AKRON, Ohio — Akron Cooperative Farms aims to help the community grow and find common ground through gardening. 

What You Need To Know

  • Akron Cooperative Farms gives those in the city a chance to grow their own food 

  • The farm is used mostly by immigrants who grow foods from their home countries

  • They host a public farmers market in the summer 

Doug Wurtz is the founder of this cooperative farm and he got his start gardening years ago. 

“This was many years ago, in ’79 believe it or not,” Wurtz said. “I had a half-acre little garden that I grew” 

Now he uses his green thumb to help countless others grow fresh produce in Akron. 

"As a cooperative farm, what that means for us here is that we are working together to make something very beautiful,” he explained. 

Wurtz converted vacant baseball fields into a community garden after he saw that the fields were not being used. 

​“The lawn would be mowed and the diamonds would be mowed, and they may have had a couple of different teams that came to practice," he said. "But that all moved down the road about a quarter of a mile or so.” 

Members of this cooperative community are able to use a 20x20 plot for only $50 a year. This price includes everything the gardeners need, including composted soil. 

“We give them all of the support, all of the seeds," Wurtz explained. "Everything that is needed in this environment here to be a community.” 

The majority of people who use this garden are immigrants, like Mon Chi, who was planting corn and cilantro. 

"He speaks the language of Pwo Karen. He doesn’t understand English. I think he has learned a couple of words," Wurtz said. "But the language that we do speak is the language of gardening.”

Wurtz said he enjoys learning about all of the other cultures of the people who utilize the farm. 

“There is so much we learn from each other and so much we learn from the other gardeners as well," he said. "It's just a beautiful thing.” 

The gardeners are able to take home their food to their family or sell it at their weekly farmers market. 

“They can produce the food that they like," Wurtz explained. "From where they come from, so it has been very valuable.” 

The first day for farmers market will be July 7 and it will run until Sept. 29 every Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Akron Cooperative Farms. 

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