Urban Farm

ReVision Urban Farm

ReVision Urban Farm is an organic micro-farm whose guiding vision is environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable urban agriculture. The farm grows a wide variety of food crops on three reclaimed urban lots totaling one-acre of growing space. The farm enhances the delivery of nutrition services throughout our community and increases local awareness of the social, environmental, and economic benefits of sustainable urban agriculture.

A Garden Takes Root

In the early 1990s, reVision House staff was concerned with the nutritional well being of the families living at the shelter and for the residents of Franklin Field, the neighborhood in which the shelter is located. Many families in the area depend on small, local convenience stores that carry limited quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables. In addition, the prohibitive cost of fresh produce leaves many families with no choice but to purchase inexpensive and nutritionally inadequate food. To remedy this problem, a small garden for shelter residents to grow their own food was constructed. That garden has expanded to encompass an acre of land that produces fresh, organic produce utilized by the families living at reVision House Shelter and for the neighborhood at-large.

Since its inception, the farm has grown not only vegetables but also raised public awareness of homelessness and hunger in Boston through its service learning and volunteer programs. Yet, perhaps the greatest impact the farm has had is a visual one. A neighborhood once blighted is now filled with beautiful flower and vegetable gardens. Today, the urban farm serves as a gathering place for neighbors to socialize and buy their favorite produce. Recently, one visitor remarked, “You have really changed this neighborhood. Fabyan Street was one of the worst places in the city. No one could even walk down this street. This is beautiful.”

Farm Tour

Ø The ReVision Garden and Tot Lot

The urban farm began in 1993, on a quarter-acre abandoned lot adjacent to ReVision House Shelter and playground. Initially, the garden’s overarching objective was to teach shelter residents to grow their own food in order to increase their families’ nutritional base and food security. To extend the growing season, AmeriCorps volunteers built a three-story, solar greenhouse on the shelter’s back porches in 1994. Today, this greenhouse serves as the urban farm’s aquaculture bio-shelter where Tilapia fish are raised and hydroponic herbs, micro-salad mix, and houseplants are grown.

The garden contains seven growing areas, each consisting of 256 square feet of growing space. Additionally, the Tot Lot is home to the farm’s two apple trees, peach tree, and grape vine. A scarecrow made by the children of the shelter watches over the crops and perennial herb garden.

Ø The Fabyan Street Garden

In 1998, an additional half-acre of land across the street from the shelter was purchased from the City of Boston to capitalize on the farm’s popularity and growth. The lot had previously been home to four houses riddled with drugs, violence, and crime. Once the area was cleared, five feet of soil was added to the entire site in 1999.

The Fabyan Street Garden is the farm’s largest lot for growing crops, raising honeybees, and for vermicomposting. Because of the garden’s slope, the farm terraced a section of land to maximize growing space. One terrace is home to a large cold frame used to extend the growing season and to house seedlings for Boston’s community gardeners in the spring.

This garden is home to two of the farm’s three greenhouses. On this site we grow a variety of crops, varying from year-to-year. Perennial crops grown on this site include raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb, and asparagus.

Ø The Lucerne-Balsam Garden

The Boston Natural Areas Network owns this quarter-acre lot and has generously leased this space to ReVision Urban Farm to grow produce for the community. Once a run down playground filled with sand, this lot has been transformed into a garden by adding soil and compost. The farm began growing on this site in 2000.

Ø The ReVision Agrarium

The Olmstead Green Development Proposal will renovate the former grounds of the Boston State Hospital, a two hundred acre area adjacent to Fabyan Street. The reVision Urban Agriculture Project is one component of the development proposal, in which the farm will gain an acre of outdoor growing space and a one-acre lot to build an additional greenhouse. The proposal gained governmental approval in February 2004.

In the ReVision Agrarium, the one-acre greenhouse will combine a new aquaculture facility with traditional greenhouse growing. The aquaculture facility, much like the current project located at reVision House, will incorporate growing Tilapia fish with soil-free plant production. Basil and strawberries grown in hydroponic beds are fed with nutrient rich water pumped from the fish tanks. The recirculating system yields an abundance of healthy fish while conserving water and reducing waste.

The traditional greenhouse will focus on enterprise growing in order for the greenhouse to be economically sustainable. Enterprise growing will focus on several crops, including high-end ‘mesclun’ salad mix, fresh herbs, and strawberries to be sold off-season during the winter months to maximize profit. This outlet will provide for an expanded job-training program, which will effectively teach interns about marketing and distribution.

The Urban Farm’s Growing Methods

The urban farm grows its produce in an environmentally sustainable manner. The farm does not use herbicides, and uses organic pesticides sparingly, and only after alternative integrated pest management techniques have failed to alleviate the pest problem. To increase production, the farm utilizes succession and intercropping of vegetables. Because soil health is the hallmark of sustainable agriculture and is particularly difficult in an urban setting, the farm utilizes raised beds, hand tills the soil whenever possible, and adds compost to the growing beds on a continual basis to increase water retention, micronutrient levels, and microorganisms in the soil. To decrease soil erosion, maximize soil nutrients, and prevent plant disease, crop rotation and cover cropping is practiced at the farm.

The Greenhouse Heating System

The urban farm strives for environmentally sound practices at every level production. To that end, the farm’s two greenhouses, a 16’ x 80’ hoop-house and a 22’ x 50’ greenhouse encompassing our compost pile, are warmed through heat generated from the decaying compost pile. In addition to lessening the farm’s dependence on heat from gas, the compost heating system also allows the farm to grow more produce in limited space. The compost heating system increases carbon dioxide, a necessary element in plant growth. The carbon dioxide boost helps crops produce 20 to 30 percent more food than vegetables grown under normal conditions, maximizing production for the farm.

The urban farm’s greenhouses provide a warm, humid environment to cultivate crops throughout the year, such as seedlings, vegetables, and ‘mesclun’ salad mix. In the summer, the farm grows climbing crops – cherry tomatoes, watermelon, and cucumbers – by suspending wires from the houses’ hoop frames.

During the warmer months, the hoop-house is heated by the sun and takes warmth from the compost pile located in the compost greenhouse. The compost pile generates heat through decomposing, organic material including leaves, wood shavings, plant debris, and horse manure. Under the compost is a system of perforated pipes connecting to the growing beds in the hoop-house. The pipes transfer warm, moist air from the compost to the growing beds by the blower in the hoop-house. As moist air condenses in the pipes and soil, it heats the root zone of the crops, allowing the plants to take up necessary nutrients and water. This system also heats the compost in the hoop-house’s hotbed, helping to keep the farm’s seedlings warm and moist.

When the compost pile generates insufficient heat, a thermostat signals the gas burner to fire. Circulated by fans, warm air quickly fills the greenhouse. The greenhouse blower then inflates the pillow-like, plastic skin of the hoop house, maintaining airspace between the two layers of plastic film providing an additional layer of air to warm the greenhouse. .