01x02 - Raise the Roof

[bunniefuu]

(rooster crows)

INDY: If you've ever

dreamed of owning a farm,

come with me.

PETE: Things are living and

things are growing on a rooftop.

INDY: I am Indy Officinalis.

I am a farmer who

loves helping other farmers.

My passion for

farming started in my teens,

working on a

homestead in North Carolina and

led me to urban

farming in LA.

I've worked on farms

from coast to coast but

farming is hard work.

MAN: We've planted about

ten variety of fruit trees

and they all died.

INDY: So I'm traveling the

country to offer some hope.

Hi.

WOMAN: Indy.

MADISON: Oh,

my gosh, Indy.

INDY: Join me as I

transform farms on rooftops,

in back yards, warehouses.

This is insane.

And even out on the ocean.

Farm rescue on a boat ♪

INDY: And on the way

we'll get tips from some of

my expert farmer friends.

WOMAN: This

is so awesome.

I'm so excited!

(laughter)

INDY: Today I'm in

Berkeley, California

where a soaring new

idea is taking hold.

Gardens grown sky high.

I'm visiting

Joanna Letz, the founder,

owner and operator of

Bluma Farms but out of view,

this farm is

struggling to be seen and

Joanna is

running herself ragged.

I've had years of experience

working on rooftop farms so if

I can bring visibility

to this secret oasis,

then surely it will bloom.

JOANNA: Welcome.

INDY: Hi!

Wow, this is so cool.

JOANNA: Yeah.

INDY: It's so

beautiful up here.

Thank you for having me.

JOANNA: Thanks for coming.

We are up here on a rooftop,

six stories in the

heart of Berkeley.

It's kind of

wild farming up here.

When I remember to look up,

I mean, we have

San Francisco here, Oakland,

the Berkeley Hills behind us.

INDY: Oh, yeah.

JOANNA: Here you'll

see our whole farm.

INDY: Oh, wow!

JOANNA: It's a very

interesting set up.

We have 16 growing roofs

with a total of about a quarter acre

and we grow, like, 50 to 60

different varieties of flowers

and then also the herbs.

I was initially looking

for land on the ground,

close to where I live down the

block and it's hard to come by

land in the city

and so in the city,

this is where it's

gonna happen.

INDY: This is such a

cool set up that it's, it's multiple different roofs.

I haven't seen a

rooftop farm like this.

And so people live

in these buildings?

JOANNA: Yeah.

INDY: Okay.

JOANNA: So, what

It's all residential

and the building was built in

the fall of 2016 and the farm

was built with the building so

it's not a normal place to

be farming but here we are.

INDY: Give me the full tour.

I wanna see what else.

JOANNA: Yeah,

let's keep going.

We have a lot of baby

plants in the ground.

INDY: Oh, nice.

JOANNA: Lavender

that's about to bloom.

INDY: Wow, this lavender.

It looks so pretty

and the rosemary.

JOANNA: The rosemary.

INDY: It's always fun to be

able to show off your garden.

I'm sure that you're spending

so much time just working

this alone, right,

it's just you?

JOANNA: Um, I have a crew.

I wouldn't be able to do

this without them for sure.

INDY: Because the demand

for flowers can ebb and flow with

the seasons and

with the holidays,

Joanna tells me her

ability to keep full time staff

has been somewhat erratic.

It's really incredible to

just walk down a random street

in Berkeley and see this

building that looks like

every other building

on this street but on the top it's just teeming with

life and Bluma Farm is set up

a little bit different than other

rooftop farms that I've

experienced because the way that

Joanna grows, she's growing

on different level platforms

so you're actually seeing all of

these little pockets of vibrant,

beautiful flowers.

JOANNA: I mean, my

favorite thing is harvesting

and growing the herbs.

You just get all the

wonderful scents and smells.

A lot of what we call

the hedgerows are planted

with California natives.

INDY: Oh, cool, okay.

JOANNA: So it's kind of

a pollinator habitat and

somehow the insects

find their way up here.

I was surprised how well the

plants do and we harvest so many

flowers from this

little quarter acre on these rooftops so it's, like,

I hope that this

encourages people to grow

wherever they're at.

INDY: In cities it's really

important to take advantage of

vertical space so

what Joanna's doing,

farming on a rooftop

is really innovative.

It's, it's almost like the

last frontier in urban spaces.

Rooftop farms can be an

invaluable habitat for birds or

traveling pollinators who

can take rest or find a snack.

Rooftop farms can also

be a source of food and

work opportunities for

those in the community,

providing insulation

for the building,

reduce rainwater

runoff and help bring down

the temperature in

the immediate area.

Having plants, rather

than asphalt radiating heat,

does wonders for that.

JOANNA: I need to go

harvest a few things.

INDY: Awesome, oh, fun.

I love harvesting flowers.

My gosh, these

look so beautiful.

JOANNA: But, yeah this is

INDY: I just wanna

roll around in this.

Do you ever do that?

JOANNA: If there's a

nice spot, I might, like,

go and take a little

nap under the flowers.

INDY: This is so magical.

So, so this is what

we need to harvest?

JOANNA: So we're gonna be

harvesting for our bouquets that

we'll be making tomorrow.

INDY: Oh, yay.

JOANNA: This is godetia.

We planted this in the fall and it started

blooming maybe a month ago and,

you know, maybe we'll

harvest some of the sweet peas as well

'cause they'll definitely

go in our bouquets.

INDY: So do you make

your arrangements up here

as you go or do you harvest

everything of one variety and

then go somewhere else?

