- [Narrator] Coming up on "America's Heartland," a tiny farm in San Francisco with a big mission to inspire people living in urban neighborhoods to grow their own food, starting with the youngest generation.

- Let's look at where we wanna place our pumpkins.

But first, let's read this, its good to read directions.

- [Narrator] Plus our nutrition expert, Dr. Daphne Miller, takes a closer look at micro greens, a tiny but mighty crop that can add a nutritional punch to just about any dish.

- As I did my research, I found out that we actually can get so much nutrition from these tiny greens.

- [Narrator] Our Farm to Fork host, Sharon Profis, demonstrates how to make these delicious chicken sandwiches with pesto, burrata cheese and freshly roasted tomatoes.

Join us as we visit Rainwater Ranch, where a husband and wife say they are passionate about growing organic flowers they sell at farmer's markets.

- I think it was just a calling for both of us.

- We love this property, we love living here.

This is also our home.

- [Narrator] And meet a Montana farmer who is growing a specialty oat to meet growing demand for gluten-free foods like oatmeal, porridge, and flour.

It's all coming up next on "America's Heartland."

"America's Heartland" is made possible by.

(upbeat music) ♪ You can't see in the eyes of every woman and man ♪ ♪ In America's Heartland living close to the land ♪ ♪ There's a lot for the country ♪ ♪ And a pride in the brand ♪ In America's Heartland living close ♪ ♪ Close to the land - [Narrator] It's a sunny day in San Francisco.

Perfect for digging in the dirt in these raised garden beds at the Willie Mays Boys and Girls Club.

- I'm planting onions next to the strawberries and I hope that the insects won't mess with the strawberries 'cause they don't like the scent.

- [Narrator] For the last three years, Isaiah Powell has been working with these students in an afterschool program to teach them about everything from composting to what freshly grown produce tastes like, straight from the earth.

- I hope that 1, 2, 10, these children at some point in time, but so you know what?

I'm gonna try to grow my own food to supplement or, hey, this doesn't taste like what a tomato's supposed to taste like because I've tasted what it's supposed to taste like.

Is it minty or spicy?

- I got that.

- A little bit minty and spicy.

- There's like two generations removed from people who are very closely connected to agriculture, grandma cooking or growing some turnips or whatever in the backyard to now only eating vegetables from a can.

Two generations.

- Can you eat it?

- Of course you can.

- It's yummy.

- [Narrator] Changing the way that people think about their food is one of Isaiah's missions.

He's the president of Dragon Spunk, an organization that transforms vacant urban lots into green spaces.

He also strives to build community around mobile farmer's markets.

And of course, inspiring the next generation to think about where their food comes from.

- The kids love Mr. Isaiah.

They love his energy.

They love what they bring and get back from the program.

He is all inclusive in this space, and because he's so excited about what he's teaching, they're just as excited to learn.

- I envision a day when a cohort from the Willie Mays Boys and Girls Club will be vendors at the farmer's market.

- [Narrator] It's not so farfetched an idea, especially considering what Isaiah's organization has done.

Just a mile and a half away from the Boys and Girls Club, they took a vacant piece of land that was filled with trash on top of these Caltrain tracks and turned it into an urban garden oasis.

Instead of tires and trash, you'll now find garden beds, bees, baby tad poles and soil that's being remediated.

It's called the Kelly Bird Pollinator sanctuary, inspired by Isaiah's wife, Danielle Fernandez, who goes by the artistic name of Kelly Bird and whose art adorns this space.

On weekends, a mobile farmer's market called Rollin Root from the Agriculture Institute of Marin, comes to the garden to provide fresh produce to the neighborhood.

- [Interviewer] Oh yeah, do you live around here?

- Yes, I'm at the corner.

- Ah, do you come here often?

- Every Saturday.

- Yeah?

- Every Saturday.

- [Interviewer] And why?

- To get fresh food and vegetables.

- When are you actually?

- This is better than the store.

- December 16th.

- Is it?

- Yes, it is.

- [Narrator] The soil here is tainted by lead due to decades of industrialization in this San Francisco neighborhood called Bayview-Hunters Point.

So anything edible has to be grown in garden beds with soil that's brought in.

Isaiah calls himself a steward, a custodian of this quarter acre piece of land.

- Specifically, I am remediating the soil.

That's the intention, to take out the poisons in this soil, to restore the balance in this micro ecosystem here.

- [Narrator] He does that by experimenting with plants, microbes, and fungus that are known for removing toxins from soil.

But perhaps the greater goal is demonstrating to people in this neighborhood that food can be grown here, even if it is in a raised garden bed.

- The garden boxes are a great way for people in toxified areas to grow food, because guess what?

