Urban Farm Training Program

The Youth Farm is an educational production farm in East Flatbush that offers New Yorkers opportunities to increase their knowledge of the food system and build high level organic growing skills to share with their communities. The Youth Farm grows organic food & flowers on one acre for the community, and offers advanced farm training and leadership opportunities for youth and adults.

Earn a Certificate in Urban Farming:
Our Adult Farm Training program seeks to provide urban-based adults with the opportunity to gain concrete skills in organic farming, and to explore a career in organic agriculture and community food systems through hands-on training under the tutelage of highly experienced growers.

Through a season on the Youth Farm -- June 3 through October 18 -- you will become intimately familiar with the tasks, challenges, and rewards of growing many varieties of vegetables and flowers appropriate to our region and community.

Through this 20-hour per week commitment, you will gain a good sense and feel for the physical, mental and spiritual energy required to produce nutritious and delicious food, beautiful flowers, and a rich and harmonious community space. You will be joining between 7 and 9 other individuals with similar goals to help manage the farm for 2013. 

Click Here For more information on our Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship Components:

* Hands-on farm work on a 1 acre diversified, in-ground farm
* Technical Workshops on Seasonal topics
* Instructional farm walks 
* Training Rotations in Propagation, Irrigation, Management etc.
* Direct marketing via CSA, Farmers Market, and Restaurants
* Working with youth 
* NYC C.R.A.F.T. membership
* Round table discussion with food systems experts

Join Farmer Molly on Friday, May 10th or Farmer Bee on Saturday May 11th to learn about the history of the Youth Farm, our growing practices, educational programming and direct marketing, and to hear more specifics on our Apprenticeship.

Accepting applications through May 15!

Support GreenThumbs & School Gardens

Fellow supporters of school gardens

There is no permanent funding for school gardens in New York City. To  help fill the gap, there is currently a proposal with the city council to  fund GreenThumb's purchase and delivery of soil, lumber, and other  materials for school gardens in 2013-14.


Please CALL or EMAIL both Speaker Quinn and your Council Member as soon as  possible, asking them to *support citywide discretionary funding for the  GreenThumb school garden program, Reference #201302001400*.

1) Speaker Christine Quinn: 
District Office Phone: (212) 564-7757 or Legislative Office Phone: (212) 788-7210

Send an email using this link

2) Your Council Member: 
Find his/her contact info with your address using this link
identified your council member, please call or send an email from your member's website. 

Where Are They Now? Past Youth Farm Apprentices...

We love staying in touch with past apprentices, and finding out all the amazing things they go on to do after learning with us at the Youth Farm...  
Here are just a some of the things our past apprentices are doing. 

Find out more about our Urban Farm Training Program (accepting applications for summer)

Liz Liz Dowd (2012): Liz is now the Assistant Farm Manager at the Youth Farm. We are thrilled to have her stay on with us for a second year and take on this leadership role. 

Josh Kalin (2012): While not at his day job as an ice sculptor, Josh is an active member of his community garden and continues to volunteer at the HSPS Youth Farm. Josh is an avid forager and a member of the New York Mycological Society. He also loves to make and share all sorts of fermented foods and hot sauces.

Aimee Bowe (2012): Aimee is lucky enough to be able to put some of what she learned as a Farm Apprentice to use in her Brooklyn backyard.  She hopes to one day move upstate and start a small farmstead of her own, complete with chickens and goats.  Through her farm apprenticeship Aimee has gotten work landscaping and floral arranging!

Mia Riddle (2012):  Mia Riddle left New York the day after finishing the Youth Farm Apprenticeship. She now holds a resident staff position as CSA/Market Manager at Blue House Farm in Pescadero, CA. The farm is an hour south of San Francisco on the rural Central Coast, and grows 30 acres of organic produce and flowers.

Sarah Pekovitch (2012): Sarah is currently living in Chicago working with the ChicagoBotanic Garden as a Grower.  She is working with the Green Youth Farm which is within CBG's 'Community Gardening' program. 

Bret Ward (2012): Bret ward is still living in Brooklyn. He currently working as a landscaper for the Prospect Park Alliance on the lakeside construction project. He also works on his web comic Lonely Mountain  Garbage. Many people would say Bret is aloof, he is hilarious. 

Whitney Richardson (2011) : Whitney is now in Chicago,working as a representative, marketing & gardening coordinator for Tru Blooms Chicago, a fragrance made using flowers grown in community gardens and farms across Chicagoland. They hired 100 farmers last year to grow and harvest the flowers through Growing Power, Growing Home & Neighborspace. She also supports the Chicago Food Policy Advisory Council Supply Chain Working Group.

Martha Jackson (2010): Martha is continuing or pursuit of organic farming and education at Phillies Bridge Farm Project in New Paltz NY