JOANNA: Unless it's

some special circumstance

INDY: Mm-hmm.

JOANNA: I'll be

harvesting and then we design in the basement

INDY: Right, right.

JOANNA: In our studio.

INDY: And so then you sell

them to a store that carries them?

JOANNA: We have an

online shop so people are ordering directly from us.

We do a lot of weddings,

so we'll come up,

we'll harvest

right for our weddings,

we'll design in our studio and

then we'll go out and set it up.

INDY: Right.

So tell me why

you've chosen flowers?

JOANNA: A big part of it

could be so my grandparents survived

the holocaust in

Poland and my grandpa,

there wasn't a lot of, a

lot of joy in his life and

his garden was his one place

where I just saw him smile and

I think flowers just

bring people so much joy.

Farming, for me,

is both a way to, like,

heal from the past and

heal from some of this, like,

inner-generational trauma

as well as to heal the world and

to provide this

offering of something beautiful and abundant.

My grandparents went

back to Poland in their 90s.

INDY: Oh, wow.

JOANNA: And the apple tree

that they ate from during

hiding is still there.

INDY: So, so the

apple tree, like,

that was literally the

tree that your grandparents

JOANNA: That they survived

partly from that tree and

they went back and

ate from it and it was,

I think this very

powerful experience from them and for me, like,

I do have this

intimate relationship with

the plants that I'm growing.

INDY: I think it's just

beautiful how deeply personal of

a practice this is

for you that you're, you're carrying on a legacy

through the work

that you're doing.

Her farm is, is

more than just a job and it's more than just a way to

bring joy to her community

but it's also a way to preserve

the joy of her family.

Cool. That was so fun.

This farm is deeply

personal to Joanna,

even the name Bluma,

is a Yiddish word.

It's not just a career,

it's a part of her heritage.

JOANNA: I've definitely

questioned every year what

I'm doing and whether I

can keep doing it and, like,

how to make it

work for myself.

I think there were a

lot of years where I was just kind of, like,

my nose to the grindstone

but now I'm in year eight and

I think it comes down to

how to make this business

financially stable

in a way where we're not completely reliant

on the flowers

that we're growing

'cause that is really tough.

They're very fragile.

We have to harvest

them at the right point,

get them in the cooler and

get them out to people before

they start dying, basically.

So we're trying to sort of

figure out what to do here.

I'm not exactly

INDY: What are in the bags?

JOANNA: Like, a volcanic rock.

INDY: So right now

this is kind of, like,

extra garden

surplus storage area.

JOANNA: At the

moment, yeah.

INDY: Running this farm isn't

just about growing flowers.

It's also about

operating a business.

Between nurturing her plants,

her staff and her customers,

it seems like Joanna has

little time to nurture herself.

So what is the

vision for your farm?

JOANNA: Being able to

welcome people up to the farm,

especially given

where we are, like,

we're right here in the city

INDY: Yeah.

JOANNA: Yet people

don't know we're here.

INDY: Right.

JOANNA: If they don't know

to look up and even if they look up

from the street, it's like, they

won't know that we're a farm.

INDY: Right, just engaging

the local community and just, like,

letting folks know that

you're here, you're, right.

JOANNA: We're here.

INDY: Being a rooftop

farm has its advantages.

I mean, the air quality is

better and you have an endless

amount of full sun but

there's also some disadvantages,

the major one being that

people don't know that her farm exists

even when they're

walking right past it.

JOANNA: For the

business as a whole,

having some kind of revenue

from inviting people up here could

increase our capacity to really

be here for the long haul.

INDY: Yeah.

JOANNA: I mean, I think too

just for people to see that

we can grow, you can

grow stuff anywhere.

INDY: Right, right.

I know just from my

experience in rooftop farming

that water was, like,

one of the biggest bills that we had in growing food.

JOANNA: Yeah.

INDY: So you have an

irrigation system in every bed

and then that water is

being pumped up here from?

JOANNA: Our

farm irrigation comes from the basement in our studio.

We do have issues

with pressure and

it uses energy

to get it up here.

INDY: Right, just

because of the height that

the water has to travel?

JOANNA: Exactly and

then we're in California,

we're in the

middle of a drought

INDY: Right, right.

JOANNA: So how we can

use less water up here?

INDY: I'm really inspired

by the work that Joanna does.

I'm passionate

about rooftop farming.

I think it's an incredible way

to grow food within a city and

I want to see her succeed

because the farm is important,

not just for her but for the

preservation of her heritage

and of her family.

JOANNA: I want to

believe that there's a way to make this farming thing,

this business work and

not work myself constantly.

INDY: Joanna has something

truly special at Bluma Farms

and the family

connection runs deep but

being on the roof makes

it hard to get people in,

get flowers out and keep the water

running in an economical way.

This farm is too enchanting

to stay so hidden away.

I'd like to find ways to help Joanna

get the Berkeley community

connected to the farm, grow

the company's local presence

to increase flower

sales and alleviate some of

the irrigation and water

supply issues that exist in the California climate

so that she can have

more time for herself.

I've spent years

working on rooftop farms so

I think I know just the

farms and farmers to visit to get some ideas for Bluma.

Time to meet up

with familiar faces at

some of my local

haunts back in LA.

INDY: So I'm going to visit

Dan Allen of Farmscape and

his rooftop farm is on

the top of the Jonathan Club.

It's a social club where

members enjoy athletics,

events and fine dining and

just like Bluma this farm serves

the immediate community

in a hyper local way.

Farmscape is literally a farm

in the middle of an events space

so they always have

people visiting the farm and

using their farm

as a gathering space.

