City Farm Manager Rich Pederson and SCLT’s Outreach & Development Director Taylor Ellowitz talks with City News about the value of buying from and sharing goods with your neighbors.
How did the Annual Plant Sale come to be?
Taylor: It’s been 26 years since a group of Brown graduates, who lived just behind where the city farm is now, took this abandoned property and, along with the Hmong residents that lived in this neighborhood, began preserving the land for growing food. When they first began, they operated a microgreen business and would sell their produce to local restaurants.
Over the last four years, the plant sale has really grown. It started at about 400 people to about 1,400 in attendance last year. It’s a big fundraiser for us and helps support our programs.
How does it benefit the SCLT?
T: It raises money for our education programs. We’re funded partly by grants and individual donations, so we really rely on the plant sale to help subsidize our programs.
City Farm is also an educational site. We hold adult programs and children’s workshops throughout the summer. We have about 200 children who are sent from various community groups like the YMCA, Project Outreach, and the Boys & Girls Clubs. One of their summer activities is to come to the farm.
But in large part, the plant sale also meets our mission because we’re able to provide people in the city with plants and food for their backyard and window boxes.
It’s also just a great community event, a lot of fun, brings people together, with live music – it’s just a very festive event!
Rich, what is your role as the City Farm Manager?
Rich: I work in the greenhouses. I prepare the farm for the two farmers markets that we sell food at – Parade Street and Hope High School.
When are those starting up again?
R: Parade Street farmers market opens June 19 and Hope High School starts June 9.
Great, what else do you do?
R: I work with volunteers. I teach classes, both formally and informally. We teach at conferences on topics like community/public service. I work with college and high school students at the farm with a sweat equity approach.
Why do you choose to do this type of work?
R: I really like the people I work with. I really like working outside with plants. I’ve been here for six years now. I feel like my work brings to neighbors in the community the opportunity to share knowledge and uses for their own benefit.
Tell us about the selection of plants this year.
R: Thousands of plants have been started here. I estimate about 15,000 mostly medicinal and culinary herbs, and annual and perennial flowers and vegetables. People in the community donated a substantial amount of the perennial plants. It’s kinda’ interesting that people are giving their time and their plants instead of going to larger places like Home Depot. This sale keeps the money in the community and it’s supporting a local cause.
So what would you like guests to take away with them from the sale, other than a plant?
R: A lot of different things. In the modern practices of agriculture, a lot of the literature being done today talks about agriculture being local. It reminds us that food can be grown in the local communities. With regard to the plant sale, for example, people are getting the opportunity to bring home and grow their own food. I really like the idea that people are taking care of their own gardens.
I also feel that the spirit of the plant sale is in the gathering of communities and gardeners, who are celebrating spring, celebrating the Southside Community Land Trust. They go home with a plant but they come to congregate, catch up, meet, and ask questions. It’s pretty exciting.
In your opinion, what makes your plant sale unique?
R: Well the Mayor makes a special trip to every plant sale we’ve had so far! We also have live performances by local area musicians who come because they support the land trust. But also, just the idea that we’re doing ‘city farm,’ ‘urban agriculture.’ – the world is in opposition here but we’re fusing ideas together to recreate space.
Where do you see the future of city farms, or urban agriculture, heading?
R: Right now, we account for 1,000 people in Providence growing their own food in some way. We want 10,000 people to do that. I’d like to see more city farms, more Gano Street gardens, doing more work. I’d like to think that we’d have more garden clubs, more after school programs with school gardens. I’d like to see more green space in the city designated for areas growing food. I’d like to see a City Farmer, or a specialist become a real position in the city, a real resource for residents and neighbors to go to. I think that would be awesome.
T: We also have a great coalition of about twenty-eight organizations, everyone from the SCLT to housing development corporations to nonprofits and health organizations – that make up the Urban Agricultural Policy Task Force. We are all coming together to promote urban agriculture and all of these organizations believe that their mission can be forwarded through urban agriculture.
The City Farm is located on the corner of West Clifford and Dudley in South Providence. The 15th Annual Rare and Unusual Plant Sale runs this Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. To learn more, visit www.southsideclt.org or call 401-273-9419.
