BNAN City Natives - Day 2

Today we went to our first service site, City Natives.  This organization is part of the Boston Natural Areas Network.  Coming in we were given a quick tour of the area.  It was really interesting that the plot was previously used for tire disposal.  City Natives built two greenhouses, planted an orchard, and designated an area for bee keeping.  Their purpose is to provide fresh produce to the local neighborhood by selling what they grow to the local corner market.  They also provide the opportunity for the nearby community garden to use the greenhouse for keeping their new plants.  Some aspects that were pretty cool were that they followed the natural cycle of plant roots for maintenance, sprayed the trees with immunity boosters instead of pesticides, and they warmed the greenhouses with the heat released from composting.

After the tour we split up into groups: some of us spread horse manure around the orchard and others pulled weeds from the nearby plot and planted seedlings.

In the afternoon, we had down time, so some of us stayed at the Jubilee House and played Apples to Apples, while a bunch of us went into downtown Boston.

After we got back together and ate dinner, we had some time to reflect on the things we did today.  We were impressed by how integrated the community garden was with the local economy.  Though we wondered about who the project was reaching-- whether it was people with low SES or more affluent participants.  However, we agree every project has to start somewhere; this effort is definitely a step in the right direction toward a more sustainable and healthier relationship between agriculture and the urban community.