Tiny Farm
Tiny Farm at a Glance
Farmer: Roberto Grossman
Where they’re located: Homestead
Website: Tiny Farm Miami, Instagram: @_tinyfarm_
What they grow: Over 30 varieties of soil grown vegetables using regenerative practices
Where they sell: Legion Park Farners Market seasonally, local restaurants and direct to consumer
CSA: Yes, they offer a custom option where members get to order exactly what they want every week and a smaller option called Salad Box
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First-generation farmer Roberto Grossman grew up in Bogota, Colombia, and moved to Miami in 2005 after spending six years in college and film school in Sydney, Australia. He worked in media and communications until he decided to start farming. The key turning point when he knew he wanted to grow his own food was after he read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Today, you can meet him and buy his produce at the Saturday Legion Park farmers market. UPDATE: Grossman has expanded his farm in 2023 with additional acreage in far South Dade.
DESCRIBE YOUR FARM: Tiny Farm started as a backyard garden back in 2016 in the Redland agricultural area and today I like to describe it as an ecological, no-till market garden. We are now on our fifth season farming and Tiny Farm is indeed still tiny in the big scheme of things. We farm in less than an acre, but we are highly productive. We farm without tractors or any large machinery in as much of a natural way as we can. We don’t use synthetic pesticides or herbicides and our main focus is to build soil that is full of organic matter and microbiology. We grow diverse herbs, fruit and vegetables.
WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE? In hindsight, it was to start the farm without adequate funding. A lot of the time people go into farming with skeleton crews and infrastructure. I certainly did. This is a perfect recipe for either failing or becoming a slave to the farm. That being said, it is also a big opportunity to learn about lean farming and I’m grateful that I’m slowly finding a way to make Tiny Farm a successful business. Farming, just like any other business, needs to be profitable to be sustainable. Sustainability is not only about the environment, it is also about finances and wellbeing. I do not recommend anyone to start a farm without the proper investment. If it weren’t for my stubborn nature and the huge unconditional support from all our customers, I would have closed this farm a long time ago!
WHAT’S GROWING ON YOUR FARM? I’m proud of every crop we grow. We experiment with lots of things and always learn something new from each crop. For example, the sesame crop that we grew this past summer – it was a very interesting exercise and even though growing sesame on a small scale is not financially sound, I learned that the plant is an excellent cover crop during our harsh, hot summers. I really enjoy observing the process of nature and learning from it. Observation is perhaps the most important tool in a farmer’s tool kit. Our hot and humid summers are the perfect environment for building soil and, opposed to common knowledge, a productive season. This past summer, we produced a lot of crops and to my surprise with great results. Some of the crops we consistently harvested through the summer were eggplant, okra, peppers, baby greens, spring onions and a few other crops. So being able to farm through the summer opens possibilities to make a farm business sustainable here in South Florida.
TELL US ABOUT SOUTH FLORIDA’S FARMING COMMUNITY: I’m really not very involved with the South Florida farming community for two reasons. The first one is that the farming community is incredibly small and the second one is that I don’t have any time. Seriously, that all goes back to the point about starting a farm without proper investment. But I think there are some really great farms starting to pop up all over South Florida and I’m very excited to see how the community will grow and hopefully, as Tiny Farm becomes more sustainable, be able to start meeting all the wonderful folks that are deciding to go into farming.
WHAT’S NEXT? As we enter our fifth season, we are now focusing a lot of our energy into building good, solid relationships with some of Miami’s best chefs and restaurants. I love working with chefs and seeing the treatment they give to our produce. All the chefs that we work with have been to the farm and know exactly what we do, how we do it and why we do it. That connection with the food, I think, is the most important thing that can happen in a kitchen. Chefs are looking for great quality, flavor and consistency. We work extremely hard to make sure we can provide all of these. We also treat our market stand at Legion Park Farmers Market and our now-very-small CSA the same way. I want people to be transported to a happy place every time they taste our produce.
TINY FARM
tinyfarmmiami.com
IG: _tinyfarm_