So I think that they'll

have a lot of ideas as to how

Joanna can turn her farm into

more of a collective center.

DAN: Welcome.

INDY: Hi.

DAN: Thank you

for making it out.

INDY: Yes,

thanks for having me

DAN: Yeah!

INDY: This is so cool.

DAN: Oh, my gosh. So this is

the Jonathan Club rooftop farm.

INDY: Oh!

DAN: We're five stories up.

INDY: It smells so good, like,

I can smell the farm,

it's interesting being in the

middle of downtown and, like,

getting this

great smell of jasmine.

DAN: Yeah. I was gonna say

the jasmine gives you a nice aroma,

there's some

herbs in the garden,

some orange blossom

that you get.

INDY: It's so nice.

DAN: Yeah, it's a lovely space.

This is a converted series

of paddle tennis courts and

a running track and over time

we converted the rooftop to

what you see now.

The latest edition

is this seating area.

This seating area allows them

to obviously take advantage of

the beautiful rooftop

but also do so in really close proximity to the farm.

INDY: Yeah, I'd love

to check out the farm.

DAN: Let's do it, let's do it.

That's the main event.

(laughs)

INDY: Wow!

DAN: This is it.

INDY: This is beautiful.

DAN: Yeah.

INDY: I love this.

DAN: Thank you.

So, our summer crop

went in about a month ago so

what you're seeing is

a young summer garden.

It'll start yielding heavily

in the next month or two.

So, all the produce that

we grow here stays on site.

INDY: Oh, cool.

DAN: They have a restaurant,

their staff is up

here daily harvesting,

work here once

a week managing the site.

INDY: Wow, look at the

beans. DAN: Yeah.

This will be a cranberry bean

that the chef asked us to grow.

INDY: Oh, wow,

look at your tomatoes.

DAN: Yeah!

INDY: Oh, my gosh.

DAN: Like, with

the tomatoes right now, we're pruning suckers

INDY: Oh, yeah!

DAN: Shaping them to match

the type of infrastructure that

we're using in each of

the different areas so

the caged tomatoes get to

be the bushiest which means

we get to let

more suckers go.

INDY: Mm-hmm. But suckers

are just that vertical

DAN: Yeah, it's called a

sucker because it diverts a lot

of energy and if you don't

wanna actually grow that additional

leader on the plant,

you wanna prune it off.

INDY: It can really take over,

they take over your house.

DAN: Yeah, right.

We're in a drought in

southern California and we're trying to

make really thoughtful use of

all the water we use which is

why we use the drip irrigation,

really watering the

entire root zone of the planters

that develops because

that's gonna help it set

as much fruit as possible

throughout the season and

encourage the roots to go

deeper so that you don't have to

do it as frequent

as surface irrigation.

INDY: My own experience in

rooftop farming is that watering

things evenly makes

such a huge difference,

especially when you're losing

so much water to evaporation

just being that much

closer to the sun.

DAN: Mm-hmm.

INDY: How long have you

been growing food here?

DAN: We've been working

with the club for 11 years to do it.

INDY: Okay, wow, so,

you've really, you've had

11 years to perfect

growing on a rooftop?

DAN: Yes, there's a couple of

things that are really specific

to being on a rooftop.

There are different parts

of the roof that are sunnier

and shadier, so we actually

did a sun study when we sited

the garden here and

in particular you see a denser center row here

because it ended up being

one of the sunnier spots.

INDY: So, you just kind of

plan, you make your crop plan

according to how much

sun that you're getting?

DAN: Yeah.

INDY: Nice, all right,

show me what else.

DAN: Yeah, yeah, all right, so

everything we're growing up here

in about 3,000 square feet

so it's not a huge area in

the scheme of things

but we're able to grow a really wide variety of crops.

Peppers.

INDY: Yes, beans.

DAN: Well, we wanna

make use of the vertical growing space too, right?

In an urban environment,

every square foot counts and if we can

use the pole beans to grow

up this trellis and cover it,

besides being beautiful it means we get

more food out of a small space.

INDY: So, you guys

have tomatoes starting?

DAN: Mm-hmm.

Summer squash.

INDY: You have some edible

flowers back there, nasturtium.

DAN: Yeah, we got trees

INDY: Oh, yeah.

DAN: So this is the majority

of the growing area but

we have fruit surrounding most of the space.

INDY: Oh, cool. Oh, cool,

yeah, I'm starting to notice that.

DAN: Yeah, so a lot of citrus.

INDY: An olive tree.

DAN: Mm-hmm. So, most of

the gardens really young.

As you can see the summer

crop is just starting but

do you wanna at least trying something from

the garden while we're here?

INDY: I do, yeah.

DAN: Let's do it.

INDY: Ooh.

Incredible.

Those are beautiful

looking blueberries.

DAN: Yeah.

INDY: I'm just

gonna eat one right now.

DAN: Just go for it, go for it.

No, they're quite good.

INDY: These are delicious,

you've understated them.

DAN: Oh, good. Mm-hmm.

INDY: Like, blueberries

that you get in the store,

they taste almost

just like blue mush.

DAN: Yeah.

INDY: This has at least

five different flavors that

I'm getting at once right now.

DAN: It really pops, yeah.

INDY: It's, like,

tangy, sweet, blue.

It tastes blue somehow.

(laughter)

DAN: Yeah, yeah.

INDY: Yeah, these are so good.

DAN: Let's take

advantage of that seating we were looking at earlier.

(sighs)

DAN: Grab a seat.

