Our Story 

Giggle Belly Urban Farm is located in the heart of Castle Rock's Old Neighborhood. We grow nutritious fruits and vegetables using organic practices. Our food is available through our weekly CSA and is found in specialty markets in the south metro area. 

Chris Frederics and Rue Graham started Giggle Belly Urban Farm in the 2018 but have been involved in growing food and food education for over a decade. We both grew up in Colorado, but have lived in other states learning to teach and to grow food. The story of our journey to farming has been a long one. 

Rue spent much of her time in Vermont and New York focusing on sustainability and working with youth. She worked as an garden educator for the New York Restoration Project. For six years Chris lived in Bozeman, MT; teaching, working on farms, and worked in Glacier National Park.

Colorado was always calling us home. In the same year we both moved back  and met as teachers at the same school. As we both continue to teach we are excited for our new endeavor into urban agriculture. Chris teaches high school science and runs a school garden program. Rue teaches middle school science and is dedicated to getting kids outside the four walls of the classroom. 

Growing Practices 

On our farm we believe that healthy soil is the first ingredient to nutritious vegetables. We are a non-mechanized, no till operation. This helps us build fertility in a way that allows us to get a lot out of small spaces. We are not a large farm by any means and this is a direct benefit to our customers. Every bag of greens and bunch of carrots is packaged by our small staff with a careful eye. 

While we are not certified organic, we use organic practices. This means that we do not use any pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. In fact, we are a big fan of keeping insects included in our agro-ecology. We choose our crops carefully and save as much seed as is practical. This suits crops to our climate and encourages the resiliency of our farm. We do not find that we need to use any GMOs to accomplish this goal.

One of our favorite things to do is share a meal with people we love. Cooking and baking are important aspects of our lives. For this reason we choose crops with rich flavors. There is no replacement for eating vegetables that are freshly harvested and highly nutritious. We want to share this experience with our CSA members.