GREENFIELD — Syd St. John, a Highland Avenue resident with a knack for agriculture, plans to grow and sell roughly an acre of flowers on their land this spring and summer — a plan that St. John said will not require a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals as long as they can earn more than $1,000 per acre of farmed land.

On a roughly 3-acre parcel of land at 138 Highland Ave, St. John said they eventually want to plant thousands of flowers — from tulips, to dahlias, roses and sunflowers — on land running approximately halfway down a slope in their backyard toward James Street. This year, however, they said they already planted roughly 1,800 tulip bulbs in the backyard.

“The front yard is going to be raised beds for dahlias, interspersed with perennials, which will be planted into the ground. The main goal is to keep everything that’s in front of the house looking like a private garden that I could just cut out. It’ll look really nice for the neighbors,” St. John said. “Behind the house I can do rows and really take advantage of the space.”

Currently, the city’s ordinances allow St. John to grow flowers and sell flowers as an individual or out of a farm stand on her property. Although St. John had initially applied for a DBA from the Greenfield Zoning Board of Appeals to market and sell flowers on a larger scale, Chapter 40A, Section 3 of state law prohibits local regulation for farms generating a certain threshold of income annually.

In a roughly 10-year agriculture career, St. John said they formerly worked at an urban farm in Detroit. Despite being passionate about agriculture, St. John explained that the Detroit farm lacked an element of community engagement that the farmer was pleased to find in Greenfield.

“We really didn’t interact with the community, and so then when I came here, that was what I really, really loved about the agriculture around here — the level of community engagement,” St. John said. “With the farmers markets out here, it seems like there’s a lot more rotation and a lot more people cooperating with each other and giving each other helping hands. Every time I work a farmers market for Red Fire Farm right now, you have people come from other booths to help you set up and break down, and then you go and help them set up and break down.”

Should St. John sell everything they grow this summer, they expect to make roughly $8,000. Noting that the wooded area behind the Highland Avenue property serves primarily as a privacy buffer for James Street residences, St. John said they do not wish to clear the entire wooded slope.

With the invasive vine bittersweet invading a decent portion of the area, Nettlepoint Farm, as St. John’s business will be called, plans to host a “bittersweet clearing party” over the summer. They explained that the presence of flowers in the area will make the property more beautiful for neighbors walking by.

“I have the skill set to be able to turn this place into something that’s nice for people to walk past, makes people happy and contributes to the community,” St. John said. “I know a lot of folks will come up here looking for Highland Park. It’d be really nice for them to see before they turn around and go back down and actually hit Highland Park.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.