San Tan Sky Farms-Aaron & Becki

Awesome things they are doing...

We are a couple of Arizona natives who love to grow, wild-harvest, cook and eat fresh food. Aaron “A-Lo” Nelson is a professional gardener, garden coach, and hobby farmer who is both mad scientist and encyclopedia mixed together. Creative solutions flow from his brain constantly. He is the ultimate “up-cycler”, that is, taking used, reclaimed materials and building experimental gardens, aquaponic & hydroponic systems for food production. For the last 11 years or so, he has observed and studied swarm patterns and other habits of bees working as an Africanized Bee Removal Specialist. He now focuses on organic pest control for food production, culturing beneficial microbes, fungus inoculation, plant nutrient optimization, specialty crop and sub-tropical fruit production and propagation. A-lo is a natural people person and enjoys answering questions and researching solutions for growing edibles in all varieties of gardens for people with different growing needs. He hopes to support home and community gardens and offer solutions for growing food in the desert. Whether it is backyard farming, patio gardening, vertical gardens, tabletop gardens, indoor intensive growing systems, building and mixing living soil systems, kitchen composting, vermiculture (worm culture), compost tea making, landscape composting, homemade pest repellent, or raising backyard chickens, A-lo is a great resource for Arizona gardeners and hobby farmers. Rebecca D. Nelson is a sustainable foodist, hobby farmer, master gardener and herbalist who creates and cultivates ecosystems for the health of the soil, the earth, and the beneficial creatures and microorganisms that are threatened by conventional food production. She is one math class away from completing a degree in Sustainable Food Systems from Rio Salado College, and she seeks to create a healthy local food system, that is organic and sustainable. She specializes in sustainable agriculture, real food preparation and preservation, organic food production, and growing nutrient dense crops for healthy and happy livestock. Rebecca D. utilizes sustainable practices such as, inter-planting/companion planting, succession planting, planting for pollinators, vermiculture, composting manure, culturing microbes, sustainable watering practices, drought-tolerant planting, cover cropping, seed saving, and kitchen sprouting. She loves to cook and make medicines out of home grown and foraged foods, and creates a sustainable kitchen at home by practicing kitchen composting, waste reduction, cooking from scratch with seasonal ingredients, wise-water use, recycling, up-cycling and food preservation.