, and tomatillos, to name a few. They've just expanded, clearing out a whole new "upper" plot for summer planting. A pile of logs rests in the shade nearby getting ready to sprout shiitakes.

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There are many benefits to being located right in the middle of the action. The market - and their customers - are close by, eliminating the 4 a.m. wake up times so familiar to farmers getting their goods to market. Their proximity also cuts down on the resources and energy it takes to transport food from the farm to consumers, and their volunteer base is also conveniently in their backyard.

Ponce and Hall see Freewheel as a new kind of temporary, "use-it-for-now" farm. Essentially, they trade veggies for land. Eventually the space, which is donated, will have a house on it. But they're OK with that. Hall says they're just doing what a lot of urban farms are doing: putting an unused space to incredibly good use in the meantime, and also clearing all of the trash out and remediating the land in the process. (The huge pile of rocks and concrete next to the farm can speak to that effort.)

"We are very small and focused," Hall says. "This is concentrated, high-yield gardening. Because we're so small, we can concentrate on quality."

The quality of their hyper-local product has caught the attention of some local restaurants, including the Wrecking Bar Brewpub, which uses some of the farm's veggies on its menu.

Freewheel also partners with Compost Wheels, a nonprofit that picks up fruit and veggie scraps from around the 'hood. Folks go to the market and buy some veggies; they donate their scraps to Compost Wheels; Compost Wheels brings the veggies back in to enrich the Freewheel soil. "It's one big loop," Hall says. Not to mention a necessary step for an urban plot of land that has never before been planted.

Hall hails from Maine, where he worked on lots of farms and learned the gardening skills he uses on a micro-scale today. Ponce works at the Wylde Center, formerly the Oakhurst Community Garden, an educational nonprofit where she manages greenspaces. For them, it's not about being some high-brow, conceptual urban farm - they both say they just love working outside, growing food, and building community. And bikes - they really like those too.

Find Freewheel Farm veggies at the Grant Park Farmers Market, Sundays from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The farm thrives on the good graces of volunteers: Monica and Brent invite you to pitch in most Saturdays - follow the farm on Facebook to get more info. There's even the occasional campfire and jam sesh.