San Diego Reader

• Farm / Nursery | City Heights

City Farmers Nursery

• 4832 Home Avenue, San Diego, CA 92105 | Directions
• 619-284-6358 | Website

City Farmers Nursery is an excellent adventure. Tour the grounds, checking out the goats and chickens, and view unique plants and gardens. Several times a month they host classes; most are free. Workshops include everything from the obscure (Raising Chickens from the Farm to the Table, for instance; or Raising Goats in the City) to the kid-friendly (Pumpkin Growing).

Become an amateur entomologist: start your own monarch butterfly farm at City Farmers Nursery in City Heights. Wander around the place a bit first, then grab a Radio Flyer wagon and load it up with one-gallon pots of milkweed ($8.89). By the end of April, they’ll probably already be crawling with monarch caterpillars. Take ’em home, stick ’em in the ground, and start taking notes. If you check often enough, you’ll see butterflies laying eggs, caterpillars spinning their chrysalises, and damp adult butterflies hanging around while their wings get pumped full of butterfly blood. Along the way, the very hungry caterpillars will eat your milkweed to a nub, but it’ll bounce back, usually within a month. And so will the caterpillars.