Billiam van Roestenberg of Liberty View Farm at Union Square

This morning I had the pleasure of meeting up with Billiam van Roestenberg at New York's Union Square farmers' market. He is the founder and farmer of Liberty View Farm in New Paltz, New York. He is a city-slicker turned self taught farmer and is an apple expert, growing thousands of apple trees on his farm. 

Billiam is quite the innovator- he told me of a sleepless night he had after spending over $50,000 on irrigation and farm repairs that he dreamed up Liberty View's now successful programs Charter a Chicken and Lease a Tree. Through Lease a Tree, community members pay an annual due of $50 and then can pick to their hearts content at 50 cents a pound. His Charter a Chicken project, enables people to sponsor a chicken for a year for a $50 fee which enables them to visitation rights, delicious eggs, and live webcam coverage of the birds! Yes, thats right, chicken webcam.

                                 Me and Billiam.

Meet Annie Novak, one of the folks working at the farm stand. She helped to start Rooftop Farms, a 6,000 square foot organic farm operation in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on the roof of a large warehouse. They just started planting in April and are already selling veggies to local restaurants. I was pleasantly surprised and seriously impressed to learn about this project! Check it out here: http://rooftopfarms.org/ 
                               Billiam hard at work.





              Rainbow chard, the gayest vegetable of all...?