Reaping the Harvest
As urban farming continues to expand in response to neighborhood food woes , Southside Community Land Trust remains at the forefront .
The Yangs work back-to-back . Phillip sits on an overturned milk crate separating an unruly mob of tomato seedlings from the germination tray . Vue ’ s busy hands ruffle the cilantro in large plastic pots , seeking the yellowed and the limp . She points to the stems at the base of the plant .
“ See the purple ? Very , very good . Smells better than the green supermarket cilantro ,” she says . “ Special seeds from Laos .”
Monday through Friday , nine to five , Phillip is a draftsman for an architectural firm in Fall River ; Vue assembles jewelry findings at a South Attleboro factory . Nights and weekends , they are farmers . On this March Saturday , the air is warm and white with wisps of ground fog chased by the off-and-on rain . Veteran growers like the Yangs know better than to let their heads be turned by the first stretch of temperate days . Winter may be dying , but it ’ s still capable of a twitch or two that delivers a plant-slaying blast of icy air . Safer to tend the future in the heated greenhouse , where pots of stiff lemongrass mingle with buckets of chayote fruit .
This will be the Yangs ’ second season farming at the Southside Community Land Trust ’ s Good Earth Farm in western Cranston . But it ’ s their third decade planting plots managed by this Providence
ILLUSTRATION : GETTY IMAGES / GRIVINA . institution . In 2021 , the Yangs decided to try growing for market instead of their own consumption , leasing a third of an acre and a high tunnel — an unheated , plastic-covered hoop-house — where cabbages have broken ground . Phillip looks on approvingly . “ Right now , it looks so good . By June — weeds .” Cultivation is an act of persistence , driven by the stick of hard work and the carrot of a good harvest . While the Yangs beavered away on spring ’ s doorstep , the SCLT prepared to reap the benefits of fortyone years of cultivating forgotten , trash-strewn city lots , private and public partnerships , and above all , community . That same afternoon , workers were spraying foam insulation inside the SCLT ’ s new 12,000-square-foot headquarters at 404 Broad St . in Providence . The two-story , 1850s structure will feature a suite of offices and a Youth Enterprise center , a USDA-compliant produce preparation and storage facility , a distribution center and a commercial kitchen . Three healthy-food tenants will occupy spaces on the ground floor .
SCLT had long outgrown the Victorian on nearby Somerset Street that served as its operations center since its founding in 1981 by neighborhood residents , Hmong refugees , recent Brown graduate Debbie Schimberg and two friends — a “ hippy-dippy ” city farm in
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