Adam Bossard loves growing things.

How much you ask? Enough for the fair-skinned redhead to spend two summers in the Jamaican heat, “about two inches” from the blistering sun.

While most high school students were playing sports, hanging out with friends or enjoying lazy days on the lake during summer break, Bossard was managing a large portion of a 16-acre farm for an orphanage in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital.

Bossard, now 30, learned a valuable lesson that first summer in the tropical heat.

“I failed miserably. It was tropical and I grew up in a different system,” Bossard said. “I had to come home and relearn everything.”

In the process of relearning, the ISU doctoral candidate found his passion for finding universal solutions to food production shortages. His passion for farming, however, was cultivated long before that at his grandfather’s farm near Radcliffe, Iowa.

“My grandpa taught me everything I know. That’s sort of where the magic comes from,” he said. “If you can get [the plants] to produce, if you can get them to grow, it is like magic. He taught me that.”

Bossard says simple solutions, such as spreading a layer of wood chips over the soil, can often be the most effective solutions. He uses the techniques he’s learned on both small- and large-scale operations.

“The chips are the key to all of my gardening,” he said. “It retains moisture, stops soil compaction and creates carbon. Things like that are universal. You can take it into the jungle or into Africa and it will create the most beautiful soil.”

Bossard is very confident in his methods. He believes restoration and sustainability are essential to the future of agriculture.

“In five years, I can make the land better than it had been in a hundred years,” he said. “Once you get super productive ground, you’re most of the way there. They’re going to resist disease so you can go organic. You get more production-per-acre, and it will look and taste better.”

The wood chips Bossard uses in his garden are provided by a local tree excavation company free of charge. He says this is a mutually beneficial arrangement.

“We get a free service from him, but he gets a free service from us,” Bossard said. “Normally he would have to pay to dump the wood, but now he doesn’t. It’s great.”

Bossard, a graduate teaching assistant, seems to be able to have fun with whatever is set before him. He is not teaching any classes this summer, but he has been tasked with rewriting an enzyme lab manual.

Bossard is currently experimenting with RNA sequencing at Iowa State’s Agronomy Research Farms.

“I’m putting things suspended in jello and dissolving those things in jello,” he said. “It’s pretty cool.”

Bossard also grows produce at two gardens in Ames to sell every Saturday at the Ames Main Street Farmers Market.  

His booth, Urban Acres, sells everything from cilantro to tomatoes. Everything is grown in his Ames gardens.

Both gardens are grown on plots provided by Helen Gunderson, who Bossard said was instrumental in getting him involved and inspired to create Urban Acres.

“Helen really was the key to this,” he said. “She owns both properties and encouraged me to participate. She’s been great.”

When Bossard has visitors at his garden, he strolls with an easy stride. The corners of his mouth seem perpetually upturned. He has the look of a proud father showing off his children’s soccer trophies. He speaks so quickly, jumping from one vegetable to the next, that it can be difficult to keep up.

“Here we have beans and basil, this is fresh lettuce, here’s cilantro and these are tomatoes,” he said.

As five 6-week-old “feeder geese” followed him around the garden like loyal hunting dogs, Bossard explained that his produce sells so well he is often forced to return to the garden to resupply his booth on Saturday mornings.

“Last weekend, we sold out of basil, so I had to come back and re-harvest basil. Then it was lettuce,” he said. “Luckily it’s only about a mile away so I can do that pretty easily.”

Lojean Petersen, manager of the Ames Main Street Farmers Market, said people like Bossard are key to the success of the market.

“Adam and all our other vendors are fantastic,” Petersen said. “Everybody at our market is local and grows their own product or makes their own product. We don’t have anyone who brings anything in from other places.”

If the original idea was to keep the Main Street Farmers Market strictly local, Bossard could be the poster boy. His gardens are less than a mile away from the 400 block in front of Tom Evans Plaza where the event takes place, making Urban Acres the nearest vendor.

While the farmers market may be a lot of work, the friendly competition between vendors is fun for Bossard. The gibes and “trash talk” come naturally to Bossard, who moonlights as a stand-up comedian. He has performed in Des Moines, Kansas City and North Dakota, among other places.

“I love the sense of community, but there’s definitely some competition,” he said. “I’ll see somebody with better tasting produce or something and ask them what they have there or if that’s greenhouse produce [which is against the rules].”

Most doctoral students in agriculture gravitate toward teaching or large agricultural companies, but Bossard has not made up his mind about what he’ll do after graduation. He may not be sure what is in his future after he earns his degree, but he knows what’s not in his future.

“When I get done with my Ph.D., I have no plans of going into [big agriculture],” he said. “That is off my charts because I have other things to do.”

In fact, Bossard’s other purpose for Urban Acres is an ambitious one.

“The goal is to make enough money to start up my ethanol company after graduation,” he said.

There is not much about growing things that Bossard doesn’t get excited about. Even a compost pile can get him fired up.

“We take the organic material from wherever we can,” he said. “Anything to provide that nutrition that makes the plants really pop.”

From Radcliffe to Kingston, Adam Bossard simply loves to grow things.