Urban farm grows healthy food, friends

Fresh, local produce can be hard to find in cities, but urban farms are sprouting up across the Washington area.

Common Good City Farm of LeDroit Park is nestled between paved streets and rows of buildings—but urban farms can be grown virtually anywhere, according to Common Good's executive director, Pertula George.

Common Good is in an area where “most people don’t have access to green space or to a garden,” George said. “It’s a great way to provide healthy, fresh produce in an area where you’re not on a huge farm.”

With over 50 varieties of vegetables and herbs—from squash to tomatoes and even pumpkins—the nonprofit farm has provided organic produce to more than 200 community members.

“Our bodies need healthy produce, and if all we have access to is food at the corner store, food from a fast food restaurant, that’s not healthy for the body,” George said. “And people in low-income neighborhoods always go for the cheapest, which is not the healthiest.”

Urban farms like Common Good are one solution to food deserts, neighborhoods where fast food chains have largely replaced stores carrying fresh produce. 

The farm’s Green Tomorrows program allows D.C. residents earning less than the living wage to trade two hours of work for a bag of fresh produce, said Spencer Ellsworth, farm manager. Participants learn the art of urban farming through workshops, many of them using this knowledge to plant their own gardens.

“We’re growing food where people need it,” Ellsworth said. “And we’re creating a space for neighbors to meet each other, come together and form real, growing relationships.”

The kind of relationship Ellsworth is talking about comes to fruition as a young boy strolls past the farm.

“Gonna come hang out with us today? Hey, when’s your next game?” Ellsworth asks.

Neighborhood children and visiting school groups enrolled in the Youth Program learn about things like nutrition and composting. Some even have individual plots of land to care for.

On any given Saturday, around 15 volunteers are spread across the farm. Christy Nichols, a first-time volunteer, slings dirt into a wheelbarrow for the farm’s new rain garden. 

“After sitting at a desk all week long and just working on the computer, I can actually get my hands dirty, get into the soil, and it just sort of replenishes my soul,” Nichols said.

D.C. dwellers looking to grow their own garden can start by using “any container that you have, of any size, in any space,” Ellsworth said. “It’s good for your spirit, it’s good for your belly, it’s good for the earth if you can be growing wherever you can.”