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I’m Adam, age 16, from Concord MA. This summer, I will be working as one of the eight Urban Education and Outreach interns working at The Food Project. This relatively new internship is the result of the mixture of two previous internships: BLAST and Urban Education. Our internship is based in Dorchester, where we spend a lot of time working with local gardeners to improve their knowledge and understanding of healthy gardening in the city. One place where we work particularly often is on the Urban Learning Farm (ULF). We started working on the ULF only a few months ago and have made tremendous amounts of progress, but we still have a long way to go. The farm is composed of 20 raised beds, lined up neatly in two rows.
Raised beds offer a solution to protecting the vegetables from the lead-contaminated soil below. Ultimately, we hope to pave the paths with woodchips, surround the perimeter with berry bushes, and complete the pretty picture with some kind of sundial in the middle. Although we still have a long way to go before we realize this goal, we are well on our way to success.
At the Urban Learning Farm, we meet with local gardeners as well as school groups and other members of the community. We will work closely with these people on the garden, as well as educate them about healthy gardening in the city. The vegetables that we harvest from the garden will be given to these local gardeners and youth, and the fruit is sold weekly at our Farmer’s Market at the Dudley Town Common. I’m looking forward this summer to meeting local gardeners as we continue to work on our newest food lot.
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Our five super Rural Agriculture Interns, from left to right: Allie, Emily, Jasi, Owen and Kangni. These five youth have participated in the Summer Youth Program and the Academic Year Program, and are now producing our 100 delivered box shares, with my help as the box share manager. Say hello if you see us on the farm!
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What is it about rooftop gardens that fascinate people so much? Perhaps it’s the mysterious allure of that lush green jungle peeking over the edge of the penthouse apartment. There are also many community rooftop gardens, though. How cool would it be if your apartment came with a 5×5 plot? Or if your place of work had a little farm over it and you could grab a carrot to augment your lunch? Some places take their rooftop gardens very seriously. In Switzerland a bylaw was recently passed requiring that any new building must replace any green space lost with green space on the roof and existing buildings must convert a minimum of 20% of their rooftop area to green space.
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This year I got to visit the Autumn Hills Orchard in Groton, Massachusetts. Once I got there I feel in love with the scenery of the apple farm. There were so many beautiful trees with different apples and, of course, I was ready to eat! Honestly I can’t describe the farm but the pictures I took there can.
I was happy I got to share the moment with Bob, Jen, Lincoln, and Michael while I was there. I learned how apple is picked, the equipment they used, where they store it and so much more! I also got to taste this huge apple, but it was not anything I can’t handle! At the end of the tour, the guys and I got nice warm cider and tasty pastries to finish the day off. The day couldn’t have gone better!
