By Jon Hurdle
New York Times, May 20, 2008

PHILADELPHIA — Amid the tightly packed row houses of North Philadelphia, a pioneering urban farm is providing fresh local food for a community that often lacks it, and making money in the process.

Greensgrow, a one-acre plot of raised beds and greenhouses on the site of a former steel-galvanizing factory, is turning a profit by selling its own vegetables and herbs as well as a range of produce from local growers, and by running a nursery selling plants and seedlings.

The farm earned about $10,000 on revenue of $450,000 in 2007, and hopes to make a profit of 5 percent on $650,000 in revenue in this, its 10th year, so it can open another operation elsewhere in Philadelphia.

In season, it sells its own hydroponically grown vegetables, as well as peaches from New Jersey, tomatoes from Lancaster County, and breads, meats and cheeses from small local growers within a couple of hours of Philadelphia.

Complete New York Times article here.

Greensgrow Farm Inc

From their site…

For some people urban agriculture may seem like a new idea, but for Greensgrow it has been our life and work since 1998. And although a former galvanized steel plant may not seem a likely site for a farm, when Mary and Tom went searching for property on which to build, old industrial land was what was available.

A conventional farm seemed highly unlikely to spring from an industrial brownfield, so it was back to the drawing board where they re-visioned their urban farm employing hydroponic growing of lettuce. Surprising even themselves, it was a success.

In the years since the first cases of produce were delivered out of the back of the truck, Greensgrow Farm Inc has changed a great deal. Our willingness and ability to change, in fact, has been the root of our success.

Today visitors to the farm are greeted by expansive raised beds of organic soil filled with an ever changing range of heirloom vegetables, a well stocked Farm Stand, our own version of a CSA (City Supported agriculture) and a Nursery that grows and nurtures the highest quality and greatest variety of plants in the City. What can we say? We were and are enthusiastic.

Greengrows website here.

Planting a Victory Garden on the lawn in front of San Francisco’s City Hall, July 2008. Photo by Scott Chernis

Article in NYT by Allison Arieff
July 28, 2008

“Earlier this month, my family spent a Saturday at San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza, helping to plant a 10,000-square-foot Victory Garden sponsored by Slow Food Nation, a nonprofit organization that will be celebrating American food through art, music, lectures, tastings, school programs and the like over Labor Day Weekend. More than 250 volunteers and nearly a dozen Bay Area gardening organizations dedicated their time to plant the first edible garden in front of San Francisco’s City Hall since 1943.

“Urban agriculture has been around since at least the 18th century, but it’s an idea whose time has truly come — now — in the United States. The reasons range from the fact that our hands are always found glued to computer keys and not even occasionally in the dirt, to the scary existence of industrially grown tomatoes that may (or may not) cause salmonella, to the fact that a drive to the market can now cost more than the food you purchase there.

“Though some may see this as a “lazy locavore” trend — wherein couch potato clients, glass of biodynamic Syrah in hand, observe the hard labor of city farmers while lounging with their laptops — the urban agriculture movement seems to me to be slowly transcending its elitist associations. It is truly growing into something that is wholly about collaboration, community and connection to food, to neighbors, to land.”

Link to NYT article ‘Grow Your Own’.

Link to Slow Food’s – The Victory Garden is Planted!

Video Below: The Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom dedicates the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden in front of City Hall San Francisco.

See the rest of these photos in New York Times slideshow here.

By TRACIE McMILLAN
New York Times May 7, 2008

“For years, New Yorkers have grown basil, tomatoes and greens in window boxes, backyard plots and community gardens. But more and more New Yorkers like the Wilkses are raising fruits and vegetables, and not just to feed their families but to sell to people on their block.

“The Wilkses now cultivate plots at four sites in East New York, paying as little as $2 a bed (usually 4 feet by 8 feet) in addition to modest membership fees. Last year the couple sold $3,116 in produce at a market run by the community group East New York Farms, more than any of their neighbors.

“The Red Hook farm began in 2003 when the Parks Department gave the youth group Added Value permission to use an abandoned three-acre asphalt ball field. The group started with two raised beds, built a hoop house where it could start seeds, then laid down an acre of compost two feet deep on top of the asphalt. Last year the young farmers sold more than $25,000 in goods.

“On a fringe of Philadelphia, a nonprofit demonstration project used densely planted rows in a half-acre plot and generated $67,000 from high-value crops like lettuces, carrots and radishes.

“In Milwaukee, the nonprofit Growing Power operates a one-acre farm crammed with plastic greenhouses, compost piles, do-it-yourself contraptions, tilapia tanks and pens full of hens, ducks and goats — and grossed over $220,000 last year from the sale of lettuces, winter greens, sprouts and fish to local restaurants and consumers.

Go to complete New York Times article here.