Urban farmer in Tulsa brings healthy foods to those in need

“I really love the work, love learning how to do things better so that what you grow comes out of the ground, or comes off the stem, as good as it can be.”

By James D. Watts Jr.
Tulsa World
Jun 11, 2025

Chris Arnold walks through the rows of vegetables growing at the Emerson Elementary School farm. Arnold tends to the one-acre farm, which started in 2020.

Chris Arnold remembers looking at all the lush greenery that sprouted up from the sweet potatoes he had planted weeks before.

“I thought I was gonna have me a great crop of sweet potatoes,” he said.

But when it came harvest time, the tubers Arnold pulled from the ground were decidedly underwhelming in size.

The problem, Arnold said, was nitrogen — too much of it. If there is too much nitrogen in the soil, sweet potatoes tend to produce a whole lot of greenery, but the potatoes themselves end up rather scrawny. So Arnold rethought how he planted sweet potatoes — laying down a base of mulch on which he then piled topsoil, and topping this with more mulch — that helped provide the right amount of nitrogen the plants need.

“What you could see of the plants maybe didn’t look like much,” he said. “But I got a lot of great sweet potatoes.”

Arnold recounts this memory while standing in the midst of the acre-sized plot of land he tends on the grounds of Tulsa’s Emerson Elementary, the city’s only public Montessori school, 910 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

This is Arnold’s second season working the Emerson Farm, a community-supported agriculture program of the Emerson Montessori Foundation that started in spring 2020. He also cultivates a couple of lots in his north Tulsa neighborhood, where he grows herbs such as basil and rosemary, several varieties of garlic, salad greens such as lemon sorrel and lamb’s quarters, and a number of different hot peppers.

“I have some that are on the low end of things, like 1,000 to 2,000 (Scoville heat units, a way of measuring the spiciness of peppers),” Arnold said. “Then I have some that go to 1.5 million units. That one’s called the ‘Death Spiral.’”

While there may not be much demand for something called a “Death Spiral” pepper, some of the other varieties Arnold grows are, such as shishito peppers, something of a staple these days at high-end restaurants. One of his most loyal customers is Aimee Hunter, chef and owner of Prism Cafe, 217 W. Latimer St.

“Her restaurant’s just around the corner from here,” Arnold said. “She usually buys most of my shishitos. I started growing daikon radishes, and she usually buys most of them — she makes kimchee out of them.”

But the majority of the produce Arnold grows goes to people in need, through the Fresh Rx Oklahoma program. Launched in 2021 by Erin Martin, a gerontologist and advocate for the idea of “food as medicine,” Fresh Rx provides organically grown fruits and vegetables free of charge to people dealing with diet-related health conditions, especially Type 2 diabetes, and who are food insecure and face challenges in accessing nutritious foods.

The Emerson Elementary farm is one of 14 area farms that supply produce to the Fresh Rx, much of which is distributed to residents of north Tulsa, one of the city’s “food deserts,” where it can be difficult to find fresh fruits and vegetables. Arnold said the organization also works with citizens of the Muscogee Nation.

“And I take things to a place in Chandler, called the Chosen House, that helps women trying to turn their lives around,” he said. “My mom lives in Chandler, and she introduced me to the people who run it. So I try to take stuff out there regularly.”

“Chris was one of the first people I met when I came to Tulsa,” Hunter said. “It was 2021, and I was staying with a friend who mentioned there was this farmer who lived up the street. She introduced me to Chris, and we toured his property and saw all the things he was doing. It was, and still is, pretty much a one-man operation.”

Hunter would often buy seeds for produce she wanted to use and bring them to Arnold to plant.

“He’d tell me if he could work with some of the things I’d bring, or he’d say, ‘Well, this is going take three years to get going,’” she said. “On the other hand, he would bring me these beautiful radishes that I make into kimchi. Last week I got broccoli and cauliflower and huge amounts of beautiful spring lettuce.”

Because tending to various farms and plots occupies most hours of Arnold’s days, there isn’t a great deal of time for him to market what he grows. And while the income he receives from his work with Fresh Rx and from restaurant owners and chefs such as Hunter helps, running a one-man operation such as Arnold’s is not much of a profit-generating enterprise.

Add to that the losses sustained by theft and vandalism, and the struggle to make a living from the soil is even more difficult.

“It doesn’t happen as often as people might think,” Arnold said. “But when it does — well, it really sucks.”

Hunter said she knows farmers operating at every level, from large enterprise farms to small family farms, are struggling to turn a profit these days. “And for someone like Chris, who’s doing this all on his own, I can’t imagine how hard it is for him. He’s going to need his community to help him prosper.”

The event, hosted by popular Tulsa stand-up comic Evan Hughes, is described as an “evening of food, music and community,” featuring a family-style feast made with hyperlocal ingredients, with dishes such as lasagna, pasta primavera, salads, chicken Milanese, grilled skewers of shrimp and strawberry pot de crème for dessert. Wine, beer and non-alcoholic beverages will also be available.

“Chris has been bringing me a lot of really great basil, and I’ve been doing a lot of light Italian dishes recently,” Hunter said. “I’d say about 90% of the produce that will be in these dishes come from Chris’ gardens. Of course, we’ll have to use canned tomatoes for our marinara sauces, but for the most part it’s going to be locally grown produce.”

The event will also include tours of areas urban farms, conversations with the people doing this farming, vendors of local produce, live music and more.

Cost is $50 per person, and those attending should bring their own blankets or seating. In case of inclement weather, the dinner will be moved indoors to the Prism Cafe and the Origin Coffee Shop.

Arnold began getting serious about farming about 25 years ago, when the hardware store in San Francisco where he worked was shut down when the building that housed the business was bought.

He traveled around the country, working at farms from upstate New York and Vermont to Crestone, Colorado; Washington state; and Taos, New Mexico, where he spent four summers working at a place that he described as “this kind of hostel run by a hippie lady.”

“I was just always looking for chances to farm,” Arnold said. “It was something always fascinated me, and I really love the work, love learning how to do things better so that what you grow comes out of the ground, or comes off the stem, as good as it can be.”

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Source: https://cityfarmer.info/urban-farmer-in-tulsa-brings-healthy-foods-to-those-in-need/