The sun still works here.

So it doesn't have to be a food desert.

- We take what we have here and we embed it into our cooking program, and the children are actually able to eat what they nurture in the garden.

- The seed might not germinate this year or next year, but I want to expose them to a world that I feel like they might not have had full exposure to.

- Another one right there.

- [Narrator] Making the connection between growing your own food and improving your health between fostering community and revitalizing empty spaces is all part of Isaiah's overall vision.

One that embraces the unique challenges and opportunities of urban agriculture making change one quarter acre at a time.

- So here we are at Dragon Spunk Farm, a tiny farm in the Bayview-Hunters Point of San Francisco.

It's tucked between the freeways and it's this little garden of Eden.

And it's appropriate in such a tiny farm to be talking about a tiny vegetable.

I am here to talk about micro greens today that they're growing here at Dragon Spunk Farms.

Micro greens, they're kind of bigger than a sprout, but smaller than a baby green.

And they come in these gorgeous colors.

Right here we have a rainbow radish micro green, and they are beloved by chefs because you can sprinkle some of them on top of a sculpted appetizer, and they're beautiful and they also give you a nice, strong flavor.

But my question was, for those of us who are not eating in fancy restaurants, do these things hold any nutritional value?

Are they just kind of pretty garnishes?

And as I did my research, I found out that we actually can get so much nutrition from these tiny greens.

They punch way above their size as vegetables.

And they're basically micro vegetables that have been harvested long before they grow into the big vegetable.

And you can use the regular seed that you use to grow the big vegetable, but just harvest it early.

And what happens is that that seed pumps all of its nutrients into that early, early set of leaves in order to protect them and make them grow.

And you benefit from all that when you eat these early.

And that's why micro greens tend to have five to 10 times the nutrients of the big daddy vegetable.

It turns out that these greens are really rich in vitamin C and vitamin A and vitamin E and all those powerful carotenoids and phytochemicals, which are important in protecting us from cancer and heart disease and in lowering our cholesterol and in fighting diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases.

So folks grow micro greens indoors on a window sill.

They can grow outside on a window pot.

They can grow on your deck, or they can certainly grow directly in the soil, in your garden.

So my favorite way to eat micro greens is to put them in or on an omelet or to actually make a salad of them or put them in my favorite sandwich.

And I've also been known to sprinkle them on my desserts.

And how many days on average do you let your greens grow to?

- If I'm under commercial pressure a week and a half, two weeks.

Now, certain crops like your basil, it's a short crop naturally, right?

It's very short.

So I give that 20 days, 21 days before it reaches a height that's easy for me to harvest.

- And how about for the home growers?

'cause we are hoping that people get inspired by you and use this as a way to get free vegetables on their deck or their window sill or their kitchen counter.

How many days should they wait in general?

- I would say seven days.

But you know, don't use a number, observe a lot.

Anytime you're dealing with cultivation, it's observation.

You have to develop a relationship.

You wanna look at this thing every single day, and you can determine when you want to eat it based on how it looks to you.

- What is the best sell you can give as a micro green grower to get them to at least try their first bite?

- I am going to introduce you to flavor 'cause you haven't had it before.

You've been using Lowry's or McCormick's and all that.

Imagine using no seasoning and using micro greens as your flavor.

- Thank you for joining me today at Dragon Spunk Farm, where we learned how tiny vegetables can be mighty medicine.

Still ahead on America's Heartland.

See what it takes for this Montana farmer to grow and process a specialty oat that is turned into gluten-free products.

We'll also visit a farm owned by a husband and wife team who grow flower bouquets for the loyal customers who visit their farm stand each week.

But first, we'll show you how to prepare chicken sandwiches with fresh pesto cheese and roasted tomatoes that are guaranteed to be a hit at any backyard picnic or party.

(upbeat music) - Today we're making roasted tomato sandwiches with burrata, roasted chicken breast and pesto.

This is a wonderful way to use up a whole lot of tomatoes and get the best flavor out of them.

So today I have a couple different types of tomatoes to show you that you can use in this recipe.

Oftentimes these ones will be called tomatoes on the vine, but you'll find them as Campari tomatoes or even early girl dry farm tomatoes.

They are sweet and they have a wonderful texture that's great fresh, but also super good when you roast them.

I also have some cherry tomatoes on the vine here.

Cherry tomatoes are a lot sweeter.

Sometimes they have a little bit of that tartness, but they're mostly cultivated to be sweet and for snacking.

However, you can also roast tomatoes in the same way that we'll do them today with these tomatoes on the vine.

When you roast a tomato, you're bringing out the sweetness, so you're concentrating all of that tomato flavor.

