Urban farm gives way to skills-building — and income — in Mountain View

Lush greens and tidy rows fill what once was an empty lot in Mountain View this summer. Grow North Farm, on Mountain View Drive, is a project of Anchorage Community Land Trust. There, more than 20 growers use 28,000 square feet to grow produce to sell. The lot also hosts regular farm stands and a monthly farmers market, the next of which is scheduled for Sept. 13. Entrepreneurs from ACLT’s Set Up Shop small business support program use some of the space. Catholic Social Services, which operates a program to resettle refugees, also leases space for its Fresh International Gardens training program and for some of its other clients to sublease.

“The No. 1 goal, I think, for this first season is how can we get people on site? How can we get people buying this produce and coming out to the markets and engaging with the entrepreneurs?” said ACLT’s communications director Emily Cohn. “So far, that’s been a big success.”