The Kula Farm Experience
The Kula Farm Experience is a short term job program designed to reinforce basic workplace skills for local members of the community who have been in between jobs for a while. We hope to take away barriers to future employment by offering a positive work environment with room for personal goal achievement. Participants can obtain a certificate and/or a reference letter upon completion of the program.
We welcome candidates to come fill out a job application at the farm.
During the outdoor growing season, when more work is available, some enthusiastic participants will be offered a seasonal part-time position.
There are also a few year round long term promotion options for excellent participants to become managers. We hope to empower these participants with management experience and bigger responsibilities.
The Farm Without Borders
The Farm Without Borders was started in the spring of 2017 on a vacant lot on Springwood Avenue. By hiring local residents, we converted an open space that was used as a parking lot into a large garden by sheet mulching (a method of “No-Till” gardening). The produce from the farm is given away to local residents. In 2018 we were granted access to even more land on the same block, expanding the garden 3 fold. The produce on the is accessible to residents 24 hours a day, although the majority of it is distributed during working hours. We estimate over 4,000 pounds of produce was grown in 2018. In 2019 we expanded again to cover the entire city block. In late 2020 we were granted access across the street to cultivate another vacant lot owned by the City of Asbury Park. Here we grow flowers that help remediate the soil, we called it: ” A ‘Lot’ of Flowers”.
The Farm Without Borders is supervised and managed by participants of our job training program and acts as the site for our volunteer force to dig in! The beauty of this garden and its proximity to the street helps Kula to engage with community members. It generates interest in by-passers and opens a dialogue about urban farming. This garden space is also used during our educational programs and is open to community residents. This section of the farm focuses on vegetables that can be easily harvested by local residents. A wide variety of greens and root crops are grown as well as hot peppers, squash, okra, garlic, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, calaloo, herbs, raspberries and strawberries. Ten varieties of fruit trees are growing on the site. The farm is also the site of our compost operation that includes food waste from our friends at Pulp Juice bar as well as an ever growing group of local residents and other businesses.
The Rainbow Garden
In the fall of 2018 Kula Farm began mulching and building raised beds on the vacant lot next door to the greenhouse on Atkins Ave. The lot, owned by the Bethel AME Church, manages a food pantry on the site (open Wednesday mornings). Working alongside the Bethel YPD (Young Persons Department) in the Spring of 2019 we cultivated and planted the garden establishing apple trees and strawberries along with annual vegetables such as collard greens, tomatoes, calaloo, peppers, garlic, root crops, melons, beans and herbs. The produce grown here as well as the Farm Without Borders is donated to the food pantry for Wednesday distribution every week. Every fall we build up the soil with compost and local mulching materials.
