Today we’d like to introduce you to Maurice Small.
Hi Maurice, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My story starts off in the projects of near west side of Cleveland, Ohio. My father grew food and herbs in the back yard, perennials and roses in the front yard, and fruit and nut trees across the fence on the railroad property. I watched him grow all these things, I watched him share all these things, and I also watched him dig things up, like roses, and share them with friends and neighbors across greater Cleveland. My dad died when I was 8 years old and all of his techniques died with him. All I remember was what I saw. I didn’t learn the techniques of how to grow.
Fast forward to my oldest son James being born and when I first held him in my arms, all the memories of what my dad had shown me came back. I knew that I needed to grow food in order to feed my family. I tried to start growing food by creating a community garden with my neighbors on the near west side of Cleveland. It was about seven families, and we all shared an empty lot between all of our apartments. We all tried to grow food that first season. The year was 1991 and we failed miserably.
In 1992, we tried again and failed yet again. The winter of 1992, my neighbor Ed asked me what I was doing and I said that I was trying to grow food to feed my family. Ed invited me down to his house and he showed me his garden, which was nothing but a large hole in the ground (60’ x 60’ and 2 feet deep). The strange thing about this hole in the ground that was his garden was the fact that it was filled with leaves! Ed said “I treat every leaf as a dollar”. What I learned that day was you have to invest in your soil. You have to invest in garden. You have to invest in the future. Nature invests in itself. Duplicate nature.
So, I gathered leaves and covered the entire community garden with leaves, a really thick layer, and waited until spring. Spring rolls around and it is time for planting. I pulled the leaves back and I saw life! I saw worms, potato bugs, centipedes, and ants. In essence, a diverse ecosystem. Suffice it to say that the third year of growing, the entire garden was super productive. I sold my first two pints of cherry tomatoes to a local restaurant and that is the beginning of my story.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a very smooth road and the only struggles have been securing consistent funding.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Visionary Growing Solutions. The foundation of my work is focused on Growing excellent food. I cultivate food with techniques that honor nature’s processes and invest in upcoming growers and their communities. The growing process is most effective when it is grounded in the vision of the growers and their communities. Through the dynamic connection between growing practice and vision, I facilitate the creation of solutions that provide short- and long-term success for my clients whether they are operating community gardens, starting farms on family land, creating sustainable growing or composting programs in city/municipality governments, or any kind of innovative growing initiative that you can imagine.
People also call me with their ideas. We discuss what they want to grow. We explore their vision. And I facilitate the solutions that will allow them to make their vision a reality. A lot of these realities need to be rooted in sustainable practices (i.e., permaculture, agroecology, no-till, and food sovereignty).
What I am most proud of is my family, my roots.
What sets me apart is that I am Black. I wear coveralls every day of my life. I meet with mayors, Lt. Governors, heads of state, high-end chefs, the guy at the corner gas station, the lady looking for gardening supplies at Dollar General, farmers in the field, teachers in the classroom, and students in the after-school program. Given that I’m Black and I wear coveralls, I have been fortunate enough to just be my comfortable self in all environments and to receive the respect and admiration of my peers in spite of my appearance.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
The most important lesson I’ve learned is everybody and everything eats. That simple lesson and acknowledgment has led me to a profound way of living in that inputs are crucial. In my case, creating healthy soil creates healthy food which, when consumed, creates healthy community members. This healthy food leads to a pathway of conscious thinking and doing. When people eat better food, they make better decisions. When the soil that the food is grown in is consistently supported with living organisms via compost, there is a natural food web that continues to support earthly organisms. This has been my life for the past 35 years and this has been my journey.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mauricesmall.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CM-EjQ3pVEq/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/thegreeneffect500/posts/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/smallfarmz?s=21&t=uKVmSWnhCwL5xjkf2UI2aw
- Youtube: https://www.mauricesmall.com/media
- Other: https://linktr.ee/smallfarmz
Image Credits
Paris Lancaster, Julia Nieves, Maurice Small
