Howard Street Farm

Welcome to our 2.5-acre urban farm in Skokie, Illinois

The Howard Street Farm is our main operating site where we grow fresh, hyper-local food using innovative and sustainable practices while educating our community about the environment, agriculture, biodiversity, permaculture, horticulture, gardening, and social justice and health issues.

Through a land-use agreement with the Skokie Park District, the Howard Street Farm was created by developing 2.5 acres of uncontaminated, overgrown land (formerly a horse pasture) into vegetable, herb, and flower production integrated with a variety of fruit trees and bushes, nut trees, and other perennial species. In 2014, after being granted Skokie’s first zoning designation for urban agriculture, we began operating the Howard Street Farm as a full-production urban farm, which means that we are able to distribute and sell our hyper-fresh, locally-grown produce to the community.

The farm is located at 3669 Howard Street, in Skokie, Illinois, west of the intersection of Howard Street and McCormick Boulevard.

A Model for Small-Scale, Sustainable Agricultural Production

Our one-of-a-kind urban vegetable, herb, and flower farm in Skokie, Illinois, is a full-production, intensive, teaching farm that implements the best of today’s sustainable agricultural technologies and practices, minimizes its impact on the environment, and enhances the local environment by promoting biodiversity and permaculture through the planting of a variety of fruit and nut trees such as hazelnut, Asian pear, cherry, cranberry, raspberry, elderberry, gooseberry, and plum.

We apply sustainable agricultural practices such as crop rotation, cover cropping, companion planting, mulching, composting, and building good soil health by using organic practices that do not rely on harmful pesticides, and minimizing tillage to preserve soil structure and life.

You can find our hyper-local, extremely fresh produce at local restaurants, farmers’ markets, schools and community organizations, food pantries, and through a farm membership program.

What We Teach

Apart from teaching people how to grow food using organic methods, our farmer-educators teach people about the significance of locally- and sustainably-grown food on environmental, social justice, and health issues facing our communities. Our farmer-educators teach people how they can be part of the solution towards a more sustainable, ecologically-balanced, healthy future.

Community-Oriented

The Howard Street Farm is the community’s farm. We welcome and invite the community to join us at the farm for an event or to volunteer and learn with us!

Learn more on how you can help support The Talking Farm’s mission and our work at The Howard Street Farm.

A Day in the Life of the Howard Street Farm