INDY: Just having

folks up here dining

DAN: Mm-hmm.

INDY: Do you feel

like that increases their interest in the farm?

DAN: A lot.

The nice part about creating

this event space is it's an

opportunity to actually bring

people up here and, and say,

"By the way, you can

meander through the garden."

INDY: Exactly.

DAN: And, yeah.

And then the other part

that's important to us is just

showing that, you know, you

can literally grow your food

feet away from where

you're ready to enjoy it and

it's something that you

can really feature, right?

INDY: No, that's such a good point because

when you think about it,

it's almost like growing food,

in the US especially,

has had this history of

being kind of, like, a gross,

dirty thing that

happens somewhere else.

I mean, it's like, when

people think about farming,

they're thinking about manure

and dirt and kind of something

that happens away

from fine dining.

So, it's really beautiful to

see it converge up here in a way

that is aesthetically pleasing.

I mean, it just feels

good to be in this space.

DAN: Yeah. Well, it's a

meaningful connection, right?

Not only are you dining

literally feet from where

that food was harvested but it

also gives you a firsthand look

at what the growing

process looks like.

INDY: Right, right.

DAN: So you've worked

on a rooftop farm, right?

INDY: Yeah, yeah, at the Los Angeles Community

Action Network which is, like,

literally right down the street.

DAN: Oh, my gosh, yeah,

not far away at all.

Oh, that's great.

INDY: It's a really, you know,

unique way of growing food.

I, I'm sure that you

feel it here, I mean,

you're literally looking

right across at someone sitting

in their office

while you're on a farm.

DAN: Well, occasionally

it's so peaceful and quiet and

then other moments like

this maybe not so much but

it is a reminder

of where you are.

INDY: Yeah.

DAN: Yeah.

INDY: Awesome, well, thank you so much for having

me and for showing me everything.

DAN: Thank you

for making the trip.

INDY: And I feel

like has been so helpful.

As Dan mentioned the rooftop

garden where I used to work with

the Los Angeles Community

Action Network or LACAN

is just down the

road from here.

I think it's time I

visit my old stomping ground.

(laughs)

Monique!

MONIQUE: Oh, my God!

INDY: Hi!

MONIQUE: Indy.

INDY: It's so good to see you.

MONIQUE: Oh, my God,

give me a hug.

What you doing back here?

INDY: Just outside the

rooftop garden where I used to

work I bump into one of my

friends who runs the program,

Monique Noel.

MONIQUE: There's

lots to show you.

INDY: Monique is part of the food and

wellness committee for LACAN,

a non-profit that's been

addressing issues of housing,

civil rights and

access to healthy food in

the Los Angeles

area since 1999.

This looks so great,

the flowers, I love the flowers.

MONIQUE: Right, I know,

and the rosemary,

it always grows out of control

but that's the beauty of it,

the wildness of it, I

love the way it's just there.

INDY: Working at LACAN for

two years as a farm manager was

a transformative

experience for me.

It was hard work and I

learned that if you can grow food on

Skid Row, you can

grow food anywhere.

MONIQUE: So here

we have a lemon tree.

INDY: Ooh. That looks nice.

MONIQUE: Uh-huh.

We have our rosemary here.

INDY: Oh, sage.

MONIQUE: Sage.

Everything that we're

growing up here we use and

we eat and this is the

INDY: Pete, what's up?

PETE: Indy, what's up?

INDY: Back there,

hiding and eating tomatoes.

Good to see you.

PETE: You're busting

me getting breakfast.

INDY: My boss

when I worked here was

the Executive Director

of LACAN, Pete White.

Oh, man, I'm

gonna eat one too.

PETE: Yeah, they're pretty

good. INDY: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

PETE: They're decent.

INDY: That is super good.

It looks so good up here.

PETE: I know, let's look at some of the

other stuff that's up here.

INDY: Yeah, yeah,

give me a tour.

PETE: Check it out.

INDY: Give me a tour.

PETE: We have some

purple beans growing right here.

INDY: Ooh, you

know I like beans.

PETE: I know you

love the beans, man!

INDY: Yes!

PETE: And then we have

this tall dinosaur kale.

INDY: Oh, the kale is crazy.

PETE: You know, I kind of

love it because it's taller than me.

Not many things

are taller than me.

INDY: This is a nice

spring garden going on.

PETE: No, that's right.

INDY: Yeah.

PETE: That's right.

Things are living and

things are growing on a rooftop.

INDY: Always living and

growing and the flowers look amazing.

PETE: Oh, man, and

you know the flowers are bringing the pollinators.

INDY: Yes.

PETE: We got the

butterflies coming,

we got the birds

coming so it's going down.

INDY: Which is magical

because when you're downstairs,

we are in Skid Row and,

you know, it's a very intentional space that

has been ignored on purpose

and so being able to

grow food in this space,

I mean, that's everything.

PETE: I think you named

it service level what we're,

what we get to experience is all of the

organized abandonment, right?

INDY: Yeah.

PETE: But on the rooftop

we're able to elevate in so many other

ways and not just simply

coming up the stairs but, you know,

walking on a rooftop

and just breathing fresh air,

much like many other, um,

low income communities,

access to fresh fruits and

vegetables is slim to none.

INDY: Right. Right.

MONIQUE: You know,

it's important to have this space here,

it's important to be able

to have these gardens to grow

and to be able to just relax.

INDY: There are so many

ways to bring nature and plants into

urban industrial areas

but one issue that troubles

every rooftop farmer

is access to water.

I

(laughs)

I remember when I was here

and I was watering things by hand

using city water and one time

I left the hose flowing.

