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<\/a><\/h3>\nOne evening during this summer of record high temperatures I went on a free public tour of a large farm in the heart of our fair city.\u00a0 To reach this destination, I took the orange freight elevator three stories up at the power plant building of Boston Medical Center (BMC). The farm, which yields produce for the hospital\u2019s patients and staff during New England\u2019s brief growing season, has already received a fair bit of press. Although it is located in a food desert, this was not some secret oasis. Yet the sight of the greenery, in the middle of a brick-and-concrete jungle, took my breath away. It also had me breathing fresh air in greedy gulps.<\/h3>\n
Lindsay Allen, farm manager at BMC, ushered us into the lush, green space. Thanks to a slight breeze, nasturtium, calendula and other edible blossoms seemed to be nodding their heads in greeting. About two dozen varieties of plants\u2014herbs, leafy vegetables and fruits\u2014were thriving in planters arranged in neat rows over a carpet of AstroTurf. We might have missed the two brightly painted wooden bee boxes whose residents help pollinate crops in this mini ecosystem, but Allen pointed them out to us. \u201cBees are the unsung heroes of the food system,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Some numbers: In the first two years of this farm\u2019s existence, the hospital harvested about 6,000 pounds of food, on average, annually. The roof is 7,000 square feet in total area, but the growing space is approximately 2,700 square feet. The bulk of the produce, growing out of about 2,300 milk crate planters, goes to low-income patients in the community. The rest of it is used in the hospital cafeteria and goes into food trays of inpatients. Evidently \u201cfood is medicine\u201d is not just some mantra here, it is a guiding philosophy. I had to return with my reporter\u2019s notepad.<\/p>\n
Read the story here. html.<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\nBefore they head out, one little boy makes a show of putting away his paper chef hat carefully. \u201cI\u2019ll wear this when I make a salad for my mama,\u201d he tells the teacher who has accompanied the group. His declared intent makes me smile.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One evening during this summer of record high temperatures I went on a free public tour of a large farm in the heart of our fair city.\u00a0 To reach this destination, I took the orange freight elevator three stories up at the power plant building of Boston Medical Center (BMC). 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Before they head out, one little boy makes a show of putting away his paper chef hat carefully. \u201cI\u2019ll wear this when I make a salad for my mama,\u201d he tells the teacher who has accompanied the group. His declared intent makes me smile.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One evening during this summer of record high temperatures I went on a free public tour of a large farm in the heart of our fair city.\u00a0 To reach this destination, I took the orange freight elevator three stories up at the power plant building of Boston Medical Center (BMC). The farm, which yields produce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,45,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-edible-boston","category-features","category-highlightmain","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4939"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6283,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939\/revisions\/6283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vijeejournalist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}