From the front, Juan Camacho’s house and yard looks like most others along the city parkway on which he lives in Minnesota’s St. Paul-Minneapolis urban sprawl. But hidden behind the gray-sided Cape Cod house is “Esperanza Farm,” complete with chickens, goats, honeybees, and a garden.
Those who discover Camacho’s city secret often mistakenly assume that his interest in farming stems from a childhood spent in Mexico, but nothing could be further from the truth. A born city-slicker, Camacho’s foray into urban farming unfolded largely by happenstance.
Adapt and Overcome
A bout of terrible allergies was the first thing that set the course for Esperanza Farm. Camacho was knocked down with them for weeks as a transplant to the area roughly a dozen years ago, so his mother suggested he find a little local honey to fix the problem. “You take in a little bit of poison at a time” with the honey made from local pollen, Camacho said, and “your body gets used to it and it doesn’t bother you anymore.”…