Columbia's City Roots celebrates 10th growing season with festival

City Roots, a working farm in the Rosewood neighborhood of Columbia, is celebrating the farm's tenth growing season with a festival Saturday.

The Back to the Roots Festival will feature farm tours, classes, hands-on demonstrations and cooking classes with area chefs and local food heroes USC professor David Shields and farmer Nat Bradford of Bradford Watermelon fame. There will be local food, craft beer, wine gardens, activities for the kids and live music.

The father and son team of Eric and Robbie McClam began City Roots as an urban farm on 3.5 acres across from Jim Hamilton-LB Owens Airport in Rosewood. Known mainly for growing microgreens, the McClams have expanded production to include a wide selection of vegetables and edible flowers, and increased their footprint to add 6 acres of leased land near Heathwood Hall school off Bluff Road.

Eric McClam also partnered with Vanessa Driscoll Bialobreski, founder of Farm to Table Event Company, and Kristian Niemi, chef/owner of Bourbon on Main Street, to form F2T Productions — a company that has helped shape the Columbia food scene by putting an emphasis of growing and using local foods, and hosting farm-to-table events and dinners at City Roots and other venues around the city. Every Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m. you can find fresh-from-the-farm produce from City Roots and other local farmers and food purveyors at the City Roots Farmers Market.

This story was originally published April 27, 2018 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Columbia's City Roots celebrates 10th growing season with festival."