Fahey: Johnson's Urban Farm now operating on Hilton Head Island
Growing up, Emily Johnson frequently pitched in with chores at her great-grandfather's Hilton Head Island greenhouse.
"I can remember back when I was 8, 9, 10 years old, cleaning out the buckets," she said.
In fact, the fourth-generation islander can recall when the greenhouse was first under construction in the late '80s. Her great-grandfather, Joel Johnson Sr., had been a physician in New England before retiring -- that being a loose term -- to Hilton Head.
"(My great-grandfather) was a scientist," Johnson said. "He was very meticulous about everything."
Johnson's Greenhouse featured landscaping plants when it originally opened, long before "farm-to-table" and "organic" were key words in the foodie lexicon.
Then, in the 1990s, Johnson's Florist opened on the property by Emily Johnson's uncle.
But as her great-grandparents and grandparents got older, the greenhouse fell into disrepair. In fact, for many years, Johnson's Florist was the only operational business at 287 Wild Horse Road.
Now, nearly 30 years later, the greenhouse has been refurbished for a new generation.
Emily Johnson is the owner of Johnson's Urban Farm, a recently launched business in the same greenhouse built by her family decades earlier. The urban farm grows and distributes produce grown on site to local individuals and restaurants, and will expand to offer classes, workshops and community events in January.
Emily Johnson has teamed up with Stacy Windreich, whose background is in organic gardening and holistic nutrition. Emily Johnson's education and career is based in finance -- she is the founder of a financial services company Polaris Capital Advisors -- so Windreich's expertise in gardening was necessary before the farm could become a reality.
The two met last fall.
Ten minutes into their conversation about finances, the women had moved on to talking about agriculture, and the greenhouse that remained in the Johnson family.
"It's a unique property," Emily Johnson said. "I wanted to seize upon this wellness trend. I am a foodie, but I wanted to use this property the way my grandparents would have wanted to use it."
And while times have changed, she said she feels they would appreciate the concept behind the urban farm -- and that the greenhouse is still operated by a Johnson.
"About a year ago, I got serious about it," she said. "Was this going to be financially possible?"
She said the process of launching Johnson's Urban Farm has been a mixture of fortuitous timing and events, as well as increased interest in the community for local produce.
The farm distributes to local restaurants, including Red Fish, Pour Richard's and The Sugaree. Some individuals buy produce there, too -- especially greens, the farm's staple product.
But Emily Johnson and Windreich want to do more than passively sell their products.
"It's more of a teaching farm," Windreich said. "We want to empower people to grow their own food."
One method the farm uses is hydroponics.
"It's the art of growing plants without soil," Windreich said.
She said the farm primarily uses the Kratky hydroponics method, which requires water, a foam tray, rockwool cups and nutrient solution to grow produce.
The goal, Windreich said, is to illustrate the ease and relatively low cost of growing produce at home. She said her next hydroponics experiment will be to grow tomatoes in Dutch buckets.
Next month, Windreich will begin teaching classes at the farm, including "Intro to Growing Veggies" for adults and "Wonderful Worms" for kids.
Emily Johnson said she hopes the venture will have an agritourism aspect for island tourists.
But both her and Windreich want the business to be centered on locals.
"Our focus is on the community," Windreich said. "We're going to have places for people to sit, invite people to teach classes -- it's a gathering space."
Details: 877-486-2522
Follow reporter Ashley Fahey on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Ashley.
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This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 7:26 PM with the headline "Fahey: Johnson's Urban Farm now operating on Hilton Head Island."