So I'm slicing them into slices that are about half inch thick and then placing them on a baking sheet line with parchment paper.

Now that all of our tomatoes have been sliced, we're going to season them and we're keeping it very simple.

Just drizzling with a bit of olive oil and then seasoning with salt and pepper.

So today we're using these roasted tomatoes in a sandwich, but there are so many ways that you can use them.

You can put them in a pasta, you can put them in a grain bowl.

You can enjoy them as a Caprese salad with some mozzarella and basil.

It's totally up to you because they are just such a delicacy and a little bit of pepper.

These are going in an oven at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes or until the tomatoes have collapsed.

They've deepened in color, but they're still a little bit juicy.

While these bake, we'll prep the chicken breasts that will add to our sandwiches.

Here's how you make them.

To make this roasted chicken, drizzle one tablespoon of olive oil over two chicken breasts.

Then add one teaspoon of paprika in season with salt and pepper, coat the chicken with the seasonings, then bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes.

Our roasted tomatoes are ready, so is our chicken.

So now we can put together the sandwich.

I have a beautiful fresh sourdough baguette, and what I'm going to do is make one huge sandwich and then of course, break it down into more sizable chunks.

So I have my serrated knife here, and we'll just roll right through.

You can also use french bread.

You can use focaccia, ciabatta, I just love the look of a the gut sandwich, and this sourdough one was absolutely gorgeous.

I want to prep the chicken.

Going to slice it at a diagonal into thin slices.

Perfect, I'll grab the bottom and begin by slathering some pesto all the way across.

I am being very generous with this pesto because it really compliments the tomatoes and the burrata cheese so beautifully.

Then what we'll do is add our burrata.

We'll just take some and distribute it across.

The star of our sandwich, roasted tomatoes.

These have cooled, and as you can see, they are darker in color than they were when they first went into the oven.

As the tomatoes lose water, they are getting sweeter.

Oh, how beautiful is that?

Now this is a good time to add our sliced chicken.

Before we wrap it up, I always like to season a little bit more to make sure every bite is well seasoned.

This is kosher salt and pepper.

Finally, for a little bit of freshness, we'll add a couple basil leaves.

I've also done this with arugula or another crunchy green.

Again, just for that crunch, the goal is to slice the sandwich without letting it fall apart.

And I have found that the best way to do that is to carefully straddle both sides.

A serrated knife is really essential for this part.

Our sandwich is ready and every cross section has that beautiful pesto, burrata cheese, our roasted tomato and chicken.

Now all that's left to do is eat.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer[ When you think of a flower farm, many people envision a garden of flowers that bloom year round, a place of relaxation and beauty.

But in reality, running a flower farm is work, really hard work.

- We harvest five to sometimes seven days a week so that we can make sure that everything's harvested at its perfect harvest stage, put into our flower cooler, and then taken to the sales, to outlets or to the customers as quickly as possible.

We're hustling.

We're harvesting fast, we're walking fast.

- Just the amount of work involved in farming flowers, there's weeds.

There's a lot of work, it's very laborious.

- Lee Milan and Lauren McNeese make up the husband and wife team behind Rainwater Ranch.

It's a flower and orange farm in the Northern California town of Winters.

Their bouquets of organically grown flowers are sold at farmer's markets and grocery stores in the spring and summer while their oranges are in peak season during the winter.

Lauren heads up harvesting and sales.

Lee can usually be found out on the tractor.

- I'm primarily responsible for preparing the field for planting.

We actually plant weekly, biweekly, and monthly, so we have to constantly prepare sections of the field, but we have to be mindful about not planting the same spot on the field with the same plants to stay away from potential issues with disease and pests.

- [Announcer] Avoiding disease and pests is especially important for this certified organic farm, which doesn't use synthetic chemicals on their crops.

And while many people have a good understanding of the benefits of eating organic food, this couple says there are similar benefits to displaying organic flowers in their homes.

- I like to think that we're producing something that is completely safe for people's dining room tables.

They're not sprayed with pesticides, they're not fed with anything synthetic or anything harmful.

So they're, I tell our customers, "They're safe for your table" as opposed to something say that you would buy at a big box store.

- [Announcer] About 80% of the cut flowers sold in the US actually come from elsewhere like Central and South America.

Although fresh flowers are grown in every state, California and Florida make up the bulk of domestic sales due to their warmer climates.

Lauren says customers are increasingly aware of where their bouquets come from.

- And that's why they choose to support us at farmer's markets and elsewhere.

And we really appreciate all the customers who are interested in knowing where their products come from and where their money's going.

