JK Willis looks down at the weed-infested ground at his feet, hoe in hand. The clearing in which he’s standing spans about an acre and is nestled within Crabtree Farms, an urban agricultural nook where the songs of the birds in the trees that border the property mingle with the sounds of traffic a few blocks away on Rossville Boulevard.
At 6 feet, 8 inches tall, Willis towers over his patch of earth like a lone stalk of corn, his brown overalls stretching from his ankles to his shoulders and a bucket cap protecting his dome from unfettered sunlight on a sweltering April afternoon.
As Willis eyes the ground, he doesn’t see the boil of weeds at his feet but the produce that will soon be growing there – watermelon, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, jalapeños and more. And as he lifts his gaze and surveys his future Eden, he doesn’t see an empty parcel of land but groups of inner-city children planting seeds, tending the soil and pulling fruit off scrambling vines.
Willis, 39, is a participant in the Mary Navarre Moore Emerging Farmer Mentorship Program, a Crabtree initiative that provides budding farmers with access to land and a chance to learn sustainable farming techniques. He’s committed to starting a farming operation of his own, making him an ideal participant, but he wants to do more than coax plants out of the ground; he also aims to introduce the wonders of agriculture to children who think produce comes from a grocery store.
“I was 36 years old when I learned that potatoes come out of the ground,” Willis marvels. “A friend brought me to Crabtree and showed me the potatoes he was growing. I said, ‘If I didn’t know that potatoes come out of the ground, I bet there are a lot of kids who don’t know, either.’”
Willis says he was right. As he farmed the land that’s on loan to him from Crabtree last summer, Chattanooga Parks & Outdoors sent about 75 youth his way. Many of them had never seen fruit growing in a garden, he says.
“We planted the watermelon seeds I had. When the kids came back and ate some of the fruit, they acted like they were seeing and tasting watermelon for the first time.”
Willis’ friend was Jamar “The Street Farmacist” Sanders, who once farmed the very plot where Willis now grows crops. Sanders labored for several years to create more accessible food for urban and underserved communities before dying of cancer in 2023.
“Jamar wanted to show kids that farming is fun, so he created a color coordinated spiral garden,” Sanders remembers. “He planted tomatoes for the color red, okra for the color green, and corn for the color yellow. It was very cool.”
Sanders and Willis devised the concept of the “Farmacy School,” a horticulture initiative that creates outdoor play areas where children learn to grow crops and watch real food emerge from the soil. Willis kept the watermelon seeds he and Sanders harvested and used them to start a solo school.
He continues to think of the land he’s now farming as a place for play.
“We all grew up playing. When our parents brought us to the park, we understood the universal language of play. ‘Do you want to slide down the slide? Do you want to swing on the swing? Do you want to play with me?’ I want to bring kids back outside to play as well as learn.”
Like the watermelons Sanders nurtures from tiny seeds to bursting fruit, he foresees growing his program, which continues to be dubbed “Farmacy School,” into a major agricultural enterprise.
“I want to feed 1 million people with the produce we harvest. I want to activate young farmers. And I want to show people how to use their land. I’m seeing people from Lookout Mountain, Signal Mountain and Highland Park, all in one place, learning about fruits and vegetables.”
Tipping cows
As Willis approaches 40, he’s become as much of a philosopher as a farmer. His mind seems to be continually turning over the soil of life, and as he shares his musings, he often couches them in pithy aphorisms that underscore a contrast or suggest a universal truth.
“A seed doesn’t care who plants it and it doesn’t care who eats its fruit,” Willis says while discussing the humanity people share. “It’s an act of kindness.”
“Let’s plant seeds in our soil instead of burying our children in it,” he offers while commenting on his vision for Farmacy School.
While reminiscing about the after school programs that impacted him as he grew up in New Orleans, he says, “I’m a C-minus student but I have an A-plus work ethic.”
Willis made his way north when his family moved to Chatsworth, Georgia, when he was a teen. As he adjusted from his hometown’s 24/7 dance party atmosphere to a city that shuttered itself at sundown, he used the language of play to make new friends. Soon, he was riding dirt bikes, four-wheeling and tipping over cows for fun.
“What surprised me was how fast cows are once they regain consciousness and stand back up,” Willis recalls without a shred of irony.
Willis attended Baylor School in Chattanooga and then bounced between several colleges before landing a gig playing pro basketball in Central America. He was on course to try out for the Phoenix Suns when a devastating knee injury took him out of the game for good.
The damage Willis did launched a decade-long journey that included recovering from a rare form of bone cancer. During this challenging stretch of life, food became a part of his healing regimen.
“I had to learn how to eat to save my life,” he says. “After I started to grow my own food, I came to believe the Lord sent Jamar to me as a way of saying, ‘This is a mission I need you to carry on.’ I try not to be emotional, but I feel like God chose me to do this work to get our kids back outside.”
Willis intends to plant several varieties of each category of crop this summer. For example, he already has starter plants growing that will eventually produce dill cucumbers and white cucumbers, Aris and Kentucky Heirloom tomatoes, and chili peppers and jalapeños.
The star of the show, however, will be Willis’ watermelons, which will include Crimson Sweet, Sugar Baby, Orangelo, Yellow Crimson and Charleston Gray.
“I love how big and robust watermelons get,” Willis says. “And I love watermelon juice. It naturally tastes like Starburst.”
If Willis performs the same acts of kindness he did at the end of the 2024 growing season, local residents can start planning menus based on these and other produce he’ll be bringing to their neighborhoods.
“I gave away a lot of what I grew last year,” he says. “I’d pull my truck into East Lake Park and sit there for a while talking with some of the young people and some of the elderly. Then I’d say, ‘I grew some of these watermelons over at Crabtree Farms. Let me know what you think.’”
Willis does have commercial ambitions. For example, he plans to turn this year’s crop of potatoes into a line of all-natural chips.
“When I look at the ingredients on a bag of potato chips, I can’t believe how long the list is,” he says. “My chips will be made of whatever they’re called. No one but me and God are going to touch them.”
Willis’ heart, however, will remain rooted in introducing real food produced by nutrient-rich soil to children who otherwise might never see crops growing out of the ground. He says this is his ultimate act of kindness.
“Farmers are the kindest people on Earth because they plant seeds to feed people they’ll never meet. I feel humbled that this is what I do.”