Urban Farms Grow & Sell Fruits and Veggies in the City (philly.com)

The Hydroponic Garden--A Guide to Hydroponics
Hydroponics allows us to grow the plants, fruits and vegetables of our choice--even in limited space--without using soil. It's an amazing way to produce perfect specimens and offers TONS of advantages that traditional gardening can't come close to touching!

July 3, 2008
GREENSGROW Farm is a little bit country and a lot urban.

Situated on the reclaimed - and cleaned up - site of a former steel-galvanizing factory in Kensington, the nonprofit organic farm grows a wide variety of produce, including heirloom lettuces, peppers and tomatoes, and also acts as a crop clearinghouse for small farmers from South Jersey to Lancaster County.

"I want to ensure the supply line between rural producers and urban consumers," said "chief farm hand" Mary Seton Corboy.

Greensgrow was co-founded 10 years ago by Corboy, a former chef with a master's degree in political science who had little agricultural experience but definite ideas about the good an urban farm could accomplish: The enterprise aims both to shorten the distance from farm to city table and to educate the public on the importance of buying fresh and local.

"People should be able to see where their peas are growing," Corboy said.

The square-block property, despite being ringed by a barbed-wire fence, brings a welcoming touch of green to this neighborhood of rowhouses, chain-store strip malls and fast-food joints.

Behind the fence are neat rows of high-yield hydroponic vegetable and lettuce plants, and a slightly ragtag collection of greenhouses and sheds full of all kinds of flowering annuals, perennials and evergreens. There's also a small market that's open on Thursdays and Saturdays to sell whatever's in season.

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