Memories at Perlman

By Calvin Atkins, Perlman Place Production Assistant

June 11, 2015

When I was growing up on Perlman Place, I never thought I would be helping build a farm here four years later. It’s very strange to be planting and growing on top of where houses once stood and people used to live that I once knew. Some days I have flashback after flashback: good ones…and bad ones. I used to play with the kids that lived on what is now the berry field. We found a picture that dated back to the ’70s of a bunch of ladies gathered at one of the houses which is now an open field. And stranger yet – part of the community garden is managed by a senior group who called themselves the ‘Foxy Seniors’, and one of the members is my cousin’s grandmother.  It’s a lot for me to take in.

But it’s kind of cool because I look at it like I’m taking care of something they left behind. Alex, Myeasha, and I cut grass, weed beds, lay drip tape, harvest, water – all the things you need to do to run a farm. And if I may say, we’re pretty good at it, too! And we have fun – I think we may be the goofiest group of farmers ever.

About Real Food Farm

Real Food Farm works toward a just and sustainable food system by improving neighborhood access to healthy food, providing experience-based education, and developing an economically viable, environmentally responsible local agriculture sector.