PETE: Oh, so now you tell,

that was the bill that I was like,

"What happened, this

is a high water bill."

INDY: But, but I

have these friends,

they have a similar set up.

Now they're really focused

on trying to figure out how to

bring water to their garden

in a way that isn't gonna drive

their water bill

through the roof.

I wanna check in with Pete

about some exciting technology from

a company called Skywell that has totally

changed Pete's water game.

PETE: As long as there's 27%

relative humidity in the air,

this large machine

creates 100 gallons of water per night, right?

INDY: What!

PETE: And so, when you're

that, when you're in a region like

Los Angeles that's, you know,

adjacent to the ocean,

there's always gonna be at least

27% relative humidity in the

air and so we built a reservoir and

we just started using

water from the clouds to

actually feed our gardens.

INDY: An atmospheric water

generator uses technology to

collect water from the air.

Fans pull air over a cooling

coil which prompts condensation.

The water droplets are

collected and filtered for

drinking or watering gardens.

The collected water can

be stored in a reservoir and

hooked up to a drip irrigation

system that's set on a timer.

So this means that you're

not on public city water?

PETE: So with the

current set up that we have,

we are using some.

We're using 50%

less water, right?

INDY: Wow, okay,

that's significant.

PETE: And that's significant

INDY: Yeah, that is.

PETE: In a place

like Los Angeles.

INDY: That's amazing.

My friends at Bluma, they are

just pumping their water from

a lower level up to

their rooftop farm and,

I mean, that's running

their electricity bill up and

it's just difficult.

It's hard on their system.

PETE: You have to make it

as easy and as comfortable for

folks to garden because if, if ease and

comfortability is not there,

the garden will die.

INDY: Right.

PETE: Farmers know, right,

and urban farmers know all too well

that the cost of, you know,

of running a garden,

the highest cost is the water.

INDY: The water, yeah, and

then the water that is being

harvested is that

drinkable water?

PETE: Oh, yeah, well,

you can bathe in it,

you can cook in it

and it's delicious.

INDY: Yeah.

It's locally sourced.

I mean, how many

can say that?

PETE: How local, this

is my water right here.

I'm about to

drink you later, right?

So, yes.

INDY: That's so cool.

MONIQUE: And Skid Row, I

mean, there's no water in Skid Row.

There's no real

facilities for people to use.

There's no drinking water.

So, for us to be able to

offer this as a place for people

to come, a destination for

people to come and get fresh,

clean water is amazing.

I mean, that's a

game changer for us.

PETE: That's right.

INDY: That's incredible.

Sweet, yeah, I'd love

to try some downstairs

PETE: Yeah, 100%.

INDY: Go check it out.

INDY: All right.

Drinking water.

Joanna wants to be more

eco-friendly and she also wants

a way to get water to the roof

without having to pump it from

her basement so the

Skywell system seems like

just the perfect fit.

PETE: Bottoms up.

MONIQUE: It's good.

PETE: Right?

INDY: It's really good,

it's really good.

This is water from our

air that tastes crisp

PETE: Tastes delicious, right?

INDY: It's crisp,

it's delicious.

And it's filtered, right?

PETE: 100%.

INDY: It's really good.

MONIQUE: I'm about to take

this salad bowl to one of my friends,

one of our neighbors

just down the block.

INDY: Yeah, can I come?

MONIQUE: Come with me.

INDY: Yeah.

PETE: I'm not going.

So I'm gonna say,

I'm gonna see you later.

INDY: Thank you.

PETE: It was so good seeing you.

INDY: So good

to see you too.

MONIQUE: I'm gonna

put this in the basket.

INDY: Wow, this

bike is so cool.

You've been doing your

deliveries with this bike?

MONIQUE: Yes.

INDY: That's the idea?

MONIQUE: Yeah, so, we

know that folk in the community,

you know, can't really get

around too much but it's better

than being in a car 'cause I

can get through little alleyways and

just find people where they

are and this has really worked out.

INDY: That's so cool, like, actually

bringing the farm to them.

MONIQUE: That's right.

INDY: Yeah, and so then what do you, what

do you keep in the basket?

What do you?

MONIQUE: So, sometimes

we have meals that we've prepared

but oftentimes, it's

vegetables and fruit and

stuff from the

garden and herbs.

We have little herb bundles

that we deliver to people, um, water,

it's just things that

kind of people need to be well.

INDY: If you're a farm and

most of your customers are right in

your neighborhood, having a

bike makes it really simple to

interact with your customers

and also make deliveries.

I love that and

you can just, like,

zip around and bring things

straight to the community.

That's such a

great way to engage.

I love that.

MONIQUE: And it's good

for the environment too.

INDY: Yeah, oh, good point.

Win, win, awesome.

After I finish these deliveries,

it's time to head back to

Berkeley and Bluma Farm to put

these great new

rooftop ideas to the test.

I'm so excited to share all my

new ideas with Joanna on how to

make her business grow

that I want to shout them from

the rooftops but Mother's Day

is fast approaching so she's

working around the clock

to get her orders in on time.

Hi.

JOANNA: Hey.

INDY: Hey, how are you?

BOTH: It's so

good to see you.

INDY: It's good to be back,

everything looks beautiful.

JOANNA: Yay, thank you.

INDY: So are you,

you're picking these all for arrangements right now?

JOANNA: Yeah.

INDY: Yeah.

JOANNA: Mother's

Day orders.

INDY: Yes.

JOANNA: This week.

INDY: That's awesome.

