Urban Agriculture on a Small City Lot - Sustainability Chats Recap
- Sustainability Institute
- Sep 3, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 18, 2022

Willie and Katie Bittner of Great Lakes Sustainability met at the MN Conservation Corps and bonded around the garden outside the dining hall. This connection launched them into their passion of urban agriculture and sustainability. After that summer Willie traveled the country growing vegetables out of 5 gallon buckets while building trails around the country, both Katie and Willie had the ultimate goal of starting a homestead.

After many conversations and visits to plots of land, they felt they could make a bigger impact by figuring out how to grow food in an urban center on a small city lot while sharing that knowledge of their successes and failures along the way. So in 2011 they purchased a 100 year old house on the north side of La Crosse with ZERO trees, no gardens, a perfect south facing roof and a blank canvass to create an urban homestead. They spent the first winter planning how they wanted the landscape to look and the first spring they focused on fruit trees, fruit bushes and vines. They also created their first garden where they experimented with many types of plants.

Comments