The Souper Farm is Levison’s Garden Project

Located just off Huff Road, on the rapidly developing West Side of Atlanta, Jennie Levison has planted a pocket-size farm. For 10 years now, what is called The Souper Farm has grown a bumper crop of herbs and vegetables year-round on raised beds in soil just a few inches deep. Before there was lush greenery and plant life here, it was just a gravel-strewn parking lot in what was an industrial backwater of the city. What has transformed this site is what Jeff Collins calls his “soil gardening principles.”

“We call it soil gardening,” Collins says, “because really, that’s what we’re doing. We’re just gardening soil. And if you do it properly, you’ll have lots of worms, and they’ll feed the plant, and you’ll have lots of microbes, and everything is working in harmony. All we’re doing is trying to just work in harmony and encourage nature.”

Collins, who grew up outside Boston and came south to set up a wholesale vegetable business in Griffin, runs the site for Levison. He believes that most gardeners spend too much time obsessing over their plants and not enough time or thought to building the soil the plants live in.

He’s concentrated his system of soil gardening into seven easy-to-follow principles that are guaranteed to make anyone who follows them into a successful gardener.

Collins’ principles of soil gardening include:
1. No tilling or turning of the soil. The goal is to build soil structure, not break it down.
2. Keep residue of plant life on the soil at all times. Naked soil is evil.
3. Maintain a living root on the plants you have. If nothing is growing in your soil bed, then the soil is dead.
4. Grow diversity. Mix up what you grow and forget about rows.
5. Save seeds. Start with seeds that are open pollinated, meaning they grow the same way, crop after crop and save them.
6. Take care of the pollinators and they will reward you.
7. Give back.

Although the original purpose of the farm was to supply the Souper Jenny restaurants, the growth of the location quickly outstripped the supply of vegetables and herbs that were being grown. Today, its purpose is primarily educational, to encourage gardeners to think first of how they are treating the soil before they obsess about the size and shape and quantity of what they are growing. And to encourage the seventh principle — giving back. As Levison sees it, her Souper Farm is a beautiful little oasis in the middle of the city.

It’s all part of Levison’s commitment to give back to the community. Part of what is grown on the farm is sold at her restaurants, where volunteers answer questions about the produce. They can also discuss the cookbooks that Levison has written over the years that generally are devoted to healthy living, which is one of the important goals of the business. Her Zadie Project is a nonprofit that has grown as her business has expanded.

“The Zadie Project started about eight years ago now,” Levison says, “and it really just came from our desire as a team, our entire team and staff of wanting to do something every day, to give to the community. You know, when you’re in the service industry, you get asked to donate things, your time, food, all the time. And I wanted to come up with a way where it was just sort of a daily give from us, and also a daily give from customers, even if you don’t know it.”

When customers order a serving of turkey chili, which is a family recipe given to her by her father when she started the business 25 years ago, the profit from that order goes directly to the nonprofit she founded. Today, that donation makes it possible to provide, among other things, more than 800 quarts of her soup to families needing assistance.

Another significant fundraiser is the classes that are offered at the farm. There’s an Advanced Gardening Workshop that’s scheduled from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., Saturday, March 28. It is designed to teach soil basics, how to buy and plant transplants, the care and maintenance of the March garden, and companion planting and direct seeding.

A plant sale is being held from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., April 11, at the farm that features heirlooms and unique perennial plants, kitchen and medicinal herbs and vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and squash plants.