JOANNA: Yeah, so I've

harvested some sweet peas,

more of the godetia, um,

and raspberry.

I'm just harvesting for some

orders and then headed down to

the basement to start

putting stuff together.

INDY: Oh, no way.

Can I give you a hand?

JOANNA: That'd be

awesome. INDY: Yay, perfect.

Looks like Joanna is

preparing for the holiday rush

all by herself so I'll share

my rooftop farming ideas after

I give her a hand.

Yay.

JOANNA: All right.

INDY: Perfect.

So, who are these

bouquets going to?

JOANNA: This is an

order for a winery

INDY: Oh, cool.

JOANNA: That's

super close by in Berkeley.

Most of our deliveries are

in Berkeley so that's nice so

we don't have to

travel too far to get there.

So, yeah, we got lemon

verbena, we got some sticky monkey

INDY: Smells so good.

JOANNA: Um, and sweet peas.

I always try to put stuff

that's fragrant and something

that's wild so it really

kind of feels like the farm.

Yay, nice to have

some extra hands.

INDY: Yeah.

JOANNA: And show what we do.

INDY: It takes a lot of

experience and practice to

seed plants and

make them grow.

I think I've got that part

down pretty well but it's

a whole other set of skills to

make an artistic arrangement.

I feel like I'm

creating a monster.

JOANNA: Looks gorgeous.

INDY: Yeah. Okay.

JOANNA: I think farming is

both art and science and it's so fun

to be able to just go up and

harvest and come down here and

put stuff together.

You know, it's just

working, working, working.

I would start work at 4:00 am

and be done at midnight and

I think that definitely weighed on my ability to

make good decisions for

the business but I just can't

wait to see what kinds of ideas

Indy comes up with to

help me make this farm

go for the long run.

I really just wanna keep doing

it and I need a little help.

INDY: Seeing her

amongst the flowers,

in her natural element

doing what she loves,

it makes me even more

excited and passionate about helping

her because she, she

just belongs on this farm.

Flowers bring people joy.

I think it's an incredible

unique product to grow.

JOANNA: We're ready to roll.

INDY: Yeah, so you need to

bring these up to the street level?

JOANNA: We do.

INDY: There's something I actually wanna

show you on the ground level.

JOANNA: Ooh, all right.

INDY: Yeah.

JOANNA: Exciting

INDY: Yeah, you wanna come

and check it out? Let's do it.

I'm more than happy to be an

extra set of hands today but for

future deliveries, she's going

to need a little more assistance

and I've got a custom made surprise that

should do just the trick.

Before we go to your car,

I wanted to show you

JOANNA: Oh, my God.

INDY: The new

Bluma Farms delivery bike.

JOANNA: What?

INDY: Yes, yes.

JOANNA: This is for me?

INDY: Yes, it is.

JOANNA: Oh, my God.

INDY: So I was

visiting my friends at

the Los Angles

Community Action Network

JOANNA: Yeah.

INDY: And they use a bike

that's really similar to

this to do all of

their farm deliveries and

you were talking about how

there is just so many people who live

right in this neighborhood who don't

know that Bluma Farms exist.

JOANNA: Now they're

gonna see me on the bike.

INDY: Exactly.

JOANNA: With their flowers.

INDY: Exactly.

JOANNA: Amazing.

I never would have imagined

myself on this electric bike

and here it is for me.

It's this beautiful bike that

people are gonna get to see me

riding through the

city with my flowers.

I feel like it embodies the

kind of spirit that is my farm.

This is so amazing.

Thank you so much.

INDY: I'm so glad.

Should we load them

up and see how it looks?

JOANNA: I really

can't believe it.

Yeah, let's do it.

INDY: Yeah, okay cool.

Making deliveries on

a bike with the Bluma logo

featured prominently

will ensure that everyone in

the neighborhood knows

about Joanna's company and parking

the bike outside her building

will show folks where Bluma is.

Now I've got more

surprises in store.

The flowers look

incredible on this.

JOANNA: Wow.

INDY: This is so cute.

JOANNA: Wow! And I got a

helmet too to stay safe.

Thank you.

INDY: Yes, of course.

Okay, there's one more

thing that I wanna show you.

JOANNA: One

more thing. What?

(knocking)

What is going on?

INDY: Dun, dun, dun

JOANNA: Oh, my goodness.

INDY: Ta-da.

JOANNA: What is this?

INDY: It's nothing but special deliveries

today and like any farm,

especially in California,

Joanna may just get her

biggest money

problem solved,

how to reduce her water bill.

My friends at Los Angeles

Community Action Network,

they have one of these on

their rooftop farm and it's incredible

that they're able to just

take water out of the air,

put it into this machine and

then you can use that to pump

into your irrigation system,

to water all of your plants

so you're not

relying on your city water

to be pumped

all the way from

the basement and use

all of that unnecessary energy

just to water your plants.

JOANNA: Right.

Oh, my goodness. Wow.

This is gonna make such

a difference on my farm.

This is, like, exactly the

kind of thing that my farm needs

to go into the future.

As a rooftop farm, we

don't have as many options

in terms of water

holding capacity, so, I mean,

I'm just sort of flabbergasted

by the innovative technologies

that they've created.

Wow, what a trip.

INDY: All right, so, are you

ready to make some deliveries?

JOANNA: Yeah. I mean, yes.

So excited to try this out.

INDY: Cool. I

have my bike too.

JOANNA: Let's hit the road.

INDY: Yeah!

JOANNA: All right.

Getting used to the bike.

INDY: You look great.

JOANNA: Thanks.

