Time Magazine – New Orleans: A Farm Grows in the Lower Ninth

Our School At Blair Grocery.

The Lower Nine urban farm concept is spreading

By Phil Blidner
Time Magazine
Aug. 27, 2010
Phil Bildner is Co-Executive Director of The NOLA Tree, a teen service organization.

Excerpt:

When the levee along the Industrial Canal failed back in 2005 and the wall of water drowned much of New Orleans’ Lower Nine, the area north of Claiborne Avenue — the poorest section of the neighborhood — was hardest hit. Not surprisingly, the stretch has been slowest to recover. Five years after the devastating hurricane, the area still does not have a supermarket or store that sells fresh produce. Today, where houses once stood, jungle-like growths have consumed the lands. Other homes, still abandoned, are slanted and Burtonesque.

But just as strange is another thing in the neighborhood, right on Benton Street between North Roman and North Debigny. “We call it ‘The Volcano’,” says Brennan Dougherty. “We just started the compost pile back in April, and it’s already almost 15 feet tall and 40 feet long.” Then like a proud parent she adds, “It produces the most beautiful soil you’ve ever seen.” Dougherty is the manager of a farm in the Lower Nine where organic vegetables are grown and goats raised where drug deals used to take place.

At five each morning, Dougherty hops into a pick-up truck and drives 8.9 miles to the Whole Foods on Magazine Street. The store donates its vegetable waste to the farm, which helps explain the Volcano’s growth spurt and rich content. Dougherty’s farm is connected to an independent community school, Our School at Blair Grocery, and serves as a hands-on, outdoor classroom where students and neighborhood teens learn they have the power to control their health and lives. The local youth care for the animals and help grow okra, collard greens, beets, dill and garlic.

“Growing good food is a lot like building a strong, diverse community,” says Dougherty, who frequently conducts composting workshops. “Healthy food starts with rich soil. That’s your foundation. Then you build up in layers. A strong community also needs a solid base. It requires diversity of materials, thought and action — the layers. Then you grow from within.”

See the complete story here.

Our school at blair grocery website here.