Harvesting Hope: The Urban Farms Helping Save A City’s Aging Sewer System

Harvesting Hope: The Urban Farms Helping Save A City’s Aging Sewer System

Harvesting Hope: The Urban Farms Helping Save A City’s Aging Sewer System This story is one in a series about the confluence of capitalism, conservation and cultural identity in the Mississippi River Basin. It is part of Waterline and is sponsored by the Walton Family Foundation. In late August, Donna Washington picked a couple pawpaws from the half dozen trees growing in the orchard down the street from her home in north St. Louis, Missouri. The trees were planted half a decade ago, when Jubilee Community Church expanded a small garden in the adjacent 1.5 acre lot into an urban farm, complete with rows of vegetables, a border of native plants and an orchard. This was the first year the pawpaw trees produced, giving Washington her first chance to try the green-skinned, yellow-fleshed fruit native to North America. Washington, a regular volunteer at the garden, was hooked. Jubilee Oasis Farm’s rainwater collection system helps the urban farm grow crops in a part of the city where other opti…