INDY: I feel like

that color suits you.

JOANNA: Woo-hoo.

It's, like, such a

beautiful moment and I, like,

get to interact with the

community in this way and

have people see me driving

through the city on this bike

with all our flowers,

nothing feels better than that.

INDY: So much fun.

JOANNA: That

was really, really fun.

INDY: Did you enjoy it?

JOANNA: Oh, my God, so much.

INDY: I feel like

I have helmet hair.

JOANNA: Oh.

INDY: This is so cute.

JOANNA: Yeah,

it's super cute.

Hi.

JOSH: Hey.

It's good to see you guys.

Look at these,

they look beautiful.

Thank you so much,

see you again soon.

JOANNA: Bye.

INDY: Your first bike delivery.

JOANNA: Woo-hoo.

Empty delivery cart.

INDY: I know.

Doesn't that feel good?

JOANNA: Feels so good.

INDY: We're off.

JOANNA: We're off.

INDY: I'll follow you, I

don't remember the way back.

JOANNA: Cool.

INDY: Handpicked,

arranged and delivered just in the nick of time.

JOANNA: Woo-hoo!

Such a nice ride.

INDY: So. Yes.

I had another delivery

come this morning.

JOANNA: Another delivery?

INDY: Yes.

JOANNA: What?

Oh, my God, what is it?

INDY: Well, it's wood but

JOANNA: Okay?

INDY: I'm gonna

show you what it's for.

Do you wanna go

up to the roof?

JOANNA: Yeah, great.

INDY: Okay, let's go.

Let me show you,

let's come over here.

JOANNA: Wow.

INDY: Okay, so all of the

wood that we saw downstairs,

I was thinking that if we

put some of that down and

used it as flooring, then

you have this, like, nice,

open clear space where

you can have workshops.

The idea is just to bring more

folks who aren't even aware that

Bluma Farms is right here in

the middle of their community.

I feel like, having

something like that here could

be such an integral piece.

JOANNA: To know that so

many people want me to succeed and

want this farm to continue,

means so much to me.

It makes me feel like

I'm not alone doing this.

I feel so grateful to have people in my

corner saying, "Yeah,"

like cheering me

on and saying,

"Hey, you can do this,"

and it means so much.

INDY: Thank you for bringing

me into your farm and

JOANNA: Thank you

for being here.

INDY: Showing me all of

the work that you're doing.

This has been an, an

incredible opportunity and I can't wait to

see what you do

with this space.

I'm definitely

gonna come back and see.

I, I'm so confident that you're

going to just transform this

area into something incredible.

JOANNA: I think my grandpa

would be really proud of what

I've built and that I'm farming.

Meeting Indy and all of these

things that she has offered

my farm means that, you

know, I can keep going into the future.

INDY: I can't wait to come

back and see just how much

her business has grown and if

Joanna has managed to carve out

a little more time for herself.

INDY: It's been a few weeks

since I've seen Joanna and

she's been so busy that I

catch her just as she finishes

a few deliveries

around the neighborhood.

JOANNA: Woo-hoo.

INDY: Hi. That looks awesome.

JOANNA: Yes,

it's so, so much fun.

INDY: And you look great on

it. Oh, it's good to see you.

JOANNA: Good to see you.

INDY: Wow, so

you're loving the bike?

JOANNA: It's so fun and

people just love seeing me around town, with it filled,

just did deliveries, it

was all filled with flowers.

Now we have party supplies.

INDY: That's exciting.

You're having a party here?

JOANNA: We're having a party, we're gonna

inaugurate the new deck.

INDY: There's a new deck.

JOANNA: Yeah!

INDY: I can't wait to see it.

JOANNA: Yeah, let's grab

a bag and we'll head in.

INDY: When I left Joanna, I

had given her the raw materials and

this idea of the seating area

but I was really concerned that

maybe the new deck and

seating area didn't work out.

JOANNA: Here we go.

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

INDY: Oh, my gosh, I love it.

JOANNA: Yay.

INDY: This is amazing.

I am so glad that it worked

out, this is perfect, it's amazing.

JOANNA: I know, I mean,

it's still a work in progress.

We're gonna put in plants in

the hedgerows here and we could host

all kinds of workshops

and classes and maybe, like,

a Bluma Café and have

coffee and treats and,

I don't know, poetry.

INDY: Yeah. Yes.

JOANNA: It's just gonna

be so nice to be able to

host people here and show

off the farm and have parties,

like we're gonna

have tonight so.

INDY: Yeah. Yes!

It looks like Joanna is

still getting ready for

the festivities later but I

love how this deck turned out.

Being able to turn it into something

functional is incredible.

JOANNA: It's, like,

game changer.

It really, like, warms my heart

to be able to have this space.

I feel like there's so much

hope in farming and to get to share

that with people, feels like something

really positive and good.

INDY: Yeah, it does.

JOANNA: So

I think that building

relationships with the soil

really helped my grandpa because most of

his life he was pretty sad.

He lost all of his family

in the holocaust but I think,

for me, learning about plants

and taking care of the soil has

also been sort of a

transformative experience and

healing in a lot of ways and

I think my grandpa

would be really proud.

Thank you for

helping make this happen.

INDY: Of course, of course.

JOANNA: Yeah.

INDY: I'm so happy

to be a part of this.

How's business been?

JOANNA: Thank you.

Business is good.

We have a wedding

tomorrow so

if you wanna come

harvest a few things.

INDY: Of course, awesome,

always happy to harvest flowers.

JOANNA: Yay.

You can harvest all the

way to the bottom there.