And we're happy to be very open and transparent about all of it so that people can make the right consumer choices for themselves and support operations like ours where we're trying to be good stewards of our land.

- [Announcer] Rainwater Ranch is more than 50 years old.

In 2014, Lauren and Lee bought the 20 acre property from the previous owners, the Rainwaters.

They love the name and decided to keep it.

They converted the existing seven acres of naval orange trees to certified organic, welcome to flock of sheep, and began growing flowers to turn the ranch into a year round operation.

Lauren and Lee were both working at the University of California when they decided to become full-time farmers.

Of the two, Lee had more of a traditional farming background, having grown up working on his family's farm in the Philippines where they grew rice and fruit.

- The farm in the Philippines, it was a fairly large operation, but we didn't own a single machine.

But the whole program, the whole farm was ran with beast of burdens, primarily water buffaloes.

- [Announcer] Many farmers in Southeast Asia use water buffaloes to loosen and turn the soil to prepare for planting.

Lee immigrated to the United States at age 12 and went on to study agriculture in college.

- We're both inherently interested in agriculture, and I think it was just a calling for both of us.

We love this property, we love living here.

This is also our home, but it's also a piece of land that we can maintain and take care of in the ways that are important to us.

- That really is one of the main things.

The farm is also our home.

- [Announcer] This farm is their home, but so is the community that has embraced them, showing up weekly to buy their flower bouquets or organic oranges at farmer's markets around the region.

- Thank you, have a good weekend.

I think at the end of a long week, sometimes by the end of the week of working on the farm and not having left the farm for five or six days, we're really tired.

We've been working hard.

It's time to go to the market and sell everything that we've worked hard for.

And then just to get that feedback from the customers that they appreciate what we have brought to offer and how much they enjoyed the flowers or the oranges that they purchased last Saturday.

It kind of like renourish your energy to start out the next week again.

It's gratifying, it gives you that kind of recharge that you need, that okay, yeah, I'm doing a pretty good job.

- [Narrator] It is harvest time for Bruce Wright on his family farm in Bozeman, Montana.

- We grow some wheat and barley and hay and peas and some sunflowers, and then a specialty oat that we're working on.

- [Narrator] That specialty oat now covers 150 acres of land here and for a farm with roots dating back to the 1800s, that oat is changing the future for this farmer and for thousands of people who suffer from gluten sensitivity.

- The oats are special because they are a variety that was developed by Montana State University.

And what we found in these oats is that they are a whole less variety of oat and they're very low in allergens and oats in general don't have any gluten in them.

So we can take these oats and process these oats and make 'em into oatmeal and porridge and flour and stuff that can be eaten by people who have gluten sensitivities.

- [Narrator] Gluten is a natural protein composite found in grains like wheat, barley, and rye.

It gives texture and elasticity to dough.

It's also used as a flavor enhancer and thickener, which means you'll find it in everything from soups to salad dressings.

Gluten-free labeling on products at the supermarket is important for those suffering from celiac disease, which is associated with intolerance to gluten in grains.

- The demand is growing because the awareness of celiac disease and gluten intolerance is growing.

Now the doctors are becoming more aware of celiac disease, gluten intolerance, so it's becoming more diagnosed and more people are paying attention.

- [Narrator] Producing this product is high tech, high cost, and high science.

The combines used to harvest these oats won't be used for other crops for fear of cross contamination.

The oats are hauled to a processing plant to pass through a series of cleanings and crushing.

- [Narrator] From there, it goes into the second cleaner, does more of the same thing, cleans it out, goes from that second screening machine into a series of stacked indent cleaners.

Then it goes up into the roller mill.

That's what takes and rolls the oat into a flake and what we usually call oatmeal.

- [Narrator] And for those consumers wanting gluten-free blueberry pancakes, Bruce and others can stop by Bozeman's Main Street Overeasy Restaurant.

- Is there anything else I can grab for you guys?

I'm well, how are you today?

- It is really gratifying when you talk to somebody who hasn't been able to eat a bread or something like that.

They're so happy to be able to have that again.

They really, really appreciate their food.

I love what I do, I love being able to grow things.

I love to be out here in the countryside, in the beautiful scenery, one of the most beautiful spots.

I'm so lucky to get to work here.

- [Narrator] That's it for this edition of "America's Heartland."

For more stories, full episodes and recipes, visit americasheartland.org or connect with us on Facebook.

♪ You can't see it in the eyes of every woman and man ♪ ♪ In America's Heartland living close to the land ♪ ♪ There's a love for the country ♪ ♪ And a pride in the brand ♪ In America's Heartland living close ♪ ♪ Close to the land - [Narrator] America's Heartland is made possible by.

(upbeat music)