We were lucky to catch up with Lily Murray recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lily, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to start your own firm or do you wish you had started sooner?

For years my family has lived in this house only when the world forced us to slow down did we quite literally start putting down roots. I am from a farming family. My dad has been in Organic agriculture for over 40 years he introduced my mom to it and the rest was history. We have always grown food, be it large or small scale. In the past few years we slowed down and didn’t have as much growing here at the farm. Then the world shifted and we were forced to be home. We thought about it and talked as a family and decided to put down some more permanent roots. In the end of 2020 we ordered 55 bare root fruit trees ranging from apples, apricot, cherries, nectarines, peaches, plums, and pluot. When we planted those trees we kickstarted into another new exciting adventure. We now have crops that we don’t rotate we aren’t pulling them out after their limited life. These trees can be in for 20+ years if not more. Since 2021 when we planted the first section of the orchard we have now expanded and added more trees bringing the grand total of the orchard up to about 110 trees. I personally planted 109 of them. A true labor of love. in 2021 after we planted the first trees my parents decided to name the orchard after me. Lily’s orchard is now thriving. This year alone I have harvested and sold 220 pounds of peaches alone. I wish we would have started sooner. The Orchard is thriving and such a wonderful addition to the farm. Flowers are something that my mom and I have always dreamed of and after the huge success of the orchard so far we have pushed and planted two beautiful sections of Dahlias so far and coming up we will be planting a lot more cut flowers. I wish we would have started this sooner so that we could have more of this time of success together. Now we have so much time to work on truly perfecting what we do.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Lily I’m 28 years old and I am an organic farmer outside of Vista, CA. I was born into an organic farming family. The youngest of three, with two older brothers. My eldest brothers name is Joe and he is passionate about food as well he is currently working in a white tablecloth restaurant and loving the experience. Our middle sibling, Sam passed away unexpectedly in 2011. Sam’s passing has really shaped who I am as a person. He was the one in our family who was the most passionate about farming and definitely wanted to follow in my dads footsteps. His passing pushed me to do what truly makes me happy every day. In the past I was a nanny for about 7 years and truly loved the experience. I was blessed to work with a family and travel the world with them. After nannying I wanted to experience working in an office and see if it was for me. I worked in the office of a hat store for almost two years and realized that it definitely wasn’t for me! When I left the hat company I didn’t quite know what I would do next and in November of 2019 I started working for the family business. Since November of 2019 I have done so many different. Starting in 2021 I have planted 250 trees here on our home property ranging in varieties and types. Coffee, avocados, citrus, stone fruit, apples, papaya and so much more. This has been an amazing mission for me because one of my brother Sam’s goals in life was to plant a million trees to reinvigorate the lungs of the earth. Here on our farm we have done our best to live out his wishes and make sure that he knows that he is honored every single day! My mission on our farm is to expand our collection of what we grow and this year we have done that. My mom and I planted roughly 30 different dahlia tubers. I have always had a dream of having a successful flower farm and now we are expanding into also doing cut flowers with many more types coming very soon. Giving us a bit of diversity from just the vegetables we have grown in the past. My dream is to make growing beauty attainable.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Social media has been the best source of new clients for us. In the past year I have built up a small but steady building following of people. I have learned that interaction with followers is important so I have been trying to stay on top of creating fun content that keeps people interacting with the farm page. People have been following us more with what they’ve been seeing on instagram and I hope that I can start doing mini educational series soon to introduce new people to things that they generally wouldn’t know about.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Just like social media the most effective strategy we’ve had is to really work with our clients and create friendship and great relationships with them. With a great relationship foundation that is a wonderful way to have them spread the word for you. They help with creating relationships with new people and telling their friends, “you gotta check out this farm their produce is amazing.” We have also partnered with lots of restaurants, specifically our amazing friend Chef Leah from Eat Marketplace she is such a wonderful supporter of our dream. We have created wonderful relationships that have helped us grow more clientele through building relationships with chefs.

Contact Info:

• Website: edgeofurbanfarm.com
• Instagram: edgeofurbanfarm

Image Credits
My iPhone is the credits