INDY: Okay.

Bluma seems to be thriving.

The deck looks gorgeous.

The bike delivery system is

on point and business is booming.

I just hope that this

farm still isn't taking

everything out of Joanna.

JOANNA: Let's go grab some

herbs and make some sun tea.

INDY: What herb is it?

JOANNA: Chamomile.

INDY: Oh, my gosh,

they're so cute.

Awesome. No

electricity needed.

That is so beautiful.

JOANNA: So pretty.

INDY: Unfortunately one of

my solutions didn't work out.

The building's proprietors

decided not to install

the atmospheric water

generator on the roof.

It just goes to show that not every solution

is viable for every farm.

JOANNA: The owners were

worried about the weight and

the power usage in getting

it up here so the owners of

the building

decided not to take it.

INDY: Mm.

I am still really

concerned that Joanna's not able

to use water on the

farm as efficiently as she would like to.

I think that that's kind of

the hard part of farming is

one solution that works

perfectly on one farm,

can just not land on another.

So it's important to

always have a backup plan.

Um, I actually do have

something in my car that

I feel like could possibly

work if you're open to

giving something else a try?

JOANNA: Yeah, definitely.

INDY: Yeah.

JOANNA: That'd be great.

INDY: All right.

I'll go grab it.

All right, little sun tea.

The water problem in

California can't always be

solved out of thin air.

In this case, some clever

technology may do the trick.

So this is a

Wi-Fi-enabled controller

that will allow

you to turn off and on

your irrigation system

remotely from your phone

JOANNA: Amazing.

INDY: Yeah, yeah.

JOANNA: Thank you.

INDY: So, let's say, it starts

raining and you're at home.

Instead of running over to the

farm and having to manually turn

it off, you can just do

it right from your phone.

JOANNA: Whoa. Cool.

Oh, this is gonna make

my life so much easier.

INDY: Well, being able to turn

on and off the irrigation system

is just going to make it

run that much more efficiently.

JOANNA: Thank you.

Excited to, to put it to use.

I mean, it's just like

if the technology exists,

we should be using it

and just making those

very timed decisions and

not having to be at the farm,

makes my life easier.

INDY: So, open up the app.

JOANNA: Cool.

INDY: You can set it

so that you can turn on

different quadrants

if you want.

JOANNA: Right.

That's really so important

right now for any farm in

California to figure

out ways to reduce water.

INDY: So, yeah, just

press on from there.

JOANNA: Amazing.

Okay, let's see.

INDY: Yay, it's working.

JOANNA: Yay.

INDY: That's so great.

It may not look

like much but this slow and

steady drip irrigation is an easy way to conserve

water and if Joanna can now

control her watering through

a Wi-Fi system on her phone,

she'll save water and

have more time to herself.

JOANNA: All right. It's time

to get ready for the party.

INDY: Party.

So much of farming is out

of our control but finding

new solutions is always

a cause for celebration.

Now it looks

like the butterflies,

birds and bees aren't

the only ones who know about this flowery oasis.

JOANNA: Hi.

INDY: Hi.

Oh, this looks awesome.

JOANNA: Thank you.

INDY: Everything

looks so beautiful.

What?

This is great, this is, like,

exactly what you imagined.

JOANNA: Exactly, yeah.

Do you wanna meet everyone?

INDY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JOANNA: Okay, everybody,

I wanted to introduce Indy

INDY: Hey, everybody.

JOANNA: So this is family,

loved ones, friends.

So, Indy helped get this

deck to happen so thank you.

INDY: Yes. Of course.

JOANNA: And it's such, like,

a pleasure to inaugurate this

space where we can

bring people up and, like,

have them see the

farm and get to enjoy it.

INDY: And it's wild to think

that this was all storage.

JOANNA: Right?

INDY: Like, just the

last time I was here.

JOANNA: And

now it's, like, here.

INDY: People celebrating,

celebrating you and the farm.

JOANNA: I know. I know.

And we have delicious

food and some wine and

INDY: Exactly.

JOANNA: Enjoy.

INDY: Oh, speaking

of beverages,

let me show you this.

JOANNA: Okay. Wow.

INDY: So, you remember

the other Skywell system.

This is a lot smaller but

it's great for drinking water

and for events

like this, it's perfect.

JOANNA: And that's

just from the atmosphere?

INDY: It's being

pulled directly

JOANNA: Pulled from the sky.

I mean, cool, that's so wild.

INDY: Cheers.

JOANNA: Cheers.

INDY: It's so good.

JOANNA: It's really good.

So, if anybody wants to try

water from the atmosphere,

go ahead and

drink up, nice and cold.

INDY: It's so fun

to be a part of this.

JOANNA: Thank

you, so special.

INDY: So it really, like,

this is the moment that I feel

like it, everything is

really coming together.

It's like a farm is nothing

without people and community

JOANNA: Right?

INDY: So seeing everyone here.

JOANNA: It's so perfect.

INDY: Yeah.

I think Joanna's not

necessarily feeding people physically but

she's feeding the soul

part of individuals and

we need that kind of joy.

JOANNA: Bye.

INDY: Bye. Bye.

JOANNA: Thank you.

INDY: Farming shouldn't

just be about consumption.

It should be about giving

back what we give to the land,

what we bring to our

community and I think Joanna is bringing

a lot to her community

by providing something that

folks can use to celebrate.

While most solutions

for Bluma Farms worked out,

they're not always one size

fits all but when farmers get

together and help other

farmers, we create a stronger community

with one another and

the people we serve,

